Numerical and experimental study of the effects of wind turbine operation on sand-dust transport characteristics

Given factors such as reduced land availability for onshore wind farms, wind resource enrichment levels, and costs, there is a growing trend of establishing wind farms in deserts, the Gobi, and other arid regions. Therefore, the relationship between sand-dust weather environments and wind turbine operations has garnered significant attention. To investigate the impact of wind turbine wakes on sand-dust transportation, this study employs large eddy simulation to model flow fields, coupled with an actuator line model for simulating rotating blades and a multiphase particle in cell model for simulating sand particles. The research focuses on a horizontal axis wind turbine model and examines the motion and spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of four typical sizes of sand particles in the turbine wake. The findings reveal that sand particles of varying sizes exhibit a spiral settling pattern after traversing the rotating plane of wind turbine blades, influenced by blade shedding vortex and gravity. Sand particles tend to cluster in the peripheries of the vortex cores of low vorticity in the wind turbine wake. The rotation of wind turbines generates a wake vortex structure that causes a significant clustering of sand particles at the tip vortex. As the wake distance increases, the particles that cluster at the turbine’s tip gradually spread outward to approximately twice the rotor diameter and then begin to mix with the incoming flow environment. Wind turbines have a noticeable impact on sand-dust transportation, hindering their movement to a significant extent. The average sand-blocking rate exhibits a trend of initially increasing and then decreasing as the wake distance increases. At its peak, the sand-blocking rate reaches an impressive 67.55