Volume 60

Experimental study on the influence of wind turbine / wind farm on sand-dusttransport Gaosheng Ma, Yuanxiang Song, Ye Wang, Yuben Bai, Minru Chen

Abstract

Wind energy development in sandy, Gobi, and desertregions presents significant advantages; however, therelationship between wind turbines/wind farms and dusttransport remains unclear. This study pioneers the use ofscaled single and multiple wind turbine models in asimulated aeolian environment within an atmosphericboundary layer wind tunnel. By employing particles ofvarying sizes and concentrations to representsandstorms of different intensities, we investigate theimpact of wind turbines/farms on dust transport and theeffect of wind farm wakes on erodible surfaces. Theresults demonstrate that rotating turbine bladessignificantly obstruct dust transport, with tip vortices andthe central vortex causing localized dust accumulation—particularly pronounced in upper tip vortex regions.Furthermore, dust accumulation occurs above windfarms, with the accumulation area expanding as particlesize decreases. Operational wind farms promote dustdeposition, with deposition rates decreasing as particlesize increases. In the wake region, larger particlesaccumulate more readily, showing a positive correlationbetween accumulation and particle size. Additionally,large-scale wind farm wake effects effectively suppressdust emission.

Keywords wind tunnel experiment, wind farm, sand-dust transport, dust particle size