The effect of turbulence on traditional wind mill sails is important. They provide extra forces on the sail rods. The question is how do we calculate (using Imcompressable) these turbulance induced forces: gustloading.
At this moment my thinking is:
- I can simulate the airspeed U and k at a certain point in an air flow (the point is where the sail tips would be: so I don’t simulate the sail).
- This provides an idea of the Turbulence Intensity: TI=sqrt(2*k/3)/U
- I take as a formula for the turbulance force gustloading: Fgust:: U^2(1+g*TI)^2
g is the number of sigmas (TIs) one incorporates to determine the gust force. I understand in general g=3.5 - if we remove the steady-state gust force due to the steady-state speed: Fgustnorm:: (1+g*TI)^2
I am not sure if my above thinking is correct. Any ideas/hints/links? THANKS
An additional question is: is the turbulence model (for instance Realizable k-epsilon) accurate enough to provide an idea of these forces?
All the best,