Dear Devrim,
Here are my answers to your questions:
- The AeroDyn and FAST source code are compiled together into a single executable (i.e., the FAST.exe). FAST calls AeroDyn to calculate the aerodynamic forces at runtime.
2/5. No such step-by-step instructions exists. Several years ago Marshall Buhl summarized his analysis approach, which you can find here: wind.nrel.gov/designcodes/advice.html. While some of the information is out-of-date, there is still some good advice to be found there. The NREL Wind Turbine Modeling workshop material is currently our best source for background information and a tutorial on FAST with AeroDyn and HydroDyn: NREL Wind Turbine Modeling Workshop - March 2, 2012.
3/4. Most serious users of FAST have developed scripts for their own purposes. We have a few scripts available on the design codes website:
*RunIEC: Runs IECWind, FAST, & Crunch for IEC discrete load cases
*RunNTM: Runs TurbSim, FAST, & Crunch for multiple turbulence cases
*CondorNTM: Same as RunNTM, but uses Condor
All of these scripts are written in Perl; you must know a little Perl to use them. No further development of these scripts is planned.
We also have an in-house script also called RunIEC that:
*Combines features from all three of the above scripts
*Is tailored to IEC-style load cases
*Runs jobs serially, on Condor pool, or on HPC (multi-processor server)
*Currently requires significant customization to use
We are in the process of reworking RunIEC to make some improvements and to make it is user friendly; when this is done, we plan to write a user manual for it and distribute it later this year.
Before then, it is probably easiest to start with the scripts currently available on the website and customize them for your own use.
I hope that helps.
Best regards,