Turbsim for FAST 8.16 / Bladed 4.4 comparison

Wind & Water Computer-Aided Engineering Software Tools
1

Hello all,

can someone explain me, how big the difference between the *.bts and *.wnd TurbSim Wind files are?

I tried using the generated *.wnd files for both programs, but Fast gives this error:

“Resolution in the FF binary file does not match the tower file.”
The alternative would be to solve this error.

Thanks for your help!

Best regards

Simon

2

Dear Simon,

I’m not sure what you mean by “big difference”, but the *.bts and *.wnd files contain the same data, just stored in different formats, which are described in the TurbSim documentation: nwtc.nrel.gov/system/files/TurbSim.pdf.

The error you are reporting is triggered if the vertical resolution (dz) is different between the line of data along the tower and the rectangular grid of data around the rotor. If these are different, this implies that the wind data on the tower was generated by a different TurbSim simulation than the wind data on the rotor.

I hope that helps.

Best regards,

3

Hello Jason,

I have the same problem with FAST getting the error “Resolution in the FF binary file does not match the tower file.”,
but I am sure the two files (rotor wind field and tower wind field) were generated with the same turbSim as I generated them and then ran FAST following.

Using the SAME files with FAST 7.02.00 NO error appears and FAST terminates normally.

Thank you for your help!

Best regards,
Fiona

4

Dear Fiona,

I’m not sure; perhaps there is a bug in the error handling of InflowWind within FAST v8? Which version are you using?

Have you tried using TurbSim-formatted (*.bts) files rather than Bladed format?

Best regards,

5

Hello Jason,

thanks for your quick reply.

I am using FAST v8.16.00 with the Inflow module v3.01.

Now I tried the TrubSim-formatted file (*.bts) as well and this is working. But do I have loads on the tower as with the *.twr-file?

Best regards,
Fiona

6

Dear Fiona,

As mentioned in the TurbSim documentation, enabling tower points in TurbSim (WrADTWR=True) together with TurbSim-formatted files (WrADFF=True) results in the tower points to be included within the .bts files. In general, I suggest using TurbSim-formatted (.bts) files with TurbSim whenever possible.

Best regards,