Using TurbSim to generate full IEC load cases

Wind & Water Inflow Turbulence
1

I’m new to TurbSim. If I want to generate a full IEC load case for normal production conditions, it seems that I need to generate 1 TurbSim input file and consequently 1 turbulence output file for each simulation to apply to the aeroelastic turbine model code.

  1. Are there any ‘established’ TurbSim input templates for standard IEC conditions such as this?
  2. Are there any existing functions (Matlab?) to read an input file, modify it (e.g. changing random seed(s), mean wind speed, turbulence intensity, etc), and write the resulting file? This would be a simple way to automate the generation of large numbers of TurbSim input files. The M-files included in my TurbSim installation seem to be related to reading TurbSim output files.

Thanks.
Ryan

2

Hi, Ryan.

Your understanding of how to run TurbSim is correct.

  1. Appendix B in the TurbSim User’s Guide describes how to set up the TurbSim input file to generate standard IEC turbulence conditions.

  2. We have some scripts we use internally (for running TurbSim, FAST, and performing analysis on the results), but we haven’t been budgeted time to make them suitable for public distribution. However, there are a couple of options:

  • The TurbSim archive should contain a perl script called “RunTurbSim.pl” This script is set up to take an existing TurbSim input file, generate a random seed, generate a new input file with this seed (and everything else ), run TurbSim, and then copy the output file to a specified directory (with a particular naming convention). You will need to modify a few parameters at the beginning of the script (look for “USER” in the comments) for your simulation. It wouldn’t be too difficult to modify it to also change other inputs.
  • If you want to use Matlab, you could use the Matlab Simulation Toolbox distributed with FAST v8 and make something similar to the ConvertFAST7to8 function. It’s going to be more work to initially set up, but the resulting script would probably be a little more flexible.

There is also some more discussion about scripts for loads analysis here: NWTC Design Codes - General Questions

3

Thanks Bonnie. That’s just what I needed.

Best regards,
Ryan