Using TurbSim to generate full IEC load cases

Wind & Water Inflow Turbulence
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