Single Tree

Objective:
Trees are a fundamental part of our landscape, yet their interaction with the near surface wind is poorly understood. This failure has great implications for our ability to produce cheap renewable wind energy. Furthermore, it can lead to severe damage during storm conditions, which is at great cost for society.

This project takes as its starting point to investigate the flow around a single tree, and we then move towards multiple tree configurations. We use two new facilities for wind flow measurements that both enable a step change in our ability to quantify the complex near-surface wind flows.

Several wind flow models will be tested against the new measurement data and the new findings will be used to make current operational models more realistic and robust. In the current paradigm of climate change and renewable energy, such highly detailed wind models can provide a novel way to prepare, plan and predict both the positive and negative effects of the wind on our society.

Outcome:
We approach the problem in three independent but complimentary ways:

• To use a new, DTU-developed, advanced laser-based technique to scan the wind field around a single tree in nature and to characterize and quantify its effect on the near-surface wind.
• To bridge the gap between the single-tree and a small forest by large scale physical modeling in the new and unique indoor WindEEE Dome facility in Canada.
• To use a range of computer flow models with varying complexity to numerically investigate and reproduce the wind field of the observations.