Vortex identification in wind resource assessment: Application of a new vortex criterion for an improved wind resource analysis

A pertinent task during wind power project development studies is the post-processing analysis of the wind resource simulation results. There is widespread interest in extracting more information from typical commercial software – like WindSim, OpenWind, Meteodyn, WAsP – at a minimal cost during the prospection and/or the development stage of some wind power project. The current paper proposes the aforementioned enriching post-processing analysis using a vortex criterion capable of extracting further information from a standard wind field. Vortex identification is a non-consensual topic of discussion among fluid mechanics researchers. Classical criteria such as Q and delta are hereby confronted with a new definition. The proposed methodology of vortex identification in flows contributes with a more sophisticated wind resource analysis. It is also worth noting that the additional financial investment and computational effort to perform this stage’s calculations is negligible when compared to the previous analysis.