Acta Univ. Agric. Silvic. Mendelianae Brun. 2014, 62(3), 487-494 | DOI: 10.11118/actaun201462030487

Simulation of the Effect of Windbreaks on Airflow with the WAsP Engineering Program

Miloslav Hradil
Branch Brno, Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Kroftova 43, 616 67, Brno - Žabovřesky, Czech Republic

A number of technical complications go hand in hand with the reality of research on the effectiveness of windbreaks. Direct wind measuring in the windbreak area must be linked to specific meteorological situations that are not very frequent. A limiting factor for more frequent field measuring is also the development of surrounding areas of windbreaks. It is for these reasons that indirect methods are becoming more important. This work simulates the effect of several windbreaks in Southern Moravia (Czech Republic, Central Europe), on the modification of wind speed with the aid of the WAsP Engineering program. The windbreaks were defined in the program environment as a three-dimensional obstacles which some parameters - primarily porosity - amended as necessary during the calculation. The model results were compared with data on the wind speed from field measuring under the conditions of fresh flow perpendicular to the windbreak. The average absolute values of differences between the measured and model-calculated wind speed round about the windbreaks varied from 0.4 till 0.9 m.s-1, the greatest differences were located very close to the windbreaks (typically 50 m on leeward side). Data about the windbreak's optical porosity based on digital photographs, obtained during performed measuring of wind speed, were also used.

Keywords: wind erosion, windbreak, wind modelling, WAsP Engineering, obstacle, optical porosity
Grants and funding:

The author is grateful to the Ministry of Agriculture QJ1220054 "Impact of a change of climatic factors on the development of wind erosion processes, conceptual solution through the land adjustment measures" for partial support of this work.

Published: August 6, 2014  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Hradil, M. (2014). Simulation of the Effect of Windbreaks on Airflow with the WAsP Engineering Program. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 62(3), 487-494. doi: 10.11118/actaun201462030487
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. DELLWIK, E., LANDBERG, L. and JENSEN, N. O. 2005. WAsP in the Forest. Wind Energy, 9(3): 211-218. DOI: 10.1002/we.155 Go to original source...
    2. FARR, T. G. and KOBRICK, M. 2000. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission produces a wealth of data. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 81(48): 583-585. DOI: 10.1029/EO081i048p00583 Go to original source...
    3. GUAN, D., ZHANG, Y. and ZHU, T. 2003. A wind-tunnel study of windbreak drag. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 118(1-2): 75-84. DOI: 10.1016/S0168-1923(03)00069-8 Go to original source...
    4. IAN, N., BRENDAN, G. and REID, R. 2009. Aerodynamic and microclimate changes behind windbreaks. In: Agroforestry for natural resource management. Collingwood, Australia: CSIRO Publishing, 78.
    5. LITSCHMANN, T., ROŽNOVSKÝ, J. and PODHRÁZSKÁ, J. 2007. The utilisation of optical density for classification of windbreaks. In: Bioclimatology and natural hazards, International scientific conference. Poľana nad Detvou, Slovakia, September 17-20, 2007. [CD ROM].
    6. MANN, J., OTT, S., JØRGENSEN, B. H. and FRANK, H. P. 2002. WAsP Engineering 2000: User's Guide. Risø-R-1356(EN). Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Technical University of Denmark.
    7. MORTENSEN, N. G., LANDBERG, L., TROEN, I. and PETERSEN, E. L. 1993. Wind Analysis and Application Program (WAsP). User's Guide. Risø-I-666 (EN). Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Technical University of Denmark.
    8. MORTENSEN, N. G. and PETERSEN, E. L. 1998. Influence of topographical input data on the accuracy of wind flow modeling in complex terrain. In: Proceedings of the 1997 European Wind Energy Conference and Exhibition. Dublin, Ireland, October 6-9, 317-320.
    9. PERERA, M. D. 1981. Shelter behind two-dimensional solid and porous fences. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 8(1-2): 93-104. DOI: 10.1016/0167-6105(81)90010-6 Go to original source...
    10. PODHRÁZSKÁ, J., KUČERA, J., CHUCHMA, F., STŘEDA, T. and STŘEDOVÁ, H. 2013. Effect of changes in some climatic factors on wind erosion risks - the case study of South Moravia. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 61(6): 1829-1837. DOI: 10.11118/actaun201361061829 Go to original source...
    11. SOBÍŠEK, B. et al. 1993. Meteorological dictionary, explanatory and terminological. Prague: Academia.
    12. STŘEDA, T., MALENOVÁ, P., POKLADNÍKOVÁ, H. and ROŽNOVSKÝ, J. 2008. The efficiency of windbreaks on the basis of wind field and optical porosity measurement. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 56(4): 281-288. DOI: 10.11118/actaun200856040281 Go to original source...
    13. STŘEDOVÁ, H., PODHRÁZSKÁ, J., LITSCHMANN, T., STŘEDA, T. and ROŽNOVSKÝ, J. 2012. Aerodynamic parameters of windbreak based on its optical porosity. Contributions to Geophysics and Geodesy, 42(3): 213-226. Go to original source...
    14. TROEN, I. and PETERSEN, E. L. 1989. European Wind Atlas. Roskilde: Risř National Laboratory.

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY NC ND 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content