A 3-D diagnostic model for wind field adjustment

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to develop a suitable three-dimensional finite element code for solving the wind field adjustment problem [Solar Energy 54 (1995) 49] in an efficient way. A new triangulation technique is proposed for a 3-D domain, considering the Cartesian coordinate system with both variable horizontal and vertical spacing possibilities in the final mesh. For the initialization process, a general method for horizontal interpolation is devised including the distance and elevation difference between meteorological stations and grid points. A log-linear profile is used for the vertical extrapolation. Special attention is paid to the solver of the linear system of equations (large and sparse) arising from the finite element discretization. An interesting matrix storage scheme is considered and several preconditioners are compared using the BICGSTAB method. Finally, the code is connected to a powerful module of graphic postprocessing which allows better and easier interpretation of the results. The model is checked on a test problem as well as on realistic data corresponding to a zone of the Island of Lanzarote.