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ARS Home » Plains Area » Bushland, Texas » Conservation and Production Research Laboratory » Livestock Nutrient Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #113784
Title: WIND SPEED POWER SPECTRUM ANALYSIS FOR BUSHLAND, TEXAS, USA

Author
item Eggleston, Eric
item Clark, Ray

Submitted to: Wind Engineering
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/3/2000
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Looking through the literature, one finds many different papers and books on wind power or wind turbulence that cite directly, or indirectly, a paper by Issac Van der Hoven written in 1957. The Van der Hoven spectrum was measured at heights from 91 to 125 meters above the ground, where the wind industry usually measures winds near 50 meters above ground level. The Van nder Hoven spectrum is of little use to the wind turbine industry because i was measured too high above the ground and at different elevations, was of low resolution, and represented the high frequency end of the spectrum with unusually gusty high wind data from a hurricane. It is not applicable to all wind farm sites or height above the ground. The Bushland Spectrum confirms some of the shape found by Van der Hoven, but few of his peaks. Bushland data show a very pronounced daily peak in wind speed.

Technical Abstract: Numerous papers and publications on wind turbulence have referenced the wind speed spectrum presented by Isaac Van der Hoven in his article entitled "Power Spectrum of Horizontal Wind Speed Spectrum in the Frequency Range from 0.0007 to 900 Cycles per Hour" (Journal of Meteorology, Vol. 14, 1957, p. 160). Van der Hoven used data measured at different heights between 91 and 125 meters, and represented the high frequency end of the spectrum with data from the peak wind speed hour of hurricane Connie (13 August 1955). Because the data were collected in such special conditions, we should question the use of his power spectrum in the wind industry. We computed a power spectrum for Bushland, Texas, from 13 years of hourly average data, 1 year of 5 minute average data, and 2 particularly gusty day's 1 second average data all collected at a height of 10 meters. While the general shape is similar to the Van der Hoven spectrum, few of his peaks were found in the Bushland spectrum.