An experimental investigation on wake mixing and steering techniques

Wake steering and wake mixing are two flow-control strategies aimed at improving 
wind-farm performance by redirecting turbine wakes or accelerating their recovery to increase 
downstream turbine and overall power production. Among wake-mixing approaches, the Helix 
and Dynamic Yaw techniques have recently attracted significant attention. Although both 
strategies have shown promising results in previous studies, they have rarely been compared 
directly. This experimental work evaluates the performance of wake steering and mixing, relative 
to the conventional greedy operation, within an extended three-turbine cluster tested in a large 
boundary-layer wind tunnel. The analysis considers both power production and the resulting 
Damage Equivalent Loads across different wind directions. Several combinations of wake steering 
and wake mixing are explored to identify potential synergies. In terms of power production, the 
results show that an optimally implemented wake-steering strategy outperforms wake mixing. 
The actuated turbine experiences higher loads when wake mixing is applied, while the load trends 
on the downstream turbines generally mirror their corresponding power trends.