A noise generation and propagation model for large wind farms

A wind turbine noise calculation model is combined with a ray tracing method in order to estimate wind farm noise in its surrounding assuming an arbitrary topography. The wind turbine noise model is used to generate noise spectra for which each turbine is approximated as a point source. However, the detailed three-dimensional directivity features are taken into account for the further calculation of noise propagation over the surrounding terrain.

An arbitrary number of turbines constituting a wind farm can be spatially distributed. The noise from each individual turbine is propagated into the far-field using the ray tracing method. These results are added up assuming the noise from each turbine is uncorrelated. The methodology permits to estimate a wind farm noise map over the surrounding terrain in a reasonable amount of computational time on a personal computer.