Richard J.A.M. Stevens

Physics of Fluids · University of Twente

Publication 119 · Wind-energy acoustics

Three-dimensional effects of the wake on wind turbine sound propagation using parabolic equation

H. Bommidala, J. Colas, A. Emmanuelli, D. Dragna, C. Khodr, B. Cotté, R.J.A.M. Stevens, J. Sound Vib. 608, 119036 (2025).

Main finding

The paper makes 3D horizontal refraction a load-bearing modelling concern for long, laterally sheared wakes. It does not validate the focal magnitudes or establish a general stability or annoyance rule.

Sound pressure fields from three-dimensional and stacked two-dimensional propagation models for three stabilities
How to read the figure. Sound pressure behind a wind turbine computed with a fully three-dimensional parabolic equation (top row) and with stacked two-dimensional solutions (bottom row), for stable, neutral and unstable conditions. The stacked approach omits horizontal refraction, so the difference between the rows is what refraction across a long, laterally sheared wake does. The focal magnitudes are model output rather than validated levels, and no general rule about stability or annoyance follows from them. Open the full-resolution figure. Figure 23. H. Bommidala et al. (2025). No separate licence is stated here; consult the original publication and credited source before reuse.

Why this matters

Sound can bend sideways and focus.

Research context

This work builds on Wind turbine sound propagation compares PE and LEE in two dimensions; Impact of a Two-Dimensional Steep Hill on Wind Turbine… shows source-height-dependent wake focusing with N×2D. Later papers: Modeling wind farm noise emission and propagation and Wake-induced variations in noise levels and amplitude modulation for… use N×2D for stable farm and turbine-pair cases and must inherit this dimensionality warning, not this paper's quantitative error unchanged.

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