Wind energy is one of the fastest-growing renewable energy technologies, and horizontal
axis wind turbines (HAWT) have been the most common device to convert wind kinetic
energy into electrical energy. As the capacities of wind turbines and scales of wind farm
constructions are rapidly increasing over time, environmental impacts of wind energy are
becoming more relevant and raising more attention than ever before. One of the major
environmental concerns is noise emission from wind energy facilities, especially low-frequency
noise and infrasound that allegedly cause so-called wind turbine syndrome. Therefore, a
numerical simulation program capable to predict low-frequency noise and infrasound emission
from wind turbines is a useful tool to aid future wind energy development. In this study of
this thesis, a computer program named TDRIP (Time Domain Rotor Infrasound Prediction)
is developed based on acoustic analogy theories. Farassat’s formulation 1A, a solution to
Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) equation, is implemented in the TDRIP program to
compute aerodynamically generated sound. The advantage of this program is its capability
to simultaneously compute infrasound emission of multiple wind turbines in time domain,
which is a challenging task for other aerodynamic noise prediction methods. The developed
program is validated against results obtained from computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
simulations. The program is then used to compute aerodynamic noise emitted from wind
turbine rotors. The effects of wind direction, wind turbine siting, and phase of wind turbine
rotation on consequent aerodynamic noise are investigated. Results of aerodynamic noise
computation imply that wind turbine siting configuration or wind turbine phase adjustment
can help reducing noise level at certain locations, which make the program ideal to be
integrated into wind farm siting or control tools.