Wind Turbine Yaw Control | mysimulator.uk

Wind

Wind speed 11.0 m/s

Wind direction 0°

Wind direction drifts on its own

Yaw Drive

Nacelle heading (manual) 0°

Yaw deadband 8°

Yaw drive rate 0.5°/s

Yaw idleΔγ 0.0°

Output

0 kW0% of aligned max

Yaw error γ

0.0°

Loss factor cos^pγ

1.00

Energy lost to yaw

0.00 kWh

Yaw exponent p

3.0

Yaw loss exponent p 3.0

How it works

A wind turbine's rotor only faces the wind squarely when the nacelle is yawed to match the wind direction. When the rotor plane is tilted away from the wind by a yaw error γ, less of the wind's momentum flux passes through the swept disc, and the power output falls off following an empirical power law widely used in wind-energy engineering:

P(γ) = P(0) · cos^p(γ)
P(0) = ½ · ρ · A · v³ · Cp
A = π R²,  ρ = 1.225 kg/m³, R = 40 m, Cp ≈ 0.45

Field and wind-tunnel studies put the exponent p between about 1.9 and 3 depending on turbine design — the slider lets you compare a shallow loss curve against the textbook cos³ law. Because the loss grows with the cube of wind speed baked into P(0) as well as with γ, even a modest yaw error costs real energy at high wind speed.

The active yaw drive only intervenes once the error exceeds a deadband — real drives don't chase every gust, both to save wear on the yaw gear and because a small error costs little power. Once triggered, the nacelle turns at a limited yaw rate toward the wind, always along the shorter rotation, and stops once it's back inside the deadband. Switch to Manual to fix the nacelle heading yourself and watch the power collapse as the wind direction wanders away from it.

Wind speed / direction — the free-stream vector driving the rotor; direction can drift on its own like a real shifting breeze.
Auto-track / Manual — toggles whether the yaw drive corrects the heading or you hold it fixed.
Deadband & yaw rate — the controller's tolerance and how fast the nacelle can physically turn.

Wind direction Nacelle heading

⚠ Couldn't load the 3D engineThree.js failed to load from the CDN. Check your connection and reload.