The Askervein Hill project: Overview and background data

The Askervein Hill project was a collaborative study of boundary-layer flow over low hills carried out under the auspices of the International Energy Agency Programme of R & D on Wind Energy Conversion Systems. Two field experiments were conducted during September-October 1982 and 1983 on and around Askervein, a 116 m high hill on the west coast of the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. During the experiments, over 50 towers were deployed and instrumented for wind measurements. The majority were simple 10 m posts bearing cup anemometers but, in the 1983 study, two 50 m towers, a 30 m tower, a 16 m tower, and thirteen 10 m towers were instrumented for 3-component turbulence measurement.The present paper provides an overview of the project as a whole, including details of the instrumentation and a summary of the data obtained. Additional papers in the series, which are to appear in this journal, will consider different aspects of the experimental data and related numerical-model and wind-tunnel studies.

---