Challenges in Offshore Wind Energy Aerodynamics

Abstract:  Offshore wind turbines operate in the complex flowfield of the atmospheric boundary. Understanding and modeling the behavior of a single fixed bottom offshore wind turbine is already quite challenging.

This problem is made even more complex when a wind turbine is floating, and thus is subjected to additional aerodynamic complexity from platform motion; and when wind turbines are organized into wind farms, and thus are highly interdependent due to the wakes of upstream turbines. In this talk, I will highlight some of the major challenges of offshore wind farm aerodynamics, and also discuss how these challenges span other disciplines in engineering as well as environmental sciences and planning.

Bio:

Dr. Matthew Lackner has been an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since 2009. Before that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Delft. He has a B.S.E. from Princeton in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2002), an M.S. from MIT in Aerospace Engineering (2004), and a PhD from UMass Amherst in Mechanical Engineering (2007). His primary research focus is on floating offshore wind turbines, in particular understanding the aerodynamics of floating turbines and the application of structural

Date: 
Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 12:30pm
Location: 
Kellogg Rm. E-Lab 2, UMass Amherst
Year: 
2012
Semester: