Project Description
This is a seeding project for the advancement of floating wind research at UWA. It explored development of a numerical model, which simulates the aerodynamics of a small-scale horizontal axis wind turbine to predict its performance under different environmental conditions. It elucidates the effects of unsteadiness arising from turbulent wind fluctuations and from floater motions due to waves. Following onshore testing using a fixed set-up, the next step is to deploy a floating wind turbine in the river and compare its performance with an equivalent fixed wind turbine in the same location (i.e. mounted above
the river). This staged approach, allows for decoupling of the unsteady effects arising from the hydrodynamics and from the aerodynamics.
Dr Jana Orszaghova, Oceans Graduate School