UNH Today

超过三分之二的美国人.S. 风能资源位于深水区, prompting growing interest in the deployment of floating offshore wind farms. With a $2.500万美元的合同来自美国.S. 美国能源部(DOE), a UNH team will lead research that will maximize power production, limit hardware damage and reduce the cost of floating offshore wind farms.

Led by Greg Chini, professor of mechanical engineering and integrated applied mathematics, the project will develop new mathematical and computational models and perform laboratory experiments and field measurements that will optimize floating offshore wind farms. Collaborators are UNH mechanical and ocean engineering faculty members Martin Wosnik, 克里斯·怀特和内森·拉克格, as well as partners at Brown University in Rhode Island and Bates College in Maine.

The modeling efforts will utilize novel applied mathematical tools to develop customized numerical algorithms that will dramatically reduce the cost of computer simulations of turbulent air flow in wind farms—over distances ranging from meters to tens of kilometers—while maintaining a high degree of predictive skill. 实验将在联合国大学进行 流动物理设施 (FPF) with model wind turbines and advanced monitoring and measuring equipment.

The FPF is the longest wind tunnel (72 meters) in the world that has sufficiently high flow quality so it can be used to study fundamental properties of turbulent flow, 比如在大气层和海洋之间. Training opportunities will be provided for post-doctoral researchers and students.

UNH will establish the Center for Fluid Dynamics of Energy and the Environment which will leverage the UNH-led DOE 大西洋海洋能源中心是海洋能源技术的中心. 该项目得到了能源部EPSCoR实施奖的支持. 由国家科学基金会资助 EPSCoR 项目于2011年支持了FPF的建设.