Wind Turbine Modelling & Control

Project Background

The availability of inexpensive abundant energy is crucial to our modern society. In addition to concerns over depletion of fossil fuels, there is an increasing global concern over environmental costs associated with extraction and transport of conventional fuels. There are also concerns over green house gas emissions from conventional sources. Canada for its part has committed to reducing the use of conventional fuels and to reduce green houses emissions by 20% by the year 2020. Wind energy technology will play a key role in achieving this objective. The adoption of wind energy technology however poses several interesting albeit challenging research problems. Additionally, many locations with untapped wind energy potential have considerable variation in wind velocity which poses an additional challenge.

Projects Detail

Vertical Axis Wind-Turbines (VAWT) are extremely well suited for small and medium scale wind-turbines. Optimizing and control of VAWT poses an unique set of challenges owing to the cyclic change in the angle of attack. The projects will develop new nonlinear models for VAWT using CFD analysis and physical experiments and optimize blade profiles and blade orientations. This research program focuses on use system modelling and sensor design to develop key technologies for wind-turbines. These technologies will enable increased efficiency, improved reliability in the presence of wind speed variations, in addition to reducing overall maintenance costs.

Available Positions

PhD and Masters positions are available in this project. Please contact me (highlighting your relevant background or strong academic credentials).