Major
Environmental Engineering
Anticipated Graduation Year
2020
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Wind energy is usually created by large-scale wind farms with hundreds of turbines. Our sponsor, One Energy, takes a different approach and provides power to manufacturing plants by installing a small number of turbines on their property. Our team was tasked with creating a new modeling method to model wind flow around single small obstructions to aid in One Energy’s wind turbine placement decisions. In this presentation, we examine existing modeling methods, turbulence, modeling, validation, and testing to determine the impact of small, single obstructions on wind velocity and direction.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Dr. Gaj Sivandran, Clinical Assistant Professor, Engineering Science; Dr. Gail Baura, Director of Engineering Science and Professor, Engineering Science; Dr. Jason Streeter, Clinical Assistant Professor, Engineering Science; Dr. Sarah Ali, Clinical Assistant Professor, Engineering Science
Supported By
Ben Mallernee, One Energy; Erin Roekle, One Energy
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Modeling Wind Flow Around Single Obstructions to Aid in Wind Turbine Placement Decisions
Wind energy is usually created by large-scale wind farms with hundreds of turbines. Our sponsor, One Energy, takes a different approach and provides power to manufacturing plants by installing a small number of turbines on their property. Our team was tasked with creating a new modeling method to model wind flow around single small obstructions to aid in One Energy’s wind turbine placement decisions. In this presentation, we examine existing modeling methods, turbulence, modeling, validation, and testing to determine the impact of small, single obstructions on wind velocity and direction.