“My research is in its infancy, but the focus at this stage is to understand, from our theoretical models and wind tunnel experiments, what we know about the use of active wake mixing in the form of the HELIX method. With this information I will be concentrating on how to best apply the HELIX method to an actual wind turbine and use aerodynamic measurement techniques of the resulting wake. With this data I hope to prove that it works as expected in the real world and in different real-world conditions.”
Potential challenges or obstacles
“The weather! Scientifically, it is very hard to reconstruct aerodynamic flows reliably on this scale. Applying new techniques to operational environments is always a risky endeavour. But these opportunities to get live data that can inform on how best to use these techniques are vanishingly rare. Any data will be valuable.”
Expectations
“That's the beautiful thing about this type of research. At this stage, I do not know what to expect. No one has tried this before. Ideally it would be brilliant to credibly validate the theoretical and experimental predictions of the HELIX technique. Doing so would allow a much better use of existing wind resources without significant re-investment. It would also allow for much more sophisticated and nuanced co-design of future wind farms.
Educational background
“I am not an orthodox researcher, having had a 15-year career in the UK Fire service before I joined TU Delft. I wanted a future that was a bit easier on my knees, so I obtained my degree in Engineering from the Open University in the UK while working.
This allowed me to transition to a career as a research engineer at the University of Oxford. I was part of a small team operating Hypersonic wind tunnels and performing experiments on high-speed compressible flows (19 km/s). Using this research, I obtained my MSc in Space Science and Technology from the Open University.”
Motivation to choose this particular PhD program
“This PhD program chose me, really. Space research is brilliant, but after investigating where I wanted to focus my research efforts, it was made very clear to me - mainly by my children - that wind energy was the subject for me, and TU Delft seemed a great fit.