PhD position on numerical and experimental modelling of “Off-Shore Wind Farm Control”
The Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano and the Delft Centre for Systems and Control of the Technical University of Delft offer one doctoral position in the wind energy field.
These two centres have a strong collaboration in the wind energy field that recently led to the participation in several European projects. The first one, Polimi, has a strong experimental background, with the availability of a large wind tunnel infrastructure and several wind turbine models and scale model wind turbine design procedures. A hardware-in-the-loop framework is adopted to test floating wind turbines installed on the Hexafloat platform for the modelling of the floating wind turbine platform. High fidelity numerical tools (CFD LES actuator line) for wind farm modelling validated vs experiment are also available. The second one, TUDelft, has a strong background on control topics, having specific experience on Wind farm control, Smart dynamic wind turbine control, Data driven control and Nonlinear system identification, with the availability of several reliable and validated numerical models for wind turbines wakes dynamics and interaction with the downwind turbines. Several strategies to minimize LCOE have been developed, acting on wake redirection, induction reduction, minimizing dynamic loading.
What they are looking
A young scientist with a Master Degree latest on 31st October 2019 able to understand concepts quickly, following a sharp learning curve, with good planning skills and the ability to work independently. This person will have enthusiasm, the willingness to exploit his skills in ocean sciences research for the benefits of communities pursuing sustainable growth, and be seeking the opportunity to develop his research career through scientific publications. He will be able to actively participate in the R&D activities of collaborative research projects, both at a national and international level, and have a desire to become a future leader in your field.
Skills and qualifications will include:
– As minimum education requirement, a University Degree (MSc or equivalent) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines: Physics, Mathematics, Engineering.
– Some experience in computational sciences or statistics, with knowledge and proved use of scientific programming languages or advanced software environments (e.g. Fortran, C, Python, Matlab).
– Fluent English (the list of accepted certificates and levels is available in the call for application).
About the role:
The typical installation of wind turbines is realizing a cluster of closely spaced turbines to minimize the infrastructure cost. The close space between the rotors leads to the interaction between wind turbine wakes, leading to reduction in energy harvesting and undesired fatigue loads. A wind turbine operating in waked condition has a reduction in extracted power, since the upstream rotor reduces the amount of energy of the incoming wind. Moreover the rotor loads may not be uniform, in time and space, due to the mean boundary layer gradient growth and turbulence large size coherent structures. Such dynamic excitation issues are even more critical, given the intrinsic and growing large size of offshore wind turbines, leading to possible fatigue damage and large dynamics of the very flexible blades . The very peculiar dynamics of the floating substructures is giving additional relevance to the control issues of the specific single Wind Turbine in terms of stability and dynamic response to wave excitation. The development of reliable and validated numerical methods suitable for modelling the wind turbines wakes dynamics and interaction with the downwind turbines became the fundamental tool for designing optimized solutions of wind farm control, exploiting innovative wind farm control strategies, acting on wake redirection, induction reduction and other techniques finalized at limiting the wind turbines dynamic loading and at the same time increasing the overall wind farm production.
It is fundamental to develop control strategies, designed together with the structure components, capable of capturing the dynamics of the wake of offshore wind farms, regulating the produced power and reducing fatigue loads, enhancing, as consequence, the machine life and reducing the LCOE.
Details:
– Position: Double PhD, Full Time
– Duration: 48 Months
– Salary: € 15.900 net/year (will increase during the years) + travel allowance + research budget
– The position will have as possible Supervisors:
- Prof. Alberto Zasso (alberto.zasso@polimi.it)
- Prof. Jan-Willem Van Wingerden (J.W.vanWingerden@tudelft.nl)
[J.W.vanWingerden@tudelft.nl) [https://www.tudelft.nl/en/3me/departments/delft-center-for-systems-and-control/people/professors/profdrir-jw-van-wingerden-jan-willem/]
How to apply:
Application procedure is available at http://www.dottorato.polimi.it/en/looking-for-a-phd/call-for-positions-and-scholarships/calls/35th-cycle-phdcall-20192020/ required documents (project proposal, CV, motivation letter etc.) must be uploaded online following the instructions provided at the same link.
For further information on application procedure please contact phd-dmec@polimi.it or alberto.zasso@polimi.it. Preliminary enquires during the application process are strongly suggested.
Deadline: 21th May 2019 (2pm, Italian time).