Supersized Wind Turbines Generate Clean Energy—and Surprising Physics
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
Supersized wind turbines generate clean energy--and surprising physics:
In order for wind energy to be useful -- and accepted -- researchers need to design systems that are both efficient and inexpensive, Naughton said. That means gaining a better understanding of the physical phenomena that govern wind turbines, at all scales. Three years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) brought together 70 experts from around the world to discuss the state of the science. In 2019, the group published grand scientific challenges that need to be addressed for wind energy to contribute up to half of the demand for power.
One of those challenges was to better understand the physics of the part of the atmosphere where the turbines operate. "Wind is really an atmospheric fluid mechanics problem," said Naughton. "But how the wind behaves at the levels where the turbines operate is still an area where we need more information."
[...] Another challenge will be to study the structural and system dynamics of these giant rotating machines. The winds interact with the blades, which bend and twist. The spinning blades give rise to high Reynolds numbers, "and those are areas where we don't have a lot of information," said Naughton.
[...] A third challenge, Naughton noted, is to study the behavior of groups of turbines. Every turbine produces a wake in the atmosphere, and as that wake propagates downstream it interacts with the wakes from other turbines. Wakes may combine; they may also interfere with other turbines. Or anything else in the area. "If there's farmland downwind, we don't know how the change in the atmospheric flow will affect it," said Naughton.
He called wind energy the "ultimate scale problem." Because it connects small-scale problems like the interactions of turbines with the air to giant-scale problems like atmospheric modeling, wind energy will require expertise and input from a variety of fields to address the challenges. "Wind is among the cheapest forms of energy," said Naughton. "But as the technology matures, the questions get harder."
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.