Charlotte Obhrai's new research project will investigate large offshore wind turbines, and how to improve the design for offshore wind conditions.
Every year, Norwegian researchers compete for support for their projects from the Research Council of Norway. The 260 researchers who received money this summer have been selected in tough competition with over two thousand others who applied for money in February. In total, the researchers received NOK 2.7 billion.
Charlotte Obhrai at the Department of Mechanical and Structural Engineering and Materials Science received close to NOK 12 million for the project Large Offshore Wind Turbines (LOWT): structural design accounting for non-neutral wind conditions.
The observations from the floating offshore wind farm Hywind Scotland show that thermal stratification of the atmosphere can have a significant impact on the structural response of the wind turbines to incoming turbulent flow. The main goal of the project is to improve the design of the foundations of large floating wind turbines under the conditions of headwinds and gusts. Analyzes will be carried out on data from wind and response from offshore wind farms.
«I am delighted that we have the opportunity to continue this work with our colleagues at the University of Bergen and SINTEF. I hope that this will be the first of many future projects that can build on the varied expertise related to offshore wind energy that we have here at UiS,» says Obhrai.