Research¶
My research focuses on the development and validation of novel numerical models in wind energy applications. Details of certain application-related research streams can be expanded below, including selected publications.
Air-sea interactions and Offshore wind energy
My recent research focus has been on developing numerical models which can be used to simulate air-sea interactions and better understand the dynamics of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL). This includes the implementation of a waving boundary condition in nalu-wind which enables both one- and two-way couplings. The new model has been used for turbulence-resolving simulations of turbulence over idealised and realistic oceanic waves.
Direct-numerical simulation of turbulent flow over moving Stokes waves using nalu-wind and the novel waving boundary condition.
Wind Farm Wake Modelling
During my PhD, I developed a new wind farm simulator, WInc3D, based on the open-source code
incompact3d. The model includes a native actuator line model, it has been validated by a number of cases and scaled to hundred of thousand of processors in many diffent HPC systems.
Turbine wake forming behind a laboratory-scale wind turbine. Simulations utilise high order compact finite difference schemes and the concept of spectral vanishing viscosity (SVV).
Wakes within a large-scale wind farm consisting of 16 5MW-NREL turbines. Photo won the 2020 ARCHER image competition prize.
Green Aviation
Green aviation is the ultimate goal in our pursuit of reductions in noise, pollution, greenhjouse gas emissions and fuel usage to lower carbin emissions and enhance the efficiency of aircrafts.
Together with Professor Rafael Palacios and Dr Alfonso del Carre we undertook aero-servo-elastic simulations of a very flexible aircraft in low-altitudes using different atmospheric turbulence models. The results suggest the need to use high-fidelity LES data for validation purposes as well as the need to revisit current practices and standards.
Software Development and numerical methods
I am interested in numerical models that allow us to advance our understanding of turbulent flows. This includes the development and validation of higher-order numerical schemes as well as physics-based SGS models for large-eddy simulation. To this end, I have been part of the developing team of the Xcompact3D framework, including its portability to future exascale HPC systems.