Image: Back Row - Left to Right: Sarah Guilfoyle, Oceanex Energy, Warwick Dawson, University of Newcastle, Dr Joss Kesby, University of Newcastle. Front Row - Left to Right: Oliver Phelan, University of Newcastle and WSP, Emily Scivetti, Oceanex Energy.
Photo Credit: Andrew Monger, AJM Photography
Oliver is completing his final year of a renewable energy engineering degree while also working part-time at WSP’s Newcastle office as an Undergraduate in Renewable Energy. He was awarded the Oceanex Energy Scholarship to support his final-year project. The project explores the forces on offshore wind turbines in strong winds, such as those experienced off the Australian coastline.
The expectation is that I will be able to make a recommendation as to whether the turbines will be able to safely withstand the mechanical loadings expected in extreme weather events in Australia, and more specifically Newcastle,” says Oliver.
“Whilst offshore wind farming is a mature technology in other parts of the world, currently no offshore wind infrastructure exists in Australia. This is an important contribution as it aims to quantify and reduce the risk of offshore turbine installations in Australia.”
The project involves computer simulation of air flow around an offshore wind turbine blade using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. Oliver drew a model of a blade from a 15 MW turbine inside a control volume, which is a finite amount of space used to simulate the air flow close to the blade.
He then created a ‘mesh’ of the 3D model, which divides the surfaces and volumes of the model into small cells in which complex fluid dynamics equations are solved. A fine mesh has more cells and produces more accurate results but requires greater simulation time and computational power.
“In my case, I am using meshes with several million cells and simulation takes around a week using a high-powered computer server,” explains Oliver. “My mesh simulations are running, and I am obtaining results data in real time.”
A career in renewables ahead
