PhD Position/Research Assistant Enhanced engineering models for aeroelastic response of wind turbines

About us

ForWind – Center for Wind Energy Research has a vacant PhD position in the research group »Wind Energy Systems« at the Institute of Physics of the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.

Your tasks

Enhanced aeroelastic models are required for designing future wind turbines operating in various inflow conditions, including shear, gusts and turbulence. The dynamic inflow effect describes the unsteady response of the flow to fast changes in rotor loading, e.g. due to control actions or gusts. The associated unsteady aerodynamics and load effects have not been investigated systematically for large wind turbines, neither numerically nor experimentally. Therefore, a combination of wind tunnel experiments, free-field tests and numerical simulations are proposed to fill this gap.

Through your extensive knowledge of fluid dynamics and the available experimental facilities, your PhD project will lead to a better understanding of the interaction of inflow and operating conditions with rotor aerodynamics and, thus, to more accurate engineering models. 

Among others, your tasks will comprise:

• Design, execution and analysis of experiments in the wind tunnel and on a utility-size turbine to capture dynamic inflow effects.

• Improved parameterisation of engineering models for dynamic inflow effects and their integration in standard industrial models.

• Cross-validation of measurements and dynamic inflow engineering models with an industrial design tool and a mid-fidelity simulation code 

• Assessment of improved engineering tools for the generic design of future large wind turbine rotors 

• Cooperating closely with a wind turbine manufacturer and international researchers.

Your profile

Requirements for employment include:

• a qualifying university master's degree in Mechanical, Aerospace or Naval Engineering, Physical Sciences, Wind Energy, Renewable Energy or equivalent, 

• aptitude and willingness to pursue a PhD with experimental contributions,

• profound knowledge of experimental or numerical fluid dynamics, 

• extensive experience in programming with at least Matlab or Python,

• high motivation and ability to jointly work on applied research topics,

• very good English skills.

Desired (but not mandatory) qualifications are: 

• experience abroad of several months during the school, study period or employment after graduation,

• and good German skills.

We Offer

We offer you the opportunity to develop your scientific career in a young and lively academic environment. You will be working in the WindLab – one of the university's most modern office and lab spaces – while you will also have the opportunity to do flexible and mobile work. Your pathway towards the PhD is actively supported by, e.g., 

• multidisciplinary cooperation with other researchers at ForWind and Fraunhofer IWES in Oldenburg,

• direct collaboration with industry while maintaining the links with our national and international partners in academia,

• optional secondment at an international research institute 

• development of personal, scientific, and teaching skills through an individual training programme and selected teaching tasks,

• opportunities to present scientific results at international conferences and through peer-reviewed publications to extend your specific network,

• structured supervision of PhD process. 

Further, the university cares for a family-friendly working environment and offers a family service centre and children's daycare on campus. 

Our standards

The University of Oldenburg is dedicated to increase the percentage of female employees in the field of science. Therefore, female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. In accordance to § 21 Section 3 NHG, female candidates with equal qualifications will be preferentially considered. Applicants with disabilities will be given preference in case of equal qualification.

Further information

The employment is initially limited to three years, with an intention to extend it to up to four years to facilitate a PhD. The payment is based on the collective agreement for the public service in the German federal states, TV-L E13, for a 75% position.

Wind energy research at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg has gained international recognition by its integration into ForWind – Center for Wind Energy Research of the Universities of Oldenburg, Hannover and Bremen and the national Wind Energy Research Alliance of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems (IWES) and ForWind. 

At ForWind, we maintain and value collaboration between our research groups and partner institutions such as the European Academy of Wind Energy members. In Oldenburg, our 50 researchers from physics, meteorology and engineering are collaborating at the WindLab centred on wind physics. Our mission is to develop an improved understanding of atmospheric and wind power plant flow physics required to serve the global demand for clean and affordable electricity. Therefore, we conduct laboratory experiments, free-field measurements and HPC-based numerical simulations. We have direct access to the DLR research wind farm WiValdi (https://windenergy-researchfarm.com). At this internationally outstanding infrastructure for wind energy research, the interaction of atmospheric wind fields with two utility-scale wind turbines can be investigated to an unprecedented extent.

The main topics include the description and modelling of wind turbulence, the analysis of interactions of turbulent atmospheric wind flow and wind energy systems, as well as control of wind turbines and wind farms. The covered scales range from small-scale turbulence up to meteorological phenomena. Our research facilities comprise three turbulent wind tunnels, various equipment for free-field measurements at on- and offshore wind farms and a high-performance computing cluster. Almost all our projects combine analyses at more than one of these infrastructures.

Further information is available at www.forwind.de/en/ and https://uol.de/en/physics/research/we-sys.

Contact:

For questions regarding this job opportunity, please contact Prof. Dr. Martin Kühn at +49(0)441/798-5061 or preferably by email at martin.kuehn@uol.de.