PhD Position/Research Assistant Experimental characterisation of challenging atmospheric conditions in offshore wind farms

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

The design and operation of very large offshore wind energy systems require a thorough characterisation and modelling of ‘challenging’ atmospheric conditions and the interaction of wind farms with the atmosphere. ‘Challenging’ atmospheric conditions refer to phenomena (e.g., low-level jets, coherent structures such as roll convection, turbulent-non-turbulence interface) and potential load situations, which might become important simply due to the giant diameter of future wind turbine rotors and the spatial extension of wind farm clusters. At present, they are not considered in the design of either wind turbines or wind farms, and their interactions with wind energy systems are not sufficiently investigated or understood.

Your PhD project is integrated in the second funding period of the Collaborative Research Centre 1463 Offshore Megastructures (www.sfb1463.uni-hannover.de/en/) of the German Research Foundation.  

Among others, your tasks will comprise:

• execution and analysis of a comprehensive offshore multi-lidar measurement campaign.
• development and validation of dynamic volumetric lidar wind field reconstruction by virtual measurements and real measurements at met masts.
• characterisation and statistical extrapolation of ‘challenging’ atmospheric conditions and their interaction with wind turbines using lidar measurements, operational wind farm (SCADA) data and large-eddy simulations carried out by a project partner.
• synthesis of improved inflow and wake flow characteristics for the design of offshore megastructures.
• cooperating closely with partners from the Collaborative Research Centre and international researchers.
• assisting in the project organisation, funding acquisition, outreach and teaching.

Your profile

Requirements for employment include:

• a qualifying master’s degree in Physical Sciences, Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering, Renewable Energy, Wind Energy or equivalent,
• aptitude and willingness to pursue a PhD,
• profound knowledge of fluid dynamics aspects of wind energy conversion, meteorological measurements and statistical analysis of large data amounts,
• 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,
• ability and experience working at heights. G41 height suitability must be proven before employment. The training courses can be made up/refreshed if necessary.
• availability for on- and offshore measurement campaigns with a typical duration of one week,
• driving licence BE.

Desired (but not mandatory) qualifications are: 

• experience in the use and analysis of wind lidars,
• 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,
• PhD network, trainings and cooperation with research groups within the Collaborative Research Centre,
• 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 the end of the research project CRC 1463 on 31.12.2028. The payment is based on the collective agreement for the public service in the German federal states, TV-L E13, for a full 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 »Research Laboratory for Turbulence and Wind Energy Systems« 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. 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. For instance, virtual lidar measurements can be performed in simulated three-dimensional flow fields to verify the analysis algorithms. Our multi-lidar systems, equipped with up to three scanning lidars, are particularly important for the abovementioned research.

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.