Single-turbine scale quantification of wake turbulence

Project Description:

This PhD scholarship is offered by the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience; a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Hull, Loughborough and Sheffield. The successful applicant will undertake six-months of training with the rest of the CDT cohort at the University of Hull before continuing their PhD research at Loughborough University. The project is part of a PhD Research Cluster on Predicting Offshore Wind wake interactions for Energy and the enviRonment (POWER).

Individual wind turbines produce turbulent wakes that have implications for maximum power generation from downwind turbines, increased fatigue loads and associated maintenance costs (Porté-Agel et al., 2020) . There are also associated environmental issues such as noise generation, and the introduction of large-scale flow structures to the atmospheric flow field. There have been a number of studies of these phenomena and Howard et al. (2015) and Kadum et al. (2019) have undertaken detailed studies of aspects of these dynamics. At the heart of this project is an attempt to develop deeper understanding of these phenomena in terms of the flow physics and to provide practical modelling methods that correctly represent these physics.

Of particular interest is the nature of the non-local energy transfers identified in the references cited above. Hence, this project will consider the non-equilibrium energy scaling for near-field wakes and how these effects can be captured in subgrid-scale models. Furthermore, we are interested in understanding how these non-local energy transfers relate to the behaviour of the flow’s pressure field, which provides another dimension to model development (Keylock, 2018).

Methodology:

The project will have three key stages to it:

(a) direct numerical simulation of the Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible flow with a suitable forcing included to represent the turbines;

(b) analysis of the large datasets that result, extracting and summarising the physics from the stored quantities;

(c) formulation of large-eddy simulation parameterisations based on the outcomes of (a) and (b). A study making use of some of our concepts in this regard is that by Yu et al. (2021).

An aspect of the project will involve undertaking comparative numerical experiments with control for helicity/helicoidal wake generation (see Li et al., 2006).

An exciting potential dimension to this project is to link the numerical results to field experiments conducted at the University of Minnesota.

Training and development

You will benefit from a taught programme, giving you a broad understanding of the breadth and depth of current and emerging offshore wind sector needs. This begins with an intensive six-month programme at the University of Hull for the new student intake, drawing on the expertise and facilities of all four academic partners. It is supplemented by Continuing Professional Development (CPD), which is embedded throughout your 4-year research scholarship.

Entry requirements

If you have received a First-class Honours degree, or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters, or a Distinction at Masters level with any undergraduate degree (or the international equivalents) in engineering, mathematics and statistics or physics, we would like to hear from you.

Recruitment has closed for this project and applications are being assessed for September 2025 entry.

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Prof Chris Keylock, c.j.keylock@lboro.ac.uk

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

Watch our short video to hear from Aura CDT students, academics and industry partners:

Funding notes

The CDT is funded by the EPSRC, allowing us to provide scholarships that cover fees plus a stipend set at the UKRI nationally agreed rates. These have been set by UKRI as £20,780 per annum at 2025/26 rates, and will increase in line with the EPSRC guidelines for the subsequent years (subject to progress).

Eligibility

Our funded Doctoral Scholarships are available to UK Students. The advertised CDT scholarships in this current recruitment round are available to Home (UK) Students only as the CDT has reached the annual cap, set by the funding council (UKRI EPSRC), on international student recruitment for the 2025 intake. To be considered a Home student, and therefore eligible for a full award, a student must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the scholarship (with some further constraint regarding residence for education). 

Guaranteed Interview Scheme

The CDT is committed to generating a diverse and inclusive training programme and is looking to attract applicants from all backgrounds. We offer a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for home fee status candidates who identify as Black or Black mixed or Asian or Asian mixed if they meet the programme entry requirements. This positive action is to support recruitment of these under-represented ethnic groups to our programme and is an opt in process.

Find out more

How to apply

Recruitment has closed for this project and applications are being assessed for September 2025 entry.

Interviews will be held online with an interview panel comprising of project supervisory team members from the host university where the project is based.  Where the project involves external supervisors from university partners or industry sponsors then representatives from these partners may form part of the interview panel and your supplementary application form will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section removed). Interviews will take place during early and mid-June. 

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Prof Chris Keylock, c.j.keylock@lboro.ac.uk

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

References:

Howard, K.B. et al. 2015. On the statistics of wind turbine wake meandering: An experimental investigation, Physics of Fluids 27, 075103 doi: 10.1063/1.4923334

Kadum, H. et al. 2019. Wind turbine wake intermittency dependence on turbulence intensity and pitch motion, Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy 11, 053302, doi: 10.1063/1.5097829

Keylock, C.J. 2018. The Schur decomposition of the velocity gradient tensor for turbulent flows, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 848, 876-904.

Li, Y., Meneveau, C., Chen, S., Eyink, G.L. 2006. Subgrid-scale modeling of helicity and energy dissipation in helical turbulence, Physical Review E 74, 2. 026310, 10.1103/PhysRevE.74.026310.

Porté-Agel, F., Bastankhah, M. & Shamsoddin, S. 2020. Wind-Turbine and Wind-Farm Flows: A Review. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 174, 1–59.

Yu, J.-L., Zhao, Z., Lu, X. 2021. 2021. Non-normal effect of the velocity gradient tensor and the relevant subgrid-scale model in compressible turbulent boundary-layer, Physics of Fluids 33, 2, 025103. 10.1063/5.0038607