Parameterising wakes for oceanographic models

Project Description:

This project is open to applicants until 16 May 2024. The successful candidate will begin their study in September 2024.

This Research Project is sponsored by the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) and is part of the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience’s Predicting Offshore Wind wake interactions for Energy and the enviRonment (POWER) Cluster.

The offshore wind sector is rapidly expanding to meet net-zero energy demands. Individual turbines and farms are getting larger and further from shore, with individual turbines spanning 240 m in diameter and farms reaching 600 km2. Forced by spatial constraints, but enabled by floating technology, farms are now developing in deeper waters, occupying increasingly vast areas.

Oceanographic flow processes are highly sensitive to sea surface boundary conditions (Christiansen et al., 2022), which are in turn critically dependent on atmospheric forcing. Atmospheric flows past offshore wind turbines produce highly turbulent and extensive wakes. These wakes are a necessary result of energy extraction from the wind, and are a key motivation for spatial planning of offshore wind farms where turbine placement is optimized for maximal energy extraction with minimized costs associated to infrastructure and spatial footprint (Giebel et al., 2016). The turbulent wakes propagate downstream, leading to wake-wake interactions and farm-scale atmospheric flow processes with a significantly reduced wind speed in the lee of an offshore wind farm (Platis et al., 2018).

It has been recently shown that such large-scale atmospheric interactions can have a significant effect on sea-surface conditions, realised through a locally reduced wind shear stress (Christiansen et al., 2022). Large-scale deployment of offshore wind farms in shelf seas therefore poses an emerging oceanographic problem; shelf seas are vital for life on and below water through their control on the vertical transport of nutrients, and are a key component of the biogeochemical cycle (van Berkel et al., 2020). These are crucially dependent on general circulation and water column structure, which are both highly sensitive to conditions at the sea surface (Dorrell et al., 2022). Yet the impact of offshore wind expansion on sea surface conditions and subsequent regional scale effects is poorly understood, and has only recently gained research interest. While wake parameterisations for atmospheric models have received significant interest over the last decade, the current state of the art oceanographic models make sweeping assumptions regarding the form of sea-surface forcing, particularly concerning wake-wake interactions, spatial variability, and turbulent modifications (Christiansen et al., 2022). These limitations must be overcome for accurate model predictions of oceanographic response to offshore wind expansion.

This project aims to advance sea-surface parameterisations of atmospheric offshore wind farm wakes for use in oceanographic models, directly supported by CEFAS and the National Oceanography Centre, using the North-West European Shelf FVCOM model. This aim will be realised through the following objectives:

• Explore literature and gather/generate datasets required for model validation
• Develop and validate wake parameterisations
• Explore the influence of solution sensitivity to model parameters
• Explore the potential impacts of future offshore wind development on North Sea oceanography

Completion of these objectives will deliver a functional oceanographic model for future research into impacts of offshore wind deployment to inform marine spatial planning.

Training & Skills

You will undertake two three-week placements at NOC during the PhD programme to provide support with FVCOM. The first placement will occur at the start of year 2 where the basics of FVCOM will be taught. The second placement will occur at the start of year 3 to learn how to set up and validate FVCOM simulations, and implement parameterisations. There will also be an industry placement opportunity at CEFAS in the final year. Beyond academia, this PhD project will open pathways to a career in physical oceanography, the wind energy sector, or more broadly a career using computational fluid dynamics or data science.

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.

Further Queries

If you would like more information about this project, please let us know by emailing auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

Entry requirements

If you have received or expect to achieve before starting your PhD programme a First-class Honours degree, or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters, or a Distinction at Masters level a degree (or the international equivalents) in physics, engineering, mathematics or environmental/earth science and have studied fluid mechanics/physical oceanography to a high level, we would like to hear from you.

If your first language is not English, or you require a Student Visa to study, you will be required to provide evidence of your English language proficiency level that meets the requirements of the Aura CDT’s academic partners. This course requires academic IELTS 7.0 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each skill. Please contact auracdt@hull.ac.uk for further guidance or questions.

Project Sponsor & Industry Supervision

In-kind support & Industry Supervision

Funding

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, £19,237 per annum at 2024/25 rates (subject to progress).

Eligibility

Our funded Doctoral Scholarships are available to UK Students. In addition, we have a number of Scholarships that are open to International Students. Research council funding for postgraduate research has residence requirements. 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). For full eligibility information, please refer to the EPSRC website.

How to Apply

Please note, you may only apply for ONE project offered through the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience.
Applications are open until 16 May 2024.

Applications for this project are made via the University of Hull admissions system. If you have not applied with the University of Hull before, you will need to set up an account to enable you to track the progress of your application and upload supporting documents.

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With your application, you need to upload copies of the following supporting evidence:

• Complete transcripts (and final degree certificate(s) where possible). If your qualification documents are not in English, you will need to supply copies of your original language documents as well as their official translation into English.
• Your Curriculum Vitae (CV).
• A completed Supplementary Application Form (please upload when asked to add your Research Proposal).

Guidance on completing your Supplementary Application Form:

The EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience is committed to generating a diverse and inclusive training programme. As part of our inclusive practices, the Centre adopts a process of assessing applicants’ experience, skills and attributes independently of personal details. To enable us to do this, we ask you, as the applicant, to complete the Supplementary Application Form, omitting the following personally identifying information from the form – name(s), ethnic group, nationality, age, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation. The form is then used by the Panel to assess and select applicants for interview. The form asks for details of your education, training and employment history as well as some specific questions about your motivations and research experience and interests. It is very important that you do not include the personally identifying information specified.

Completing the form

Applicants must:

• Remove all personal references in their application. Specifically, do not include the following details: Name(s), ethnic group, nationality, age, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation
• Complete all sections of the form in font and size Calibri 11pt
• Please download the Supplementary Application Form here.

Uploading the form

When you have completed the form, please save it as a pdf format and labelled as follows:

Last name_first name PhD application form

Upload the form through the University of Hull student application portal when asked to add a research proposal (the form replaces the research proposal which is not needed for this application). Our support team will then process the form removing your name and allocating you a number prior to your application being assessed.

Interviews

Interviews will be held during June and will be conducted by a panel of academics from the University of Hull.

For an informal discussion please contact auracdt@hull.ac.uk