Postdoctoral Researcher on Lidar Experiments for Wind Energy

Postdoctoral Researcher on Lidar Experiments for Wind Energy

EPFL - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne

Lausanne, Switzerland

Main duties and responsibilities

The WiRE Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) searches a postdoctoral researcher for a project recently funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The project aims at investigating the interaction between wind farms and the atmospheric boundary layer using a combination of field experiments, wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulations.

The main activities to be carried out as part of the aforementioned project include:

• Studying wind turbine wake flows and their superposition inside wind farms;
• Investigating the effect of atmospheric stability conditions on wind turbine wakes and power output;
• Using the lidar measurements for the validation and improvement of analytical wake models.

Mission

The main goal of The Wind Engineering and Renewable Energy Laboratory (WiRE) research is to improve our understanding and ability to predict turbulent transport of momentum and scalars (e.g., heat, water vapor, pollutants) in environmental flows, with emphasis on the atmospheric boundary layer and wind energy systems. Improved descriptions of those processes are developed and used in engineering, environmental and wind energy applications (e.g., weather, air quality and wind resource assessment models).

Our research involves a synergistic combination of experimental (field and wind tunnel) work, numerical modelling (large-eddy simulation) and theoretical development.

Specific areas of research include:

• Wind energy;
• Flow over complex terrain;
• Flow in urban canopies;
• Large-Eddy Simulation;
• Thermally stratified flows;
• Boundary-layer turbulence.

Profile

The candidates should hold a PhD in engineering or physics and have experience in experimental fluid dynamics and wind energy. It is highly desirable that the candidates have experience in the use and analysis of data from scanning Doppler wind lidars.

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