I led the development of an aero-servo-elastic software able to simulate realistically the operations of offshore wind turbines in operation, at standstill, with faults and under normal and extreme conditions.  It couples a 3D vortex panel method to an in-house beam-element model and a controller. The software was extensively validated with field measurements on Nenuphar large-scale prototypes.

Aerodynamics of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) is highly unsteady and therefore much more complex than for Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbines. To accurately compute loads and power for VAWTs, my team and I coupled a Beddoes-Leishman dynamic stall model to a 3D vortex panel method. We validated this approach with CFD simulations, wind tunnel tests and field measurements.

One of Pharwen's specificity lies in its ability to take into account the unsteady aerodynamics and inertial loads generated by the rigid-body motions of  a floating substructure. The experimental validation was carried out thanks to results obtained within the MOQUA project where a 3mx3m rotor was intalled on a 6DOF robot (hexapod).