项目介绍

2025年2月1日

We have two open PhD positions funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), the European Union’s flagship program for doctoral education.

About us: 

The Wind Energy Institute at TUM conducts research on a broad range of topics in the general field of wind energy, with a focus on multidisciplinarity and a system-level perspective. The Institute, led by Prof. Carlo L. Bottasso, is internationally well known for its cutting-edge research, and has collaborations with many of the leading research institutions and companies in Europe, the USA and Asia.

Openings:

We have 2 PhD positions funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), the European Union’s flagship program for doctoral education. 

The topics of the two positions are: 

1. Stability analysis of very large turbines.
2. Digital controls for noise mitigation. 

More information on these positions is available below.

What we expect:

• A two-year master’s or equivalent degree in Engineering.
• A strong background in wind energy; specific knowledge on the topic of the applied-for position is a plus.
• Excellent programming skills.
• Excellent writing and communication skills in English; knowledge of German is non-mandatory, but constitutes a plus.
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural team and independently.
• Please note that according to MSCA rules, “the candidate must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Germany for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the recruitment date”.
• Please also note all the appointment conditions described in the document “Information note for Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellows in doctoral networks”, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2766/346248.
• The successful candidate must also fulfill the requirements for admission to a PhD program at TUM. More information on a doctorate at TUM can be found at the web sites of the TUM Graduate School  and of the Graduate Center of Engineering and Design.

What we offer:

• A 3-year contract, with a starting date in Q1 2025 and salary according to the MSCA remuneration rules (Chapter 4 of document “Information note for Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellows in doctoral networks”, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2766/346248. For these positions, the values of the gross monthly allowances are as follows: living allowance=3340 €; mobility allowance=600 €; family allowance (depending on family status)=660 €).
• Exciting research work, pushing the boundaries of knowledge in a welcoming international environment.
• A comprehensive training program according to the MSCA pursue of excellence: https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/about-msca.  

Application:

Please send your application, including the indication of the position you are applying for, a detailed CV, a letter of intent, and at least two letters of recommendations to: secretary.lwe@ed.tum.de. 

The application deadline is 15 February 2025.

Prof. Dr. Carlo Bottasso

Wind Energy Institute

School of Engineering and Design

Technical University of Munich

Boltzmannstr. 15, 85748 Garching, Germany

Tel. +49 89 289 16681

secretary.lwe@ed.tum.de 

www.epe.ed.tum.de/wind 

www.tum.de 

Project descriptions

Project 1: Stability analysis of very large turbines

This doctoral project is part of the HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN project “NEXTgenT – NEXT generation of over 25MW offshore wind Turbine rotor design”, funded in response to call HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN-01.

Objectives

Exceeding stability limits during operation, either in nominal and extreme conditions, can induce catastrophic structural failures or reduce lifetime. Therefore, understanding and predicting stability with accuracy and reliability is a central tenet of the design of any complex engineering system. Up to the recent past, aeroelastic stability has not been a key driver of wind turbine design, as sizing was dominated by stiffness and strength criteria. With the expected further growth in size of wind turbines, the problem of stability is bound to increase in importance and will become one of the centerpieces of any innovative design. Novel and robust stability analysis methods applicable to very large wind turbines will be developed in this project. The work will build on the model-independent periodic stability approaches first proposed in Riva et al., 2016 (doi:10.5194/wes-1-177-2016) and Bottasso and Cacciola 2014 (doi:10.1002/we.1735). These methods will be expanded in three directions: 1) considering multiple concurrent outputs and multiple data streams, a generalization that is expected to drastically improve robustness and increase the accuracy in the estimation of damping; 2) developing an optimization-based approach to define the system excitation that maximizes the visibility of desired modes, an improvement that will simplify the analysis and improve the quality of the results; 3) applying the new methods to the floating offshore case, because of its extra complexity and the lack of established methods. 

Expected results

The proposed research will deliver new methods and tools for the robust analysis of very large present and future wind energy systems. A central and key aspect of this research is that the methods and tools, being model independent, will have a long lifespan, and will be able to support the analysis of future systems, using future improved modelling tools. Additionally, these methods will not rely on many of the approximations that are at the heart of other approaches (linearity, applicability of the multiblade coordinate transformation, etc.), delivering the superior accuracy that is necessary to ensure the safety of future extreme designs. 

Planned secondments 

1. DTU (hosted by Prof. Taeseong Kim): comprehensive comparison with alternative stability analysis methods. 
2. Goldwind Denmark Aps (hosted by Dr. Bo J. Pedersen): application to very large offshore turbines.

Project 2: Digital controls for noise mitigation

This doctoral project is part of the HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN project “TWEED – Training Wind Energy Experts on Digitalisation”, funded in response to call HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN-01.

Scope and objectives 

To satisfy noise emission constraints in populated areas, wind turbines are typically curtailed, i.e. operated at reduced rotor speed. When wind turbines operate in this quiet mode, they produce less power, which in turn can decrease the economic profitability of the park. Today, quiet operation is simply triggered based on the time of the day (for example, at night time). This project will develop novel digital controls to mitigate noise emissions, improving on today’s simple on-off quiet mode. Instead of time of the day, the new controller will consider the current ambient conditions, which will be detected in real-time based on SCADA operational data. Based on the detected ambient conditions, noise emissions will be estimated for the individual turbines in the park, together with the directivity of the emissions and the noise levels around the park. Based on these predictions, power and yaw misalignment setpoints will be computed for the individual turbines to maximize power output, while satisfying noise levels at points of interest. This constrained optimization problem will use the TUM AI-enabled park flow model, using also the suite of noise emission tools developed at TUM. This large-scale optimization problem will be solved offline, producing ambient-condition-dependent turbine setpoints, which are then interpolated at run-time based on current conditions. The new noise-abating wind farm control method will be integrated with a standard power maximization wind park controller, obtaining the ability to smoothly transition between standard and quiet operational modes. The novel controller will be showcased on onshore wind farms in close proximity to inhabited areas. Performance of the new control logic will be quantified in terms of relevant metrics (yield, satisfaction of noise constraints, etc.).

Expected results

The fellow will develop a framework for the design of noise-abating wind farm control laws. It is expected that, using these new procedures, it will be possible to satisfy noise emission constraints while at the same time significantly improving yield compared to today’s simple quiet-mode on-off approach. It is expected that an improved yield will be obtained by better distributing noise emissions throughout the farm, for example by boosting power through wake steering at turbines that are farther away or contribute less to noise (because of directivity). Similarly, it is expected that a smaller number of turbines will have to be curtailed. The fellow will acquire a broad knowledge on large-scale optimization, digital controls, noise modelling, flow modelling.

Planned secondments 

1. UNIZAR (hosted by Prof. Julio J. Melero): noise and environmental constraints in the development of onshore wind parks. 
2. ENGIE Laborelec (hosted by Dr. Ariane Frere): seamless integration of noise mitigation with other wind turbine and farm operational modes.

The position is suitable for disabled persons. Disabled applicants will be given preference in case of generally equivalent suitability, aptitude and professional performance.

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