ESRIG EES colloquium: Salar Mahfoozi, MSc EES student and Nuccio Ludovico, PhD student at IVEM

Title: A Biomimetic Approach in Design and Construction of a Wind Turbine Utilizing Unsteady Aerodynamics for Enhanced Lift.

By: Salar Mahfoozi, MSc EES student.

Summary:
The general aim of this two-part study is to implement the effect of unsteady aerodynamics on wind turbine blades to see if there are any net gains in power production. The origin of this idea lies in the flight behavior of the albatross and fulmar. These birds periodically change the angle of attack of their wings from low angles of attack to high angles of attack to increase aerodynamic force to aid in landing. This behavior is emulated on a wind-turbine to see whether it can lead to any increased gain in the power output.

While this idea was proven to be true on a previous study and that there were clear indications of an increase in power output, certain limitations such as low tested frequencies, excessive weight of the wind turbine, and servo restrictions prevented the blades from avoiding full stall. Thus part 1 of this study focuses on designing and constructing a wind turbine that solves previous limitations and has the capacity to utilize the oscillation effect at higher frequencies.
A new, more efficient wind turbine was erected which was significantly lighter and had better performance characteristics. These included utilizing a “tail rotor” to successfully allow for the pitching and rotation mechanism without relying on any complex mechanics. Smoother oscillation of the outer blades is completed with the help of a high power stepper motor connected to a disc linked to the tail rotor to achieve higher frequencies. A more efficient generator is tested under various loads and added to achieve higher power output readings. During pilot tests of the wind-turbine, a power output of 2.35 W was achieved by the wind turbine under a 50Ω load in a wind speed of 3.4 m/s. Co-occurring technical difficulties during the design and testing of the components were re-evaluated and troubleshooted. These involved fixing an issue involving blade-tower collision, reducing mechanical friction of the blade rods to allow for smooth oscillations and finding a proper controller to send pulses at very high rates to allow for higher frequencies.

Title: A Data Driven Stakeholder Mapping Procedure for Sustainable Technologies Acceptance.

By: Nuccio Ludovico, PhD student at IVEM

Summary:
The social acceptance emerges as powerful barrier for biofuel development and energy transition. Nevertheless, Social Acceptance (SA) issues have been widely underestimated. The concept is itself problematic meaning that the SA of a technology can be analysed at multiple levels: political acceptance focused on policy support by governmental levels, stakeholder acceptance from organizations, public acceptance in the sense of individual consumers and citizens. It is not difficult to assume that, depending on the level of analysis, the features of the phenomenon to be investigated change, as well as the relevant variables in the study of SA. Perceptions of risks and benefits, associated with the acceptability of a new technology, depend on the specific interests and knowledge that the social actor holds. Moreover, the dynamics of the acceptance process are sensitive to influence processes and, therefore, to the potential acceptance by prominent actors in the social network. A mixed-method procedure was deployed in order to quantitatively measure the interest and influence potential of political and organizational actors towards a new biofuel, developed by the ABC-Salt Consortium. A Computational text analysis method, the Structural Topic Model, is applied in order to measure the match between the stakeholders’ activity and the technology. Social Network Analysis is applied on online social exchange within political and organizational actors in order to derive an Influence indicator. These indicators will be used to better investigate the perceptions of risks and benefits associated with the acceptability of the new technology.