By: Steven M. Zollars Dr. Jason Roney Dr. Jason Roney COMPUTATIONAL FLUID FLOW OVER COMPLEX TOPOGRAPHY

OVERVIEW Problem Statement/Relevance Methodology My Progress/Setbacks Summary Questions

PROBLEM STATEMENT Implementing Computational Fluid Dynamics to Investigate Flow Over Complex Topography with Applications to Wind Turbine Sitings and Wind Energy Predictions

RELEVANCE Wind Power is one of the most promising and cost effective renewable energy technologies available today Environmental issues negligible compared to current energy sources (I.e. coal, nuclear, gas,..) By 2005: Wind Power Costs = $0.02 per kWh Colorado Potential: 481 billion kWh per year from wind

METHODOLOGY 1 st Determine a site –Alamont Pass, California (East of San Francisco) –Tehachapi, California (Kern County) –San Gorgonio Pass (North of Palm Springs) –Ponnequin Wind Facility, Colorado (N.E. Colorado)

METHODOLOGY 2 nd Download that sites.dem file (Digital Elevation Map)

METHODOLOGY 3 rd Convert the.dem to a.vrt &.cel format using FORTRAN (or other operating mode) - Reformats the given information - allows us to plot a grid of points

METHODOLOGY 4 th Import the data into StarCD - Creates a surface shell Mesh Grid

METHODOLOGY 5 th Determine Boundary/Initial Conditions & run StarCD program

METHODOLOGY 6 th Read output of StarCD and determine highest areas of wind velocity for future wind turbine sitings.

METHODOLOGY 7 th Create a program that will determine the energy output from a wind turbine using MATLAB 8 th Read output of StarCD into MATLAB to determine energy output of turbines located at different sites.

SUMMARY Problem Statement/Relevance Methodology My Progress/Setbacks

QUESTIONS?