Facilities

Eolos has developed several facilities to support research, education, and training efforts in wind energy.  These facilities represent a national investment in research and development capabilities in wind energy, and will serve to dramatically improve the nation’s ability to create, evaluate and deploy new wind energy technologies.

The centerpiece of the Eolos Wind Energy Research Consortium is the field research station at UMore Park in Rosemount, MN (about 20 miles southeast of the Twin Cities campus). Here, 80 acres of land are dedicated to wind energy research. The focal points of the site are a Clipper Liberty 2.5MW wind turbine and a 130-meter-tall meteorological tower constructed 160 meters south of the turbine.
 
Eolos researchers utilize two specialized wind tunnels designed for wind energy research.  The University of Minnesota St. Anthony Falls Laboratory's Atmostpheric Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel is being used to study drag reducing riblet films and wind farm siting and layout.  At Syracuse University, a new anechoic wind tunnel is being used to study active flow techniques for improving aerodynamic performance and reducing turbine noise.  Both facilities serve integral roles in current and future Eolos research.  
 
Eolos has unique computational capabilities that greatly extend our laboratory and field research by creating numerical tools for rotor design, siting, structural loading and weather modeling. Computation clusters located at the University’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute provide unprecedented capabilities for parallel computations and data storage. Data collected in the wind tunnels and the Eolos field station are used to validate computational models developed through the consortium.

 

siteoverview_website.jpg
          
wind-leo1.png
          
anechoic_windtunnel.jpg