Pioneering work by EOLOS researchers at the University of Minnesota (UMN) using snow during a Minnesota blizzard is giving researchers new insight into the airflow around large wind turbines. A winter storm and giant spotlights allowed the team to visualize wind currents around a full-scale turbine for the first time, a breakthrough that could hold important implications for wind farm design to maximize efficiency. The complete findings were published in Nature Communications in June of 2014. “Natural snowfall reveals large-scale flow structures in the wake of a 2.5-MW wind turbine” is available here, the press release from the University of Minnesota is available here, and a website principle investigator Dr. Jiarong Hong created to explain the project concepts in greater depth is available here. These findings were also covered in a number of mainstream news publications, including National Geographic and Live Science, and these stories can be found under News.
