Measurements at wind tunnels
Improving acoustic measurements in wind tunnels enables the design of quieter wind turbines. When there is too much noise in the measurement in a wind tunnel, you can’t see if you made an improvement in your design. Thus, being able to improve wind tunnel measurements, new solutions can be found and quieter designs are made possible.
The research
Colin van Dercreek is working on developing a model for the acoustic waves within a cavity. The aim is to reduce noise in wind tunnel measurements. This is because in a closed test section there is a lot of noise in the tunnel, due to the tunnel boundary layer impinging on the microphones and reflections off the imperfections on the walls. For this, he also takes the practicality into account, as he states: “There a lot of solutions that potentially could exist, where you have an active noise cancellation like in headphones. But I can only imagine the complexity and costs of putting that into a tunnel.” Therefore, an innovative way is to be found to reduce the flow and thus the noise that goes over the microphones.
The goal
Enabling the design of more quiet turbines indirectly impacts the effect of wind energy. When the design is quieter, this affects where you can put them, how fast they can run. So, if you make a quieter version, you can gain more power from the same turbine.
For more information about this topic, you can contact C.P. (Colin) Van Dercreek.