UMaine deepwater offshore wind technology tests proceeding in the Netherlands
The team from UMaine’s AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center, is testing 1/50th-scale models at an offshore wind basin owned by a Dutch company called Marin. Three different types of floating platforms are being tested 16 hours a day and are being subjected to different wind and wave intensity levels that mimic conditions in the Gulf of Maine in side-by-side comparison tests.
The first week or so of testing involved some troubleshooting due to instrumentation issues but testing has proceeded smoothly since then, said Heather Martin, a graduate research assistant at the Advanced Structures and Composites Center who returned last Friday from a two-week trip to the Marin basin. Martin designed the blades and turbine on the prototype.
Learn more, here: http://phys.org/news/2011-05-umaine-deepwater-offshore-technology-proceeding.html