CIRE Makes ‘Interdisciplinary Magic’
Stephen Wood is studying wind farm simulations; Melissa Allen, climate science. In a simple conversation, these two scholars— both part of CIRE’s energy science and engineering doctoral fellowship program—uncovered an opportunity for collaboration that would be beneficial not only to their studies, but potentially the world.
Such collaborations are everywhere at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education (CIRE), which opened this fall.
CIRE combines the resources of UT Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to provide expanded opportunities for graduate students in energy-related science and engineering, fostering scholarship and innovation, advancing multidisciplinary research, and accelerating development and deployment of new technologies.
"‘Interdisciplinary magic’ is happening every day at CIRE," said CIRE Director Lee Riedinger. "These are excellent students from a variety of disciplines. They love sharing office space, hanging out together, and studying with each other. They have never been in such an environment where they are always around students from such varied backgrounds, and they love it."
Wood completed a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Florida International University. In 2009, he interned at ORNL in the computer science and mathematics division through the Higher Education Research Experiences program, working in the area of computational engineering with Adjunct Associate Professor Ralf Deiterding. In 2011, he returned to ORNL through the Research Alliance in Math and Science Program and continued his work with Deiterding on fluid-structure interaction.
Allen has a bachelor’s degree in music education (violin emphasis) from the University of Northern Colorado, and a master’s degree in environmental engineering, climate concentration, from UT Knoxville. She holds a private pilot’s license with instrument rating, and has been working for three years as a research assistant to David Erickson at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Computational Earth Sciences Group.
Wood is studying how the wake of a single wind turbine interferes with other turbines within a wind farm. He’s developing advanced computer software to model entire wind farms in which the turbines are appropriately spaced.
"Right now turbines are placed in wind farms using experience and elegant but simplistic wake models," Wood said. "Unfortunately, the turbines in these farms are lasting for shorter lifespans and incurring higher maintenance costs than expected. Our research will hopefully lead to a deeper understanding of wake interaction and enable more efficient and profitable wind farms."
However, after speaking with Allen, Wood realized he could broaden his research scope.
Allen, along with UT mentor Associate Professor Joshua Fu and members of his civil and environmental engineering team, does research focused on how wind patterns might change each decade over the twenty-first century as a result of rising temperatures due to climate change. Using Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Jaguar supercomputer, the group runs models under various climate scenarios which examine different effects on the climate due to varying levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
"It occurred to us that proposing wind turbine designs that could be adaptable to these potential climate changes might give more options to companies incorporating wind into their portfolios,” Allen said.
In the near future, the two hope to merge their two supercomputing tools to produce an efficient means of obtaining future wind farm design. They even have a goal to be cited in the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report.
"This idea to collaborate came to us within the first month; it sprang from a discussion in Professor Riedinger’s ESE 511 lecture," Wood said. "I could have been in a PhD program and just worked on wind farm simulation as a mechanical engineer without this multidisciplinary environment and completely missed this opportunity. Now our research will be stronger and more comprehensive."
To read more about the center and its students, visit ORNL Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education.