Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science

Two small wind turbines atop streetlight poles with the Tilikum Crossing bridge in the background.

Wind energy

Two students wearing protective glasses watch a laser pointed at a miniature wind turbine over a tub of water.

What is wind energy?

Wind energy is typically generated when wind turns the blades of huge wind turbines. Due to their huge size, wind energy faces land use and environmental impact challenges. Offshore wind farms are a common solution, but some factors, such as their efficiency when impacted by waves, are little understood.

Video: how wind turbines work

In the Wind Energy and Turbulence Lab, we are using fluid dynamics to increase the efficiency of offshore wind farms by looking at how the movement of waves impacts the effectiveness of the wind turbines, we well as studying how wind farms communicate with each other across large distances. 

From undergraduates to PhD students, students are essential to the everyday workings the Wind Energy and Turbulence Lab and frequently lead their own experiments. The lab also fosters partnerships across institutions such as Johns Hopkins University. 

Watch the video to see the lab in action.

Wind energy and turbulence lab about this content

The Labs of Maseeh. Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, Portland State University. pdx.edu/maseeh.

Can you briefly introduce your role and work within the lab? 

Zein Sadek, PhD Student Research, Wind Energy & Turbulence Lab: Alright, here I conduct wind tunnel experiments. And so we use lasers, cameras, and I specialize in particle image velosymmetry, where we basically take pictures of the velocity field in the wind tunnel. 

How does your lab’s research contribute to solving real world problems? 

Here we’re really focused on renewable energies. So we do a lot of wind energy, we also do solar power. We’re actually building some experiment– we’re looking at some advanced technologies that can be further implemented into wind energy science. 

What opportunities do undergraduate students have to participate in research?

Speaker: Rocio Compton, Master’s Student Researcher, Wind Energy and Turbulence Lab: I started as an undergrad doing research. I was able to hop onto projects that other students were working on. And then from there, you can work on things like solar energy, turbine energy, all sorts of renewable energy things. 

How does your lab collaborate with industry partners or other research institutions? 

Madeline Fischer, Master’s Student Researcher, Wind Energy and Turbulence Lab: We have our partners from Johns Hopkins here right now, working on collaborating with their Chemistry department because we’re doing the Mechanical Engineering side, and they’re the experts in the chemical aspects of this experiment. We’re able to collaborate with them, and do our experiments together. 

Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, Portland State University