Team Members & Role: 

Andrew LeBlanc: Team Lead

Mariam Arif: Evaluation Lead

Joseph Park: Fabrication Lead

Sean O’Brien: Design Lead

Jason Lin: Analysis Lead

Abstract:

As average global temperatures continue to rise, governments are seeking new and innovative ways to decarbonize their energy grids. Offshore wind energy is seen as a valuable resource in the fight against climate change, but several engineering, economic, and societal constraints threaten its viability. Currently, the vast majority of offshore wind installations lie close to the shoreline so they can be fixed to the seabed and electricity can be transmitted to land based power grids via submarine cable. However, the vast majority of wind energy resources lie far from shore where electricity cannot be easily transmitted to power grids and waters are too deep to install fixed-bottom turbines. The offshore wind trawler is being developed as an autonomous, mobile platform that produces energy in the form of green hydrogen and transports it back to shore for consumption. The focus of this project is to develop the stability and orientation systems on a 1:60th scale model of a wind trawler designed by the UMass Amherst Wind Energy Center. This includes adding two deployable rudders, and a control system that will allow the trawler to orient itself during a series of tests. The control system consists of two magnetometers, to determine the heading of the trawler and the direction of the current that the trawler is moving in, and a flow sensor to determine water speed. In addition, this project also involves the construction of a scaled, aluminum turbine tower that can support the future addition of shrouds for support and a wind turbine emulator. These additions will enable the UMass Wind Energy Center to perform complex dynamic testing on the offshore wind trawler under different operating conditions to determine its future viability and performance.