Another YES! fellowship awarded by FOM: Richard Stevens is fourth YES! fellow
The FOM Foundation has once again awarded a Young Energy Scientist (YES!) fellowship to a young researcher: former FOM PhD student Dr. Richard Stevens will spend the next four years investigating the interaction between wind turbines. "With the help of computer simulations I will investigate how a group of wind turbines can best be positioned with respect to each other and how fluctuations in the amount of electricity generated are influenced by changes in the wind speed and wind flow caused by other wind turbines," explains Stevens enthusiastically. With a YES! fellowship, FOM gives young researchers the opportunity to develop in the area of fundamental energy research at a foreign top institute. Stevens is going to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA.
Stevens gained his doctorate in 2011 for his thesis entitled 'Rayleigh-Bénard turbulence'. His supervisors were FOM workgroup leaders Prof.dr. Detlef Lohse (University of Twente) and Prof.dr. Herman Clercx (Eindhoven University of Technology) and since gaining his PhD, Stevens has worked as a FOM postdoc in the Physics of Fluids group of Lohse.
Wind energy
"Wind turbines exert a strong influence on each other," says Stevens. "With the help of detailed computer simulations we want to examine which physical aspects are important in large wind farms. For example, we will assess fluctuations in the wind speed and electricity production. Knowledge about this is needed to be able to make a good design of the backup power that must be made for large wind farms. As soon as you rely on a wind farm supplying a certain quantity of electricity you must have a backup. For example, if you expect that the wind will stop blowing then there must be an alternative supply of electricity."
YES! fellowships
Stevens is the fourth YES! fellow from FOM. Earlier YES! fellows are Dr. Andrea Baldi, Dr. Joep Pijpers and Dr. Süleyman Er. The YES! fellowships have been set up to boost energy research in the Netherlands. After a maximum period of three years abroad, the YES! fellows return to the Netherlands with the knowledge they have acquired. They then have a further year in which to embed their new knowledge and to lay the basis for new lines of research and a scientific career in the Netherlands. The aim is that in three years time, Stevens will use the knowledge he has acquired in Baltimore for further research at University of Twente.
Further information
*about the research of Richard Stevens:
'Prandtl-, Rayleigh-, and Rossby-Number Dependence of Heat Transport in Turbulent Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard Convection' (Phys. Rev. Lett.)
'Transitions between Turbulent States in Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard Convection' (Phys. Rev. Lett.) & FOM press release (only in Dutch)
'Finite-Size Effects Lead to Supercritical Bifurcations in Turbulent Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard Convection ' (Phys. Rev. Lett.) & FOM press release
'Flow Reversals in Thermally Driven Turbulence' (Phys. Rev. Lett.) & FOM press release (only in Dutch)
Thesis 'Rayleigh-Benard turbulence ' & FOM press release about Da Vinci Prize 2011
*about FOM’s YES! fellowships:
Jasper Reijnders +31 (0)30 600 12 17