Wind energy is one of the prominent renewable energy sources on earth.
During the last decade there has been a tremendous growth, both in size
and power of wind energy converters (WECs). The global installed power has
increased from 7.5GW in 1997 to more than 50GW in 2005 (WWEA – March
2005). At the same time, turbines have grown from kW machines to 5MW
turbines with rotor diameters of more than 100 m. This enormous development
and the more recent use in offshore application made high demands on
design, construction and operation of WECs. Thus not only a new major industry
has been established but also a new interdisciplinary field of research
affecting scientists from engineering, physics and meteorology.
In order to tackle the problems and reservations in this interdisciplinary
community of wind energy scientists, ForWind, the Center for Wind
Energy Research of the Universities of Oldenburg and Hanover, arranged the
EUROMECH Colloquium 464b – Wind Energy, which was held from October
4, 7, 2005, at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany. The
central aim of this colloquium was to bring together the up to then separate
communities of wind energy scientists and those who do fundamental research
in mechanics. Wind energy is a challenging task in mechanics and many of
future progress will find relevant applications in wind energy conversion.
More than 100 experts coming from 16 countries from all over the world
attended the meeting, confirming the need and the concept of this colloquium.
The 46 oral and 28 poster presentations were grouped in the following topics:
– Wind climate and wind field
– Gusts, extreme events and turbulence
– Power production and fluctuations
– Rotor aerodynamics
– Wake effects
– Materials, fatigue and structural health monitoring
Phenomenological approaches mainly based on experimental and empirical
data as well as advanced fundamental mathematical scientific approaches have
Many intensive discussions on these and other topics took place between6 z9 C9 {# F4 f
participants from different disciplines during coffee and lunch breaks and6 y* U/ h* Y2 p- K/ H+ G& V
also during the social evening events reception of the city at the “ehemalige , H/ A$ ]0 |. kExerzierhalle” and the conference dinner on the nightly lake of Bad . \4 ?5 ~. \3 O3 uZwischenahn. & L4 ]# E1 i$ H- G( j* h/ w N6 BThe positive feedback for the meeting’s scientific and social aspects encouraged 1 v- l1 {, }, D4 ~8 s: t; @the scientific committee to decide to have follow-up meetings alternately 9 D, h9 G$ u2 D0 O Z1 ~6 g6 uorganized by Duwind, Risø and ForWind. All participants shared the opinion S. T/ G: _: [4 u6 othat the scientific interdisciplinary cooperation and international collaboration ) [" ~* }+ ]( k. G- b. ~# T) x# zshall be intensified. ' Z% u% ?, R5 G p8 f+ DThe organizers want to thank the scientific committee members Martin7 J; L1 z+ N6 H: A4 |3 N0 H( c
K¨uhn, Gijs van Kuik, Soeren E. Larsen, Ramgopal Puthli and Daniel Schertzer ( E0 S% v5 v+ v* a3 s3 I% @: B1 N4 U7 rfor helping to organize this conference and establishing this book. Furthermore, 9 e" C: h$ D) `0 m, G0 S7 Pwe are grateful for the financial support of the Federal Ministry of Education 9 j2 s' y1 g" F$ \) T% Y& D# s/ `and Research, the City of Oldenburg and the EWE company. Special- U7 a# E' `" X: Q' B
thanks go to Margret Warns, Elke Seidel, Moses K¨arn, Martin Grosser, Frank ( q' d1 I) F9 v3 \( e7 EB¨ottcher for organizing all technical and administrative concerns.