University of Auckland

Graduate Student, Mechanical Engineering

Thesis Title: Unsteady tidal flows and loading of tidal turbine blades

About

Ian Milne is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Auckland. He received his BE (Hons 1.) in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Auckland in 2009. After being awarded a Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship from the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission he began his PhD in March that year.

His PhD thesis is in the area of the characterisation of tidal turbulence and the subsequent unsteady hydrodynamic loading of horizontal-axis tidal turbine blades. He is particularly interested in the role of the velocity profile, turbulence and waves, and hence how the loads will vary between different sites. Analyses to date of turbulence have been performed using ADV and ADCP field data in a tidal flow in Scotland, which is compared to theoretical models for open channel flows and atmospheric turbulence. This will aid tidal turbine developers in understanding the likely flow characteristics imposed on their devices.

In 2009 he spent a month on exchange in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Bristol. Recently he has performed a set of experiments on a scale model turbine at the Kelvin Hydrodynamics Laboratory at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, where the unsteady blade load response to oscillatory motion and waves was measured. These results were also aimed at obtaining measurements of added mass and dynamic stall events, and therefore validating the engineering models used in commerical software codes such as GH Bladed.

His professional memberships include:
- Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ)
- IEEE Ocean Engineering Society (OES)
- Marine Technology Society (MTS)
- Aoteraroa Wave and Tidal Energy Association (AWATEA)
- International Network on Offshore Renewable Energy (INORE)

Contact Information