Can Buoyancy and Lifting Devices Improve the Performance of Airborne Wind Energy?

Description

M.Sci. Student: Gabriel Sujol Lerchbacher(194832)
"Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) has advantages in that it can extract wind energy at high altitudes. However, they are limited by their capacity to generate lift and energy at the same time. A potential innovation to further improve AWE is to utilize lifting bodies (airfoils and/or buoyancy). There are many possible configurations for this innovation: 1) Different types of lifting bodies (buoyancy and/or airfoils), 2) different ways of connecting the lifting body to AWE aircraft 3) varying altitude and lift/drag forces. The potential advantages include: capturing jets at the upper boundary layer, avoiding take-offs and landings, improved reliability among other advantages. The thesis project will explore how well the different configuration can achieve these different benefits. Furthermore, these advantages will be evaluated against the additional costs and complexity. Further detailed investigations will be carried out on the most promising concepts."

Period	22 Jan 2024 → 22 Jun 2024