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  NSF supports SMAST tidal energy study

August 2, 2013

The National Science Foundation has awarded $300K to SMAST Prof. Geoffrey Cowles and co-PI Prof. Luigi Martinelli of Princeton University, in cooperation with Ocean Renewable Power Company, to assess the performance of tidal energy turbines, including their interactions with the immediate marine environment.

Marine kinetic energy is one of the most promising among the "green" energy candidates, but it's not clear what the most efficient turbine design would be for real ocean conditions, nor what the environmental impact would be.

In the past, these issues have been treated as two separate problems, an approach that relies on simplifying assumptions that limit the accuracy of the results. Cowles and Martinelli propose a more realistic treatment linking two computer models that "talk" to each other: one to simulate the operation of the turbine itself, and the other to represent the dynamics of the surrounding waters and their interaction with the turbine. The collaborators will apply a novel technique that can improve efficiency by automatically changing the shape of the simulated turbine.

This project will support two Ph.D. students who will gain strong backgrounds in the disciplines of marine renewable energy and high performance computing. The project will also provide a unique opportunity for Princeton undergraduate students enrolled in a new program in sustainable energy to carry out independent work in the area of tidal energy conversion.

  SMAST kicks off "Gliderpalooza"

September 23, 2013

"Blue is away!" With those words, engineers from SMAST's Ocean Observation Lab launched their ocean glider "Blue" off Martha's Vineyard on September 6, and a continental-scale ocean observation experiment called Gliderpalooza got under way. A dozen or more gliders are following suit and will be plying the waters of the Atlantic seaboard from Nova Scotia to Georgia through late October.

Three regional associations of the US Integrated Ocean Observing System, along with the eastern Canadian ocean observation effort, are collaborating on the experiment. The North American Atlantic shelf waters are among the most seasonally variable in the world, and Gliderpalooza data will contribute toward understanding the physical regulation of the timing and extent of these dramatic seasonal shifts.  Of particular interest is a seasonal feature termed "the Cold Pool," a bottom-trapped, anomalously cool water mass expected to influence the distribution of fish species in the mid-Atlantic.

Ocean gliders operate by translating small changes in buoyancy into forward motion with each dive or surfacing, so the glider takes measurements along a serrated cross-section of the water column. At the surface, the glider exchanges information with "home base" via satellite phone. Track gliders here.

  NSF supports WHOI/SMAST collaborations

August 30, 2013                                                                                                       

The National Science Foundation has funded a pair of studies of the coastal ocean to be conducted jointly by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and SMAST. 

A $1.5 million award to a team led by PI Anthony Kirincich (WHOI) will support the first comprehensive study of current variability in the coastal ocean at scales from hundreds of meters to tens of kilometers. This unprecedented level of detail will be made possible by a combination of dense observations made by WHOI and a computer model, developed by SMAST Prof. Changsheng Chen and collaborators, which is capable of resolving very intricate oceanic and coastal features. 

The model, called the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model, will also be employed in a $600 thousand study led by WHOI PI Steve Lentz analyzing the so-called "Cold Pool," a band of cold, nutrient-rich bottom water that extends the length of the Middle Atlantic Bight (from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras) throughout the spring and summer. Many of the migratory fish species of the region have evolved to either seek out or avoid the cold waters of this bottom feature, and growing concerns about the impact of global climate change on the ecosystem, especially fisheries, adds urgency to the investigation.