In September 2024, Dr. Dara Vahidi successfully completed his Ph.D., presenting a body of work that brings new clarity and physical insight into the evolution of wind turbine wakes within the atmospheric boundary layer.
With his Ph.D. thesis entitled “Theoretical and Numerical Studies of Wind Turbine Wakes in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer,” Dr. Vahidi advanced the understanding of wind turbine wake development in atmospheric flows. Through a combined theoretical and numerical approach, he developed new physics-based models to predict wake expansion under different incoming ambient turbulence conditions and turbine operating states. He proposed scaling laws that reveal universal behavior in the wake velocity deficit and gained insight into how thrust coefficient and inflow turbulent scales influence the wake recovery process. Together, these efforts provide clearer physical understanding of the mechanisms governing wake evolution in the atmospheric boundary layer.
