Doctoral student Mason Bichanich reviews and troubleshoots tidal turbine data at the University of New Hampshire’s Turbine Deployment Platform. Photo from Nicole Marone, UNH.To innovate in marine energy requires some extracurriculars: turning wrenches at the barge, conducting trial runs in the wave pool, and talking through ideas with a supportive team.
Their 25-kilowatt turbine—about the size of a harbor seal and oriented like an underwater wind turbine—will be on triple duty once deployed. Besides producing valuable data, it will help power a busy drawbridge and support community education throughNeither Sedigh nor Bichanich knew what to expect when engineering an axial turbine, but their excitement for creating something new propelled them ahead.
Sedigh works on the data acquisition controls that were integrated into the “living” tidal turbine. Photo from Parviz Sedigh, UNH“Interest in aerospace engineering comes from my childhood,” Sedigh said. “Whenever I saw an airplane, I wanted to know how such a giant machine could fly. I wanted to learn the principles behind that.
Ready or not, the team had to start somewhere. They picked through a conceptual scrapyard of past designs, drawing inspiration when possible or adding a unique spin when necessary. “We couldn’t pull one-to-one from past designs because of scale: Sometimes the costs don’t make sense,” Bichanich explained.