Divya Tyagi, a Penn State aerospace grad student, took Hermann Glauert’s century-old wind-turbine math problem and gave it a sleek, 21st-century makeover. Her addendum—published in Wind Energy Science with adviser Sven Schmitz—uses calculus of variations to factor in thrust forces and blade-bending moments that Glauert glossed over, making it way easier to explore new turbine tweaks.
That extra simplicity could pay off big: upping a turbine’s power coefficient by just 1% can seriously boost its energy output—enough to power a neighborhood—so her work snagged the prestigious Anthony E. Wolk Award. Now she’s diving into CFD simulations of helicopter rotors over ship decks with U.S. Navy support, proving this math wiz is far from done.
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