Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor

Sponsor: Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)

Project leader: Eric Loth

Participants:

University of Virginia: Eric Loth, Carlos Noyes, Meghan Kaminski, Juliet Simpson
University of Texas at Dallas: Todd Griffith, Shulong Yao, Mayank Chetan, Alejandra Excalera
Colorado School of Mines: Kathryn Johnson, Sepideh Kianbakht
University of Colorado at Boulder: Lucy Pao, Daniel Zalkind
National Wind Technology Center: Tiffany Byrne, Lee Jay Fingersh, Tyler Stehly
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Michael Selig

The Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor (SUMR) is a state-of-the-art extreme-scale wind turbine project capable of capturing 13MW of power. Using a downwind, 2-bladed, and coned rotor, blade lengths reach an excess of 100-meters in length. To experimentally test the turbine, a 20% gravo-aeroelastically scaled rotor is installed at the National Wind Technology Center to test the viability of such turbines.