Title:

Advancing Ocean Wave Energy: Innovations in Modeling and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

Speaker:

Dr. Maha Haji

Affiliation:

Cornell University

When:

Monday, January 27, 2025 at 11:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

MRDC Building, Room 4211

Host:

Emily Sanders
emily.sanders@me.gatech.edu

Abstract

Harnessing energy from ocean waves has the potential to meet up to 34% of U.S. electricity demand, offering a predictable and reliable energy source that complements wind and solar. Its high forecastability and predictability could reduce energy storage requirements and significantly enhance energy security. However, the full-scale deployment of wave energy converters (WECs) has been hindered by high costs, lengthy design cycles, and investment risks, stemming in part from traditional sequential design methods that fail to account for critical subsystem interactions. This seminar will present our recent advancements in WEC design using multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) and control co-design (CCD), which have demonstrated significant reductions in electricity costs and substantial decreases in power variability. Central to this progress is our semi-analytical model, which enables rapid, accurate simulations for iterative optimization across WEC geometry, hydrodynamics, control, and structural design. Additionally, this talk will explore the first MDO framework for WEC farm optimization developed by our group, focusing on WEC dimensions, farm layout, and control strategies to minimize energy production costs and farm size. We will also present advanced computational methods that capture both near-field and far-field wave effects of WEC farms, illustrating their ability to dampen downstream waves and significantly reduce fatigue stress on co-located offshore wind turbines. This impact is intricately linked to the WEC control strategy, emphasizing the importance of integrated design and optimization. Beyond electricity generation, WECs hold potential for powering offshore aquaculture, desalination, carbon sequestration, and autonomous underwater vehicles, further contributing to both energy security and maritime operations. This talk will highlight how a multidisciplinary approach to WEC design can address key barriers to wave energy adoption, providing resilient and scalable solutions to strengthen energy security in the evolving global energy landscape.

Biography

Dr. Maha Haji is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Systems Engineering at Cornell University. Her lab, the Symbiotic Engineering and Analysis (SEA) Lab, develops designs for symbiotic offshore systems to sustainably extract resources from the ocean such as power, water, food, and tech-essential minerals. Her group’s current projects span wave energy converters, integrated pumped hydropower and reverse osmosis systems, seawater lithium harvesters, offshore hydrogen production, and marine robotics. Her research is supported by funding from NOAA, the DOE, and Sea Grant. Previously, Prof. Haji was an MAE Faculty Fellow at Cornell and a Postdoctoral Associate in the Engineering Systems Laboratory in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT where her research focused on utilizing multidisciplinary design optimization to develop an autonomous surface robot, known as PEARL, to provide recharging and data offloading capacity for autonomous underwater vehicles. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical and Oceanographic Engineering in 2017 from the Joint Program between MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she focused on the design and prototyping of a symbiotic system to harvest uranium from seawater. Prof. Haji has also worked in industry as an engineering consultant at ATA Engineering, where she applied analysis-driven design to solve challenges across divers projects, ranging from aircraft and rockets to robotics and rollercoasters. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Notes

Refreshments will be served.