Advanced wind power installations are likely to include floating wind turbines that can be placed far off-shore and airborne wind power generator that can harvest the wind at altitude beyond what tower-based turbines can reach. The feasibility of such installations does, however, depend on the ability to optimize the design to make it economical. Here we describe computational studies of the dynamics of floating wind turbine platform and planned examination of airborne energy generation devices. The computational approach for both systems relies on the use of an immersed boundary method for the moving platforms. For the floating wind turbine the free surface is captured by a level set approach. In addition to capturing the dynamics of a moving turbine tower and a flexible wing, the modeling of the tethers provides new challenges in both cases.

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