U-M researcher discusses Lake Michigan offshore wind assessment project

In a special seminar, U-M marine engineer Dale G. Karr presented his U.S. Department of Energy funded research to Muskegon community members. His research projects are likely to have implications for offshore wind energy production in the Great Lakes – a possible new industry for the state.

Karr’s research has looked at six “models” of the effects of ice on Great Lakes wind turbines from ice flow movements impacting the towers, ice slowly crushing the platforms and the random vibrations of ice driven by waves and wind in the open waters.

Karr’s research complements the Lake Michigan Offshore Wind Assessment Project, a partnership between Grand Valley State University and its Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, GVSU’s Padnos College of Engineering and Computing, the U-M and its Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, and the Michigan Natural Features Inventory of Michigan State University Extension.

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