Welcome
I am a faculty member of the Physics of Fluids group at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. The group belongs to the Faculty of Science and Technology and is embedded in the Max Planck Center Twente.
Richard J.A.M. Stevens develops high-fidelity simulations and physical models for turbulent flows in wind energy, atmospheric boundary layers, and canonical turbulence. His group uses large-eddy simulation, direct numerical simulation, and analytical modeling to study wind-farm wakes, farm-scale blockage, atmospheric coupling, stable boundary layers, turbulent convection, and wall-bounded turbulence. The aim is to connect fundamental turbulence physics to predictive models for wind-energy systems and environmental flows, described in more detail on the research and publications pages.
Research themes
Wind-farm flow physics
Large-eddy simulation of how wind-turbine wakes interact, merge, and recover inside large wind farms, and how this interaction sets the overall power output.
Analytical wind-farm modeling
Physics-based and reduced-order models that connect wake dynamics, boundary-layer theory, and farm-scale behavior to wind-farm performance, without the cost of full simulation.
Atmospheric boundary layers and turbulent boundary layer flow
Structure and scaling of turbulent boundary layers, including how atmospheric stability, shear, and stratification couple to wind-farm wake recovery and power production.
Turbulent convection and rotating convection
Direct numerical simulation of heat and momentum transport in Rayleigh-Bénard convection, including how background rotation modifies turbulent heat transport and flow structure.
Open-source simulation tools (AFiD)
Development and use of AFiD, an open-source high-performance code for direct numerical simulation of canonical turbulent flows such as Rayleigh-Bénard convection, Taylor-Couette flow, and channel flow.
Visualizations of these simulations are collected on the research highlights page.
Contact Information
Dr. ir. Richard J.A.M. Stevens
Physics of Fluids group
Faculty of Science and Technology
University of Twente
Building Meander
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
T: +31 (0)53 489 5359
E: r.j.a.m.stevens@utwente.nl