R.ValottaRodrigues - UMass Boston

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R.ValottaRodrigues

Rafael Valotta Rodrigues

Department:

Engineering

Title:

Assistant Professor

Phone:

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Website

Biography

I am the PI of the "Wind Energy Lab" at UMass Boston, which is an industry-oriented multidisciplinary research group. My mission is to leverage the next generation of wind energy systems. In my research, I focus on wind farms flow physics across multi-fidelities, design, and multidisciplinary optimization. Before joining UMass Boston, I spent 3 years working as Researcher in the Systems Engineering and Optimization, Wind and Energy Systems Department, Technical University of Denmark (DTU). During that time, I had the opportunity to work in multiple R&D in collaboration with wind energy companies that are leaders worldwide. Additionally, I have a Postdoctoral in Mechanical Engineering at Syracuse University.

I complete my academic background with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, a R1 university in Denver, Colorado (USA). Before than that, I did my undergrad in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Campinas, which is the top-2 among all Brazilian universities and the top-1 South American research institution. At the same university, I did an industrial Master in Agricultural Engineering, focusing on deploying and simulating a small hybrid solar-wind power system at the University of Campinas.

Area of Expertise

Multidisciplinary Optimization
Wind Farms Wakes: Numerical Modeling
AI for Wind Energy
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Complex Fluid Systems
Cavitation in Biofluids

Degrees

PhD in Mechanical Engineering (University of Denver)
MSc in Agricultural Engineering (University of Campinas)
Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering (University of Campinas)

Professional Publications & Contributions

Valotta Rodrigues, R., Pedersen, M. M., Schøler, J. P., Quick, J., & Réthoré, P. E. (2024). Speeding up large-wind-farm layout optimization using gradients, parallelization, and a heuristic algorithm for the initial layout. Wind Energy Science, 9(2), 321-341.
Risco, J. C., Rodrigues, R. V., Friis-Møller, M., Quick, J., Pedersen, M. M., & Réthoré, P. E. (2024). Gradient-based wind farm layout optimization with inclusion and exclusion zones. Wind Energy Science, 9(3), 585-600.
Quick, J., Rethore, P. E., Pedersen, M. M., Rodrigues, R. V., & Friis-Moller, M. (2023). Stochastic gradient descent for wind farm optimization. Wind Energy Science, 8(8), 1235-1250.
Ciavarra, A. W., Rodrigues, R. V., Dykes, K., & Réthoré, P. E. (2022, May). Wind farm optimization with multiple hub heights using gradient-based methods. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 2265, No. 2, p. 022012). IOP Publishing.
Rodrigues, R. V., Friis-Møller, M., Dykes, K., Pollini, N., & Jensen, M. (2022, May). A surrogate model of offshore wind farm annual energy production to support financial evaluation. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 2265, No. 2, p. 022003). IOP Publishing.
Valotta Rodrigues, R., Puryear, M., Sederstrom, D., & Lengsfeld, C. S. (2019). Parameters influencing cavitation within vials subjected to drop shock. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 19210.
Rodrigues, R. V., & Lengsfeld, C. (2019). Development of a computational system to improve wind farm layout, Part I: Model validation and near wake analysis. Energies, 12(5), 940.
Rodrigues, R. V., & Lengsfeld, C. (2019). Development of a computational system to improve wind farm layout, part ii: Wind turbine wakes interaction. Energies, 12(7), 1328.

Additional Information

GitHub:

https://github.com/rafaelvalotta

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/home

Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-valotta-rodrigues-73b7628a

Wind Energy Lab Website:

https://valottarodrigues.weebly.com/