Richard Willden

Professor Richard Willden is a Professor of Offshore Renewable Energy and Deputy Head of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. He holds a MEng and PhD from Imperial College London, with postdoctoral experience at Cambridge University. His research focuses on fluid mechanics, tidal and wind energy systems, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and turbine design optimization. He has pioneered work on tidal stream energy conversion, actuator line methods for turbine modeling, and multi-rotor array configurations to enhance energy extraction efficiency.

• Education: BEng (Aeronautics, Imperial College London, 1998); PhD (Imperial College London, 2002)

His research interests include optimizing turbine performance under complex flow conditions, mitigating wake effects in arrays, and advancing numerical methods for renewable energy systems. Notable contributions include studies on tidal turbine array dynamics, floating platform-hydrodynamic interactions, and high-fidelity CFD modeling of turbine wake behavior.

His work has addressed challenges in tidal energy extraction efficiency, blade deformation effects, and the impact of environmental factors like currents and waves on turbine performance. He has also contributed to international benchmarking initiatives for tidal turbine testing and validation.