WaPT-Wake Prediction Technologies

WaPT (pronounced « wapiti »), standing for « Wake Prediction Technologies », is a spin-off company from Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), aiming at providing solutions to wake-related issues for aeronautical and wind energy applications. For aeronautical applications, WaPT experts use their know-how and wake modeling tools to support the definition, the refinement and the certification of new operational concepts for air traffic management. The application of these new concepts should allow air traffic controllers to cope with airport congestion issues directly related to the current air traffic increase. Wake-related issues are also found in wind energy applications. Using its simulation tools and its expertise, WaPT brings solutions to problems related to several aspects of the power production optimization. The simulation results are useful at all stages of the wind farm design and operation: design of the blade and of the rotor, optimization of the turbine positioning, assessment and optimization of existing farms and predictive maintenance. WaPT benefits from the state-of-the-art technology developed at UCL and from the broad know-how in wake modeling, analysis and numerical simulation that has been acquired for more than 15 years in the research teams of Prof. Philippe Chatelain and Prof. Grégoire Winckelmans. Two types of numerical simulation software are used and further developed at WaPT: operational modeling tools (very fast, using simplified “engineering” models) and advanced numerical simulation tools (robust and efficient for high-performance parallel computing - HPC). WaPT also benefits from the support of the Walloon Incubator for engineering sciences (WSL).