Research Interests

• Wind energy
• Aerodynamics
• CFD
• Wind turbine wake aerodynamics
• Fatigue of wind turbines
• Atmospheric boundary layers
• Hurricane boundary layers
• Economic turbine design
• Scaled wind turbine design
• Airfoil aerodynamics

Curriculum Vitae

• 2012 – 2016: B. Sc. & Eng. Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
• 2017 – 2019: M.Sc. Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
• 2019 – 2024: Ph.D. Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
• 2024: Graduate Researcher, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO, USA
• 2025 – Present: Post Doctoral Research Associate, Chair of Wind Energy, Technische Universität München, Germany

Publications

• Major, D. & Schmitz, S. (2024) On the role of induced power in turbine wake scaling: bridging 100-m to 0.1-m rotors, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2767(2), pp. 022055. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2767/2/022055.

• Duque, E., Amels, D.A., Legensky, S.M., Major, D., & Schmitz, S. (2024) In situ and extract-based Data Analytics of Unsteady CFD simulations of a ship airwake, Proceedings of the AIAA AVIATION 2024 Forum (Las Vegas, NV, USA). https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2024-4508.

• Major, D. & Schmitz, S. (2023) SFS2 off-bow airwakes: effects of Reynolds number and atmospheric boundary layers, Aerospace Science and Technology Journal, 14, pp. 108502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2023.108502.

• Major, D., Schmitz, S., Shipman, J., Bin, J., & Polsky, S. (2023) Assessment of numerical models for ship airwake simulations with unsteady atmospheric boundary-layer effects, Proceedings of the AIAA AVIATION 2023 Forum (San Diego, CA, USA). https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-3692.

• Major, D., Churchfield, M., & Schmitz, S. (2022) Fatigue study of an inverse-designed low induction rotor using open-source tools, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2265(4), p. 042032. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2265/4/042034.

• Yin, Y., Major, D., Huang, D., & Schmitz, S. (2022) Reduced-order modeling of ship airwakes with atmospheric turbulence effects using dynamic graph networks, Proceedings of the 2022 AIAA SciTech Forum (San Diego, CA, USA). https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2022-2533.

• Major, D., Palacios, J., Maughmer, M., & Schmitz, S. (2020) Aerodynamics of leading-edge protection tapes for wind turbine blades, Wind Engineering, 45(5), pp 1296-1316. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309524X20975446.

• Major, D., Palacios, J., Maughmer, M., & Schmitz, S. (2020) A numerical model for the analysis of leading-edge protection tapes for wind turbine blades, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1452(1), pp 012058. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1452/1/012058.