AERODYNAMIC SHAPE OPTIMIZATION OF A VERTICAL AXIS WIND TURBINE

To my mother Linda and my father Brian who always pushed me to work hard and pursue my goals. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to start off by thanking my supervising professor Dr. Brian H. Dennis for giving me a place to work and providing advice and insight in the areas of fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, and computational fluid dynamics. I also would like to thank my academic advisors Dr. Zhen Xue Han and Dr. Bo Ping Wang for their interest in my research and words of encouragement and for taking time to serve on my thesis committee. I would also like to thank my friends and coworkers at Pointwise for their con-tinued support throughout my education. I wish to thank Dr. Chris Sideroff and Ms. Carolyn Dear for always pushing me to work harder and for the many discussions and invaluable pieces of advice. I would like to thank my parents, Linda and Brian, and my sister Kayla, for their encouragement and patience throughout my education. I would also like to express my gratitude to Pete Stewart who not only trusted me enough to allow me to help restore aircraft in his hangar, but for inspiring me to pursue a degree in Aerospace Engineering. Finally, I am extremely grateful to Richard Neves for sitting in the right seat of N8137U and teaching me how to fly