Prof. Hong led the research to quantify how a utility-scale wind turbine chops into the surrounding air using PIV to image snowflakes at nighttime. This study gave new insights into how how the turbulence around the wind turbine causes inefficiency in power production. It was published in Nature Communication and was featured in National Geographic.
Hong, J., Toloui, M., Chamorro, L. P., Guala, M., Howard, K., Riley, S., ... & Sotiropoulos, F. (2014).Natural snowfall reveals large-scale flow structures in the wake of a 2.5-MW wind turbine. Nature Communications, 5. (Highlight of Nature Communication)