March 30, 2007

Aerogenesis Owner Appointed Journal Editor.

David Wood has just been appointed the Editor for Aerodynamics and Small Turbines by the international journal Wind Engineering which is published by Multi-Science Publishing in the U.K.. David joined the Editorial Board of this professional journal in 2001 and the promotion is a recognition of his international reputation in the field. In order to accept this position he had to forgo an invitation to join the Editorial Board of Wind Energy, another leading professional journal. 

A journal editor's role is to receive and organize the review of scholarly papers on all aspects of the subject. Sometimes the editor is also a reviewer and often he or she attempts to improve the authors' English: David remembers being thanked, after one such effort, "from the button of my heart". The editor's duties can be onerous if plagiarism is suspected or there are strong disagreements between author(s) and reviewer(s). Science may be objective but scientists rarely are.

David views his promotion as symbolic of, and significant for Aerogenesis's efforts to stay at the forefront of small wind technology. While we know a lot about the basic science and performance of small wind turbines and can design and build very efficient turbines, there is still much to learn, mainly in the area of unsteady performance. For example, we do not fully understand the complex behaviour and interaction of the aerodynamics, dynamics, and the control system when the wind speed suddenly changes.