Jason Jonkman, Ph.D. is a principal engineer at NREL. He is the lead developer of the OpenFAST and FAST.Farm multiphysics engineering tools for designing and analyzing land-based and offshore fixed and floating wind turbines and wind farms. Jonkman supports several International Energy Agency Wind Technology Collaboration Programme (IEA Wind) tasks on wind energy model verification and validation. He is also a member of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) working group to develop design requirements for floating offshore wind turbines. Jonkman earned a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Research Interests

Wind Turbine Aero-Hydro-Servo-Elastics

Wind Farm Wake and Array Effects

Floating Offshore Wind System Dynamics and Design

Model Verification, Validation, and Uncertainty Quantification

Wind Turbine and Wind Farm Loads Analysis and Design

Education

Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University

B.S.E., Mechanical Engineering, Dordt College (now Dordt University)

Professional Experience

Principal Engineer, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2001–Present)

Graduate Research Assistant, Colorado State University (1999–2001)

Tool Design Engineer, The Boeing Commercial Airplane Group (1997–1999)

Associations and Memberships

Professional Member, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Featured Work

FAST.Farm Development and Validation of Structural Load Prediction Against Large Eddy Simulations, Wind Energy (2021)

Functional Requirements for the WEIS Toolset to Enable Controls Co-Design of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines, 3^rd International Offshore Wind Technical Conference (2021)

Implementation of Substructure Flexibility and Member-Level Load Capabilities for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines in OpenFAST, NREL Technical Report (2020)

Sensitivity Analysis of the Effect of Wind Characteristics and Turbine Properties on Wind Turbine Loads, Wind Energy Science (2019)

A Validation and Code-to-Code Verification of FAST for a Megawatt-Scale Wind Turbine With Aeroelastically Tailored Blades, Wind Energy Science (2017)

FAST modularization framework for wind turbine simulation: full-system linearization, The Science of Making Torque from Wind (2016)

The New Modularization Framework for the FAST Wind Turbine CAE Tool, 51^st AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (2013)

Dynamics of Offshore Floating Wind Turbines—Analysis of Three Concepts, Wind Energy (2011)

Dynamics of Offshore Floating Wind Turbines—Model Development and Verification, Wind Energy (2009)

Definition of a 5-MW Reference Wind Turbine for Offshore System Development, NREL Technical Report (2009)

View all NREL publications for Jason Jonkman.

Awards and Honors

BNOW’s Viterna Award for Engineering Excellence (2022)

NREL’s Key Contributor Award (2020)

NREL’s Outstanding Performance Staff Award (2013)

EWEA’s Excellent Young Wind Doctor Award (2008)