North America’s first wind farm could soon rise off Rhode Island’s coast. With it will come a real-life laboratory to explore the engineering required to keep upright wind turbines pounded by waves, hurricanes and salty air.

For engineering Assistant Professor Aaron Bradshaw, the potential to study an offshore wind farm in the University of Rhode Island’s backyard comes at the perfect time.

Bradshaw, 38, arrived at the University in January 2011 seeking research projects that would mix his passions in structural foundations, water and U.S. energy independence.

The planned wind farm in Block Island Sound provides just the fit, plus the chance to write the book on wind turbine foundations in North American waters.

“My interest is what can we learn from our first experience with these turbines and what can we do to optimize the design?” Bradshaw says.

Bradshaw hopes that wind farm developer Deepwater Wind will allow him to place measuring instruments on the turbine foundations. Data from the instruments would be fed into a computer to model the effects of the design.

Even if the instruments are never placed on the turbines, there’s plenty of work to be done. With the aid of computers and some laboratory data already collected through URI research projects, Bradshaw has much to analyze.

“What we’re trying to do is reduce risk and cost in the design of offshore wind structures,” Bradshaw says. “The cost of offshore wind energy must come down to be a competitive alternative energy source.”

Bradshaw is getting some help from his students, who play a key role in all the professor’s research.

“I don’t make a distinction between research and teaching,” he says.

Bradshaw also offers his students a dose of real-world experience. After graduating from Tufts University and the University of Rhode Island, he spent three years as a geotechnical engineer in Seattle inspecting structures in the field. As a Ph.D. student at the University of Rhode Island, he was tapped by a professor for a research project investigating the liquefaction behavior of soils during earthquakes. In early 2011, he headed to New Zealand for two weeks to study the impact of a 6.3-magnitude earthquake on bridge foundations in the country.

“It doesn’t get any better for me,” Bradshaw says. “This is my dream job.”