FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network

We sat down with David, to talk about his research, expectations, and what led him to FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network. After working on hydroelectric and mining projects, he saw firsthand the environmental and social challenges of traditional energy. That’s what inspired him to shift his focus to offshore wind energy. Now, as a PhD researcher at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, David is working on numerical modeling of monopile foundations - helping make offshore wind projects more efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable. Check out his story! ????

As our FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network students pass the one-year mark of their PhDs, let’s check in on their research! Dayu Yang is focusing on pile installation in high-strength soils. These are challenging conditions for pile driving, often leading to early pile refusal—or in the worst case—damage to the pile and hammer. To understand how piles behave in these soils during installation, Dayu is using the Material Point Method (MPM), a powerful numerical modelling technique that handles large deformations more effectively than traditional numerical techniques. MPM combines the advantages of both mesh- and particle-based methods by allowing a set of material points to move freely within a fixed background mesh, both of which are partially coupled to one another. With MPM and the hypoplastic constitutive model, Dayu is currently modelling the dynamic installation response of 1.2m diameter open-ended piles in the Port of Rotterdam. These piles were instrumented fibre optic sensors and later axially load tested as part of Dirk de Lange's PhD. Dayu’s work will extend to different pile geometries, installation methods and soil conditions—laying the foundations for a better understanding of soil/structure interaction mechanisms.

Anteneh, a PhD researcher with a background in civil and geotechnical engineering, is diving deep into the challenges of monopile foundations for offshore wind turbines. With turbines getting bigger, existing designs struggle to account for new failure modes and fatigue life – that's where his research comes in. Why the FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network project? Anteneh is driven by the desire to contribute to innovative solutions and expand his technical expertise, all while bridging the gap between academia and industry. Check out his full interview to learn more about his exciting work! #msca #engineering #frontiers #geotecnical #civil #engineering #offshorewind #mscaactions #horizoneurope #horizoneurope #ukri #renewableenergy #offshore #wind #turbines #monopiles

Dayu is a PhD student at Delft University of Technology, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Geo-Engineering from Southeast University. We discussed his research on vibratory pile installation and the challenges he is working to overcome. His work aims to quantify axial resistance during installation using advanced numerical simulation methods, such as the material point method and the particle finite element method. By integrating advanced constitutive models into open-source platforms like Kratos and Anura, he is addressing the limitations of commercial software. Dayu was inspired to join the FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network project by Prof. Kenneth Gavin, whose expertise and vision motivated him to apply. #msca #engineering #frontiers #offshorewind #mscaactions #horizoneurope #horizoneurope #ukri #renewableenergy

?? ?? Warm holiday wishes from FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network! We are thankful for all the hard work and achievements in 2024. Here’s to an even greater 2025! ??

?? Check out the latest video in our interview series! We had the pleasure of speaking with Marc, a civil engineer specialising in design calculations for steel towers and their foundations. He shared insights about his project, MONO-JACK-3D, which focuses on: ? The repercussions of spatial variability on soil properties. ? Developing methodological approaches to assess the reliability and risks associated with turbine foundations. He also enjoys working at the intersection of academia and industry, combining research and real-world applications. #msca #engineering #frontiers #offshorewind #mscaactions #horizoneurope #horizoneurope #ukri #renewableenergy

?? Two Amazing Months at NTNU ?? As a PhD student based in NGI and affiliated with NTNU, I had the great opportunity to spend two months in NTNU campus, as a part of my secondment plan within FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network The highlight of my visit was attending the one-week Soil Modelling course, taught by Dr Gertraud Medicus, Professor Gustav Grimstad and Dr Seyed Ali Ghoreishian Amiri, which provided me with valuable insights and knowledge in my field. Over the two months, I was delighted to meet and interact with fellow PhDs and postdocs from Geotechnical Department. Beyond academics, the vibrant social scene - from casual hangouts to the lively Department Christmas Party - made the experience even more memorable. Thank you everyone who made this two months so special! ?? #FRONTIErS #Offshore Wind #NTNU #Soil Modelling

How can we maximise the efficiency of offshore hammers? IQIP?'s EQ-Piling hammer is a new, innovative solution for reducing noise and pile fatigue during installation. The hammer uses several hundred tonnes of seawater to dampen the impact force on the pile, prolonging the impact time by up to 15–20 times longer than conventional methods and creating a quieter solution to offshore piling that minimises the risk of pile fatigue. However, how this installation method affects the pile’s geotechnical resistance remains an open question. Tristan Quinten's research uses the centrifuge in TU Delft to answer this question, comparing the installation behaviour and lateral response of monopiles installed with EQ-Piling to monopiles installed with conventional techniques. A key focus of Tristan’s work is the dynamic soil response, particularly the partially drained behaviour of saturated soils during pile installation. His research highlights the importance of rate effects like shear thinning, which significantly influence fluid viscosity under dynamic conditions. Combining this knowledge with a specially designed anvil and a wide array of sensors, the hammer performance and the saturated soil response can be accurately modelled and quantified. As his PhD draws to a close, Tristan is finalising publications on shear thinning in viscous fluids and comparing the installation and lateral loading response of monopiles installed using different methods. Sara Banaei Moghadam's PhD is also following up on this work, looking at field test results from EQ-Piling installations as part of the FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network. Stay tuned for further insights!

??? ?? In our interview with Kazem, we discussed the opportunities that come from the FRONTIErS - Doctoral Network and #MSCA programs. Collaborating with ESTEYCO and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Kazem values the unique combination of academic research and industry application offered by FRONTIErS, as well as the networking opportunities it provides to connect with global experts in the field. His project, GB-SCOUR, addresses scour development and protective measures for gravity-based foundations in offshore wind turbines, a critical factor in ensuring their stability and longevity. #FRONTIErS #UKRI #MSCA #MSCAActions #HorizonEurope #OffshoreWind #RenewableEnergy #Engineering #Sustainabilit #innovation

Interested in a PhD in the BRIDGITISE Doctoral Network (MSCA Industrial Doctoral Network on Bridge Digitalised Integrity Management)? Apply now: https://lnkd.in/e4kSrUz9 Project Info: CODES-Small data becoming big data Hosting institution:?Politecnico di Milano (PoliMI),?Ramboll (RAM), North Consulting (NOR) Supervisors: Joan Roldsgaard (RAM), Michael Havbro Faber (NOR), Maria Pina Limongelli (PoliMI) Objectives:?To develop a methodology to share and integrate monitoring information into bridge design codes Description:?The uncertainty affecting the prediction of the structural behavior and loading is normally represented by safety factors in the design codes. These factors do not account for the availability of information. The access to digital information for bridges has increasingly grown in the last decade. This includes both information gained from sensors, but also inspections, as-built information etc. Their availability has significantly enhanced the modelling of the actions (loading) and their effects for different bridge types. Recently, researchers have been focused upon quantifying the uncertainty of monitoring data to be used in the value quantification. However, bridge-specific or bridge type-specific information is not used in a broader context or in a more generic well-defined context such as how much the potential reduction in safety factor can be based on monitoring data. Design and asset management of a larger group of bridges with similar properties can take advantage of the knowledge gained from the small pool of bridges, where a detailed understanding of the loading and the load effects has been established. This project will develop a framework to (a) codify and publicly share monitoring information collected from a limited pool of bridges of different types. This will include the adoption of robust and reliable online sampling from multiple sources and clients to improve the quality of the data; (b) the extraction of correlations in the monitoring data gathered from a limited pool of different bridges for the creation of a probabilistic prediction model of a bridge to be used in general; (c) the updating of the probabilistic model using monitored data; (d) the identification of the process to use the probabilistic model to update design codes in adapted online versions. #PhD #MSCA #HorizonEurope #DoctoralNetwork ?