TU Delft has been pushing the boundaries of technical innovation for more than 180 years. Ever since its foundation in 1842, the university has continuously served the interest of Dutch society. TU Delft is today known around the world as a prominent university of technology that boasts an impressive technical-scientific and innovative capacity, as well as clear-sighted societal relevance, aiming at Impact for a Sustainable Society.
The department of Hydraulic Engineering (HE) at the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences aims to develop state-of-the-art engineering solutions for high-water safety, nature development, water-born transport and renewable energy, based on a thorough understanding of natural system dynamics, its response to interventions and infrastructure design. We increasingly do so against the broader context of international initiatives like the Paris Climate Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework.
The department of Maritime & Transport Technology at the Faculty Mechanical Engineering is a multi-disciplinary department addressing ships and offshore structures as well as dredging, maritime operations, transport and shipping operations, and material handling. It is the departments mission to address the global challenges by expanding the frontiers of the maritime and transport engineering sciences as well as educating new generations of socially responsible engineers. To achieve that, we work along the seven themes Submerged Seabed Systems, Future Ships & Complex Flows, Safe Autonomous & Complex Ships, Reliable Large Floating Systems, Impactless Material Handling Systems, Coordinated Multi-Machine Transport & Logistics, Sustainable Drive & Energy Systems that are founded in the more fundamental areas of research on the one hand and have clear links to relevant application domains on the other.
The research group Delta Urbanism at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Envirnment started as a collaboration between the department of Urbanism and Hydraulic Engineering already 25 years ago. Since, many national and international projects like the Dutch Dialogues in Houston, Tsunami response in Japan, IPPD and SARCC marked the approach in the development of theory and methods for research and education on highly dynamic landscapes in the transitional space between land and water. The anaysis, diagnoses and design of spatial systems that includes the water ystem is crucial in transformation – or maybe returning to – urban landscapes that can anticipate to the challenges of climate change.
In the Urbanism department the team contributes to the spatial embedding of floating futures in different landscape typologies and studies how spatial transformation can be floating-inclusive. The work aims at an interdisciplinary design approach which can be done in collaboration with the consortium, and and the same time take a mediating role.
At Mechanical Engineering the research in this project will focus on reducing the mooring and coupling forces of very large floating structures to acceptable levels. To achieve this, we will use experimental and numerical modelling of the force and motion response of the very large floating structures as well as identify and exploit mechanism to reduce the loading.
At the Hydraulic Engineering department we will study the impact of large floating developments on the marine and coastal environment, and work on the development of large wave damping eco reefs around these developments.
