Latest News

The interdisciplinary research consortium PRELIFE has been awarded an NWA grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to investigate the origin of life on Earth and in the universe, one of science’s greatest unsolved puzzles. The consortium will receive €6.7 million to explore this question and comprises scientists from sixteen universities and research institutes across the Netherlands.

Trees are excellent teachers when it comes to making materials for load-bearing structures with as little resources and energy as possible. One of their secrets? When a tree grows, the direction of the wood grain adapts itself to fit the load that part of the tree is going to bear.

On 24 October conservator Cormac Duggan from the TU Delft Tailor-Made heritage team carries out a conservation cleaning on the F-104 Starfighter plane ejection seat next to the service desk in the Fellowship. Cormac and his colleagues are currently making an inventory of the faculty’s collection of heritage objects with the aim to conserve them and present some throughout the faculty. The ejection seat is part of the collection.

PostNL has released a stamp sheet on the occasion of international Stamp Day featuring two innovative and sustainable means of transport developed at TU Delft. The stamps feature alongside King Willem-Alexander, the WASP, a wind-assisted cargo ship and the Flying-V, an energy-efficient aircraft design for long distances.

We are very sad to have to inform you that our colleague Dries Allaerts passed away on 10th October. Dries was Assistant Professor Wind Energy.

In March 2024, the EUROCONTROL air traffic control centre MUAC in Maastricht launched a new software tool that allows their air traffic controllers to make faster and more intuitive decisions about air traffic in their area. The tool was developed by MUAC , but is based on research into ecological interfaces by colleagues Clark Borst, René van Paassen and Max Mulder at Control & Simulation.

On 1 September, Jos van den Boom, Lennard Verhoeff, and Victor Rijkaart joined the new executive team of Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport (RHIA).This trio is preparing to usher in the next phase of RHIA. A period in which, community-driven, privately led and publicly supported, they want to make visible and where possible accelerate the transition to a cleaner, quieter and smarter future of aviation.

As the need for systems engineers is rising, TU Delft and NXTGEN Hightech are organising a unique global event on systems engineering on October 8 and 9, 2024. Thoughtleaders from organisations such as Airbus, ASML, MIT and NASA will discuss the future needs of the Systems Engineering workforce tackling the major transformations in society.

Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney and Delft University of Technology, have signed a master research agreement (MRA) enabling bilateral collaboration across a range of sustainable aviation research opportunities, including advanced materials, hydrogen propulsion, advanced manufacturing and industrial design.