Anchoring Power: Ensuring Control and Stability in Offshore Energy Hubs

We rely on electricity daily, from checking our phones in the morning to grabbing breakfast from the fridge. We drive to work in electric cars and spend much of our day on computers. And just like our internet connection, we need our power supply to be stable. That’s where Assistant Professor Aleksandra Lekić plays a key role. She focuses on the control and stability of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power systems, including offshore energy hubs like wind farms and floating solar panels. Her work is vital in preventing major disruptions, such as blackouts, that could impact the entire power grid.

Energy hub als krachtig concept in de energietransitie

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reading time: 8 min

Intermittent computing to replace trillions of batteries

New system enables devices to keep time during intermittent power outages.

Reading time: 4 min

Evacuating virtual buildings

Virtual Reality (VR) is not just about gaming or flight simulators. At TU Delft, PhD Yan Feng is investigating how it may help explain the behaviour of pedestrians. It took her just five months to teach herself how to create a complex virtual building. By then she had built an exact replica of her faculty building and invited real people to explore and evacuate it. So how did they find their way around?

reading time: 6.5 min

Modelling a flexible electricity system

Using numerical analysis, Marieke Kootte is developing a model to link high-voltage and low-voltage distribution networks.
Maakt wandelen en fietsen je gelukkig en gezond?

Reading time: 4 min

Do walking and cycling make people healthier, or are healthier people more inclined to travel actively? And how does the coronavirus affect our travel behaviour? These are the kinds of questions that scientist Maarten Kroesen is investigating. In his view, situations are often not as simple as they might seem at first glance. He is nevertheless convinced of one thing: we should be walking and cycling more.

Can walking and cycling make us healthy and happy?

Do walking and cycling make people healthier, or are healthier people more inclined to travel actively? And how does the coronavirus affect our travel behaviour? These are the kinds of questions that scientist Maarten Kroesen is investigating. In his view, situations are often not as simple as they might seem at first glance. He is nevertheless convinced of one thing: we should be walking and cycling more.

reading time: 2, 5 min

Acoustic control of your environment

Imagine this: you can control the acoustics of your environment, no matter the size and shape of the space around you, your access to electricity, and the type of sound you’d like to control. That is what the ADAM project prototype offers. With the use of mathematical models and 3D printing, amongst others, ADAM allows the creation of tailor made sound absorbers.
Burgers betrekken bij duivelse beleidsdilemma’s

Reading time: 7 min

The Dutch lockdown is provisionally set to last until 20 May. So how will life continue after that date? Niek Mouter is researching the public’s preferences with regard to various exit scenarios. It’s a subject that has sparked a lot of interest, with as many as 18,000 people taking part in this Participatory Value Evaluation in the first two days alone.

Involving the public in policy quandaries

The Dutch lockdown is provisionally set to last until 20 May. So how will life continue after that date? Niek Mouter is researching the public’s preferences with regard to various exit scenarios. It’s a subject that has sparked a lot of interest, with as many as 18,000 people taking part in this Participatory Value Evaluation in the first two days alone.

Reading time: 3 min

Looking into the earth with sound

A student is hitting a metal plate with a hammer while another is looking at a computer screen in a nearby tent. What (on earth) is happening here? ‘We’re studying the earth’s interior,’ PhD and geophysicist Myrna Staring says.
De stem van Solotvyno

Watching time: 7 min

Former salt empire Solotvyno is located in western Ukraine. Today, the area suffers from the effects of salt extraction: an unstable subsurface resulting in massive sinkholes that threaten the life of the community. Two researchers from Delft University of Technology participated in a consortium to develop a disaster risk reduction plan together with the community. With the aim of giving the population a voice and building on a safer future. This short documentary provides insight into the process.

The voice of Solotvyno

Former salt empire Solotvyno is located in western Ukraine. Today, the area suffers from the effects of salt extraction: an unstable subsurface resulting in massive sinkholes that threaten the life of the community. Two researchers from Delft University of Technology participated in a consortium to develop a disaster risk reduction plan together with the community. With the aim of giving the population a voice and building on a safer future. This short documentary provides insight into the process.

reading time: 6 min

A fresh perspective on potato growth

Requiring less water and less time to grow than rice, corn or wheat, potatoes may well be the answer to the growing worldwide demand for food. But what are the key factors that determine a successful potato harvest? Asked to provide a fresh perspective, Neil Budko develops numerical methods for the analysis of carefully controlled potato growth experiments.

reading time: 3 min

Charting pollution around the globe

Satellites are the best available instruments to detect man-made pollution worldwide. Now they can also reveal how government measures to combat the spread of the corona virus are changing our air quality. That impact is huge, atmosphere researcher Pieternel Levelt discovered. She helped pioneer OMI and TROPOMI, currently the most advanced satellite instruments to chart harmful pollutants in revealing detail.

reading time: 4 min

Who shapes a child’s world? Co-design with kids

PhD candidate Lodewijk de Vet stood in the mud for weeks, in order to learn about organisms in the seabed and to take measurements. He wants to understand the Eastern and Western Scheldt better, so that he can help the ecology while simultaneously protecting our country from rising sea levels. His understanding of these areas served as a foundation for the Roggenplaat nourishments, that have since been executed.

reading time: 4 min

A post-coronavirus society

Piet Van Mieghem usually researches all kinds of complex networks, like the internet or the brain. He now uses his knowledge as a weapon against COVID-19 and he is working on a exit-strategy.

reading time: 6 min

A bit of math to constrain epidemics

Most people like to keep both mathematics and epidemics at a distance. But a little bit of the former can do wonders in limiting the latter. Supervised by professor Kees Vuik, two high school students modelled a recent outbreak of cholera in Ghana. He also has a bachelor student investigating the new corona virus.

reading time: 4 min

Giving all children space to play

Several hundred children in the Netherlands are lying in hospital beds, undergoing cancer treatment; around the world, that number is in the millions. Treatment can last for months and, even when a child’s treatment comes to an end, there are the follow up visits, which go on for a further three years on average. Children undergoing cancer treatment lose out on a lot, from attending school to playing sports. Boudewijn Boon, who just completed his PhD at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, developed a framework in his thesis to help these children with something else they miss out on: play.

Watching time: 12 min

Lights of the Lake

Four designers from Delft University of Technology travelled to Lake Victoria, Tanzania and partnered with Sagar Energy Solutions to design a solar-powered fishing lamp for the night fishing industry. This effort aims to put an end to the reliance on dangerous and expensive kerosene lanterns.

reading time: 9 min

We\Visit: combatting loneliness with video-calling

Visiting a loved one who’s critically ill: normally that’s possible, but due to the coronavirus, visiting ICUs is no longer permitted. The result is a lonely fight behind closed doors. In an attempt to combat the loneliness, researchers at Delft University of Technology have come up with We\Visit: a tool that facilitates video-calling by appointment. And it was developed at lightning speed after the Reinier de Graaf hospital sounded the alarm.

reading time: 2 min

Analysing firefighter calls on New Year’s Eve

At present an active societal debate is going on in the Netherlands whether consumer fireworks should be banned. The reason: increasing violence directed at first aid responders, annually increasing arson and damage to public and private property. Researchers Mikhail Sirenko, Trivik Verma, and Igor Nikolic decided to analyse the firefighter calls and support the debate with facts and figures.

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reading time: 5 min

Purifying water with diamonds

Diamonds have always captured our imagination as a material for jewellery. Fewer of us are aware that engineers also consider diamonds to be an absolutely prime material with many, surprising applications. Researcher Ivan Buijnsters at TU Delft, for example, focuses on purifying water with diamonds.

Watching time: 4 min

Recycling mouth masks

In the fight against the increasing shortage of mouth masks, researchers from TU Delft developed in collaboration with Van Straten Medical B.V. a new way of sterilizing used masks and testing their quality. This could be a successful solution for the rising demand.

reading time: 4 min

Into the mud to help nature

PhD candidate Lodewijk de Vet stood in the mud for weeks, in order to learn about organisms in the seabed and to take measurements. He wants to understand the Eastern and Western Scheldt better, so that he can help the ecology while simultaneously protecting our country from rising sea levels. His understanding of these areas served as a foundation for the Roggenplaat nourishments, that have since been executed.

reading time: 5 min

Sand on the horizon

viewing time: 11 min

How to Print a Dinosaur

Anchoring Power: Ensuring Control and Stability in Offshore Energy Hubs

Energy hub als krachtig concept in de energietransitie

reading time: 8 min

Puzzling over behavioural models for sustainable greenhouse horticulture

reading time: 5 min

Battling the data hunger of Big Tech

reading time: 5 min

Cybersecurity | Story of Team Science | Technische Universiteit Delft

reading time: 4 min

Heating your home with lake water: the 'magic' of aquathermal energy

reading time: min

Protecting vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks with physics-inspired AI

leestijd: 5 min

How do we keep our cities clean and accessible? | TU Delft
Mahnam Saeednia sits on a bench at the train station. Next to her is a package that points a megaphone at her.

reading time: 10 min

Giving freight a voice

reading time: 4 min

Our concrete inheritance: not always desired but definitely important

reading time: 2 min

How to design the train stations of tomorrow

reading time: min

Rethinking transport in cities

reading time: 8 min

Hassle as a limiting factor for using energy when the sun shines

reading time: 10 min

Damping waves with 50,000 rubber grass blades

Solar panels, solar systems, photovoltaics, energy transition

From waves to shadows: Optimizing solar systems by modelling their energy output

Social skills for digital humans

reading time: 3, 5 min

From industrial heat to a social glow(-up)

Story

Open data is taking off in aviation – thanks to BlueSky

reading time: 5 min

Supercharged sustainability: designing circular solar panels

reading time: 6 min

Critical raw materials, from our own European backyard
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