• Energy Research
• OA Publications Mandate: No close
• 2019 close

The offshore wind industry has experienced significant growth in recent years, and continues to expand both in the UK and worldwide. Most of the offshore wind turbines installed to date are located in relatively shallow water and are mounted on fixed bottom support structures. Given the limitation of suitable shallow water sites available with high wind resources and also to reduce the environmental and visual impact of turbines, it is necessary to extend wind turbines to deeper water through the development of floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) systems, which mount wind turbines on floating support platforms. The project aims to fill an important gap in the design, manufacturing and testing of emerging FOWT techniques by specifically characterising extreme loading on FOWTs under complex and harsh marine environments. These are typically represented by storm conditions consisting of strong wind, extreme waves, significant current, rising sea level and complex interplay between these elements, through a coordinated campaign of both advanced CFD modelling and physical wave tank tests. This has direct relevance to the current and planned activities in the UK to develop this new technology in offshore wind. In addition, the project aims to develop a suite of hierarchical numerical models that can be applied routinely for both fast and detailed analysis of the specific flow problem of environmental (wind, wave, current) loading and dynamic responses of FOWTs under realistic storm conditions. As an integral part of the project, a new experimental programme will be devised and conducted in the COAST laboratory at the University of Plymouth, providing improved understanding of the underlying physics and for validating the numerical models. Towards the end of the project, fully documented CFD software and experimental data sets will be released to relevant industrial users and into the Public Domain, so that they may be used to aid the design of future support structures of FOWTs and to secure their survivability with an extended envelope of safe operation for maximum power output.

Offshore wind is proving very attractive for operators, especially due to the higher yields and less resistance from onshore homeowners and stakeholders. It is predicted that it could provide all the UK's electricity requirement, with minimal emission and visual impacts. However, there exist a major barrier to further exploitation due to the high levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from offshore wind (£140/MWhr), which is 2-3 times higher than other key renewable sources (onshore wind and solar) and nuclear (a large non-renewable, but low emission source). The high LCOE is caused by the severe environmental conditions, which results in high operational, reliability and maintenance (O&M) costs, with the seabed turbine foundations (largely monopiles) accounting for over 25% of all lifecycle O&M costs, often caused by marine biofouling. Current methods of fouling prevention (dangerous: diver-deployed cleaning tools such as brushes and power jets) or ROVs (high annual costs ~ £30k/MW) are proving very costly and ineffective -- creating the need for an innovative solution to tackle this problem. The project will develop a fouling management system consisting of a mobile survey and cleaning robot that will eliminate the need for divers and ROVs. The robot will be placed on the turbine structure at sea level and will journey down below sea level to the work place. The robot will travel autonomously over the entire subsea monopile surface, imaging the fouling in real time. It will simultaneously activate its cleaning function at every fouled location and remove the fouling with an innovative guided power ultrasound technique. On returning to the sea surface the robot would simply be transported to the next turbine scheduled for treatment, and the cycle repeated. Overall O&M costs will be reduced by at least 50% compared with present diver/ROV techniques. This would mean a £7/MW (5%) reduction in LCOE.

The optimal design configuration of MUFOPs ensures the performance is analysed and texted under operation, parking and storms events. And delivers minimal or no wake interactions with adequate nacelles accelerations and platform motions, which has yet not investigated and the present study will involve. Therefore, the overall aim of this research is to address the challenges of modelling MUFOPs. In particular, develop numerical simulation tools for the dynamics of W2Power platform with 12MW (2x6MW) wind turbines coupled with a mooring system under both operational and extreme load conditions.

The proposed project aims to develop an innovative BeeSave device to kill Varroa mites in beehives. The device uses a phase change material (PCM) pack. Research shows that Varroa mites can be killed during all development stages if they are exposed to temperatures ranging between 40°C to 47°C for ~ 150 minutes. These temperatures are safely tolerated by honey bee brood and adults and do not damage the honeycomb, which will be supplied by the integrated PCM pack installed in the beehives. The innovative system is compact, robust and low cost and does not require electricity. The technology is highly portable and simple to use, as heat is released by triggering the metal disk installed inside the device.

1st year is the PG Diploma and research and Industry preparation Years 2-4 are a PhD at Hull

MAX phases are 2D-layered hexagonal carbides or nitrides that can exhibit very high mechanical damage tolerance at high temperatures. In common with ceramics, they are significantly less activated than metals by fast neutron irradiation. Hence they have potential applications in structural applications for advanced nuclear fission. However, the structure/property relationships and mechanisms of damage accumulation in MAX phases need to be better understood for microstructure-based modelling to support the design and development of materials and engineering components. MAX phase materials owe their unique properties to the tendency for crystal deformation by kink formation. This is a little understood phenomenon, but is similar to that observed in graphite. The influence of temperature and irradiation on kink formation is not understood, but theoretical studies have shown a strong link between the chemistry of the Max phase and the cleavage stress, which may affect the brittle/ductile transition. Better understanding of this fundamnetal mechanism would lead to the design of MAX phase materials with improved properties. The objectives of the project are to use high resolution electron backscatter diffraction to map grain orientations and to study the localisation of strain in phase pure MAX phase alloys from the TiAlC, ZrAlC and CrAlC systems, tested at elevated temperature. The effects of ion-irradiation on the deformation mechanisms will also be investigated. In particular, novel high temperature nano-indentation investigations will be performed, in grains of selected orientations, to study how plastic strain is accommodated within the crystal structure as a function of temperature. Sectioning of the deformation zone beneath nano-indentation will be done using focussed ion-beam milling, to enable high resolution transmission microscopy and transmission Kikuchi diffraction analysis. The studies aim, in particular, to understand how irradiation affects the mechanisms of deformation, as this will have impact on the transition between ductile and brittle behaviour at the macroscale. This project interacts closely with a parallel project, starting at the same time, that is conducting in situ studies of strain accommodation in bulk MAX phase materials for advanced nuclear energy using X-ray and neutron scattering and imaging. This project collaborates with SCK-CEN (Belgium) who are developing MAX phases for nuclear applications in conjunction with the European Energy Research Alliance Joint Programme in Nuclear Materials that aims to develop materials for next generation sustainable nuclear energy. The project also connects with the H2020 Il Trovatore programme on Innovative cladding materials for advanced accident-tolerant energy systems, in whicb mechanical testing (including studies of irradiated materials) is being conducted by SCK-CEN, together with electron-microscopy microstructure characterisation by EBSD, Transmission electron microscopy and ion-irradiation of MAX phase materials by Manchester University (Prof. P. Frankel) and Huddersfield University (Prof. K. Lambrinou). This project falls within the EPSRC Energy Research Theme (Nuclear Power)

The interaction between the Sun's and the Earth's plasma environments is very dynamic and one of societal and commercial importance. A large proportion of the energy from this terawatt system is transferred from the outer magnetosphere inwards by MHD waves, which propagate along magnetic filed lines and into the upper atmosphere (ionosphere), where the energy is dissipated. By undertaking this study, I will be able to gauge the impact of geomagnetic activity on the Earth's environment. "Space Weather" hazards are now part of the Government's National Risk Register since geomagnetic storms are known to affect human activities on the ground and in space. Recently, it has also become apparent that nonlinear effects in the upper atmospheric may also influence tropospheric climate, including energetic particle precipitation (Epp, associated with MHD waves) effects on stratospheric ozone (e.g. Seppala et al., 2009) and changes to the geoelectric circuit The Radio and Space Plasma Physics (RSPP) group at the University of Leicester have unique UK access to a number of important data sets including ground magnetometers (through SuperMag), ionospheric radars (including EISCAT and SuperDARN) and satellites (e.g.the Van Allen Probes, VAPs). This project will exploit these facilities to explore energy deposition in the upper atmosphere via MHD waves. The data collected will provide input to up-to-date models of MHD wave generation and solar forcing of the lower atmosphere.

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Nuclear Energy Futures aims to train a new generation of international leaders, at PhD level, in nuclear energy technology. It is made up of Imperial College London (lead), Bristol University, Cambridge University, Open University and Bangor University. These institutions are some of the UK's leading institutions for research and teaching in nuclear power. The CDTs key focus is around nuclear fission i.e. that is the method of producing energy by splitting the atom, which currently accounts for 11% of the world's electricity and 20% of the UK's electricity, whilst producing very low levels of carbon emissions (at levels the same as renewable energy, such as wind). The CDT whilst focused on fission energy technologies will also have PhD projects related to fusion nuclear energy and projects needed or related to nuclear energy such as seismic studies, robotics, data analytics, environmental studies, policy and law. The CDT's major focus is related to the New Nuclear Build activities at Hinkley Point, Somerset and the Anglesey site in north Wales, where EDF Energy and Horizon, respectively, are building new fission power plants that will produce around 3.2 and 2.7 GWe of nuclear power (about 13% of the UK current electricity demand). The CDT will provide the skills needed for research related to these plants and potential future industry leaders, for nuclear decommissioning of current plants (due to come off-line in the next decade) and to lead the UK in new and innovative technologies for nuclear waste disposal and new reactor technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs). The need for new talented PhD level people is very high as many of the UK's current technical experts were recruited in the 1970s and 80s and many are near retirement and skills sector studies have shown many more are needed for the new build projects. The CDT will champion teaching innovation and will produce a series of bespoke courses that can be delivered via on-line media by the very best experts in the field from across the CDT covering areas such as the nuclear fuel cycle; waste and decommissioning; small modular reactors; policy, economics and regulation; thermal hydraulics and reactor physics as well as leading on responsible research and innovation in the sector. The CDT is supported by a wide range of nuclear companies and stakeholders. These include those involved in the new build process in the UK such as EDF Energy, Hitachi-GE, Horizon and Rolls-Royce, the latter of which are developing a UK advanced modular reactor design. International nuclear stakeholders from countries such as the USA, UAE, Australia and France will support the student development and the CDT programme. The students in the CDT will cover a very broad training in all aspects of nuclear power and importantly for this sector will engage in both media training activities and public outreach to make nuclear power more open to the public, government and scientists and engineers outside of the discipline.