Offshore Wind Energy
An assessment of decommissioning strategies for species conservation on offshore converter stations
The continued expansion of offshore infrastructures has led to growing concerns for their impacts on marine biodiversity throughout their lifetime. The Dogger Bank Wind Farm project in the North Sea is one of many which has the potential to significantly alter surrounding landscapes and ecosystems. Using datasets on species occurrences as well as semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders involved in the project, this thesis aims to: (1) model the population growth of key local species around such platforms and (2) to assess potential decommissioning strategies to promote and protect biodiversity.
Supervisors:
- Dr Will Pearse, Department of Life Sciences
Quantification of the shortage on offshore wind transport and installation vessel
This project aims at establishing the lack of jack-up and heavy lift vessels needed for the transportation and installation of offshore wind turbines globally (excluding the Chinese market). The project was divided into two main tasks: the data collection of existing vessels and offshore wind farm project pipelines, and the implementation of a computer simulation on python that would assess the number of vessels needed to meet new offshore wind installation targets.
Supervisors:
- Professor Adam Hawkes, Chemical Engineering
- Ruslan Galimov, external
- Dr. Malte Jansen, University of Sussex
A roadmap to offshore wind turbine inspection, repair and maintenance technologies
Offshore wind turbine maintenance has become increasingly important with the rapid growth in offshore wind power. Considering the harsh offshore environment and the complexity of equipment, adopting reasonable maintenance strategies and routes can reduce the maintenance cost of offshore wind turbines. This thesis explores the scope and potential offshore wind turbine inspection, repair, and maintenance (IRM) technologies and will present a roadmap to provide guidance on the phasing of adoption of new technologies with existing technologies, in enabling effective wind turbine maintenance strategy.
Supervisors:
- Professor Peter Childs, Energy Futures Lab
Simulating wave breaking loads on offshore wind turbines and comparing against design solutions
The increasing share of offshore wind in the energy mix is attributed to material and technological advancements. However, owing to their location offshore, offshore wind turbines face greater hydrodynamic loading; the most extreme of them caused by waves breaking on the turbine foundation. Since these waves are highly nonlinear and significantly different from the more idealized case that analytical methods describe, the current design standards inadequately account for them and oversimplify the design process. My work focuses on using OpenFOAM - a CFD software - to simulate these peak loads and suggest modifications to the design standards, leading to better material efficiency.
Supervisors:
- Dr Marios Christou, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Deployable robot for ultrasonic non-destructive testing of wind turbine blades
The maintenance of wind turbine blades requires skilled technicians to perform inspections, putting personnel at risk of working at height. As the number of skilled technicians becomes limited while the demand for maintenance increases, safer and more cost-effective solutions are needed. Studies have stated the potential of climbing robots as a reliable solution to replace humans. Climbing robots offer advantages such as closer contact inspection and a larger payload. This project explores the operation and performance of a climbing robot in conducting non-destructive ultrasonic inspection on a wind turbine blade.
Supervisors:
- Professor Peter Childs, Energy Futures Lab / Dyson School of Design Engineering