Graduation Assignment Seaweed farms

MSc thesis research:
How can we design floating seaweed farms that can withstand harsh weather conditions?
There is an opportunity for graduation work at the MT&T department of the TU Delft.

Project background
There is an increasing demand to scale up seaweed cultivation to be used, among others, as feedstock. This initiative is part of the blue economy venture, for sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs, while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem. Additionally, growing seaweed offshore has the advantage of more constant environmental conditions, such as salinity, than in shallower waters and closer to the shore.
SeatechEnergy is deploying innovative solutions in the field by incorporating their patented seaweed cultivation techniques in novel, large, ring-shaped floating structures. However, these floating platforms are very different from what we have been using so far, and their vibration characteristics are largely unmapped territory.
The structural vibration can be triggered by either wave excitation or vortex shedding of the structural members in currents. Both types of responses are important to quantify in order to evaluate the structural reliability of the floater. Fatigue under cyclic loading and ultimate strength due to extreme responses are both major concerns.

Tasks
You will work together with supervisors at TU Delft M&TT and in SeatechEnergy. You will either:
a) design and build a scaled flexible model of the floater and measure its responses in the towing tank or
b) expand on existing in-house codes to model the vortex-induced vibration of the floater in currents.

In both of the above cases you will need to:
 Determine the modal characteristics of the floater.
 Identify weather conditions that are expected to cause resonance phenomena.
 Evaluate the dynamic responses of the floater in a range of conditions.
 Define the major design aspects and weather characteristics that dictate the structural reliability.

Details
Student with a (maritime) hydrodynamics/structures or towing tank testing background is recommended.

Contact
Apostolos Grammatikopoulos (a.grammatikopoulos@tudelft.nl)