Jose Paredes Pineda speelt een spelletje touwtrekken met een brug.

reading time: 10 min

Paving the way for reusing concrete girders

Concrete recycling is gaining momentum as the construction industry adopts more sustainable solutions, with the Netherlands leading the way. However, reusing structural components rather than recycling them is even better, as it conserves energy and raw materials while further reducing CO₂ emissions. This is precisely what José Paredes Pineda accomplished by creating a testing protocol for the safe reuse of prestressed concrete bridge girders.

reading time: 10 min

The dance between ice and structures

Hayo Hendrikse is fascinated by the power of ice. Can sea ice make wind turbines dance? Will it stay around a bit longer in summer if we beef it up in winter? And, he asks himself, does every question merit the search for an answer?

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reading time: 5 min

A glass of treated wastewater, would you drink it?

Drinking water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource worldwide due to climate change, a growing world population, and overconsumption. Using treated wastewater from households and industries as drinking water could help combat water scarcity. But is society ready to accept this?

Reading time: 3 min

The ground truth: airport operations for hydrogen-powered aviation

It is not only aircraft that must be prepared for flying on hydrogen, ground operations at the airport need to run very smoothly too. Quite a challenge when considering the fuelling, space, and safety requirements. The models and simulations developed by Alexei Sharpanskykh, Assistant Professor Operations & Environment, help shape this future.

Reading time: 4 min

Mastering fuel flow in hydrogen-powered airplanes

Airplanes powered by liquid hydrogen are expected to play a key role in creating low-emission aviation. But once safely stored on board, an even greater challenge is to control the hydrogen flow and have it reach the engines at the required temperature and pressure. Chiara Falsetti, Assistant Professor in Heat Transfer and Thermal Management for Sustainable Aviation, wants to fully understand how hydrogen flows through airplane fuel pipes.

Reading time: 5 min

Cracking and tracking – ultrasonics for hydrogen-powered aviation

Monitoring and ensuring the safety of hydrogen storage tanks over tens of thousands of airplane refuellings presents a unique challenge on the road towards low-emission aviation. Nan Yue, Assistant Professor in the Aerospace Structures and Materials Department, develops ultrasonic technology for detecting the very early signs of cracks appearing in the tank hull.

Reading time: 5 min

Flame on for hydrogen-powered aircraft propulsion

Flying on hydrogen eliminates CO2 emissions but comes with challenges in flame stability, NOx emissions and reliability, especially given the strict aviation standards. Francesca De Domenico, Assistant Professor in Sustainable Aircraft Propulsion, sees this as an opportunity to radically re-think and innovate combustion systems for aviation. Her experimental research lays the groundwork for addressing these issues and advancing sustainable flight.

Reading time: 5 min

Flying on (liquid) hydrogen: Outstanding challenges and solutions

With zero CO2 emissions, flying on hydrogen offers the compelling prospect to help decarbonise aviation. But major technical, economical and practical challenges remain. Can hydrogen realistically power the future of air travel? Can we risk neglecting an innovation that could not only transform aviation but also drive advancements across energy and transport sectors? Arvind Gangoli Rao, Professor Sustainable Aircraft Propulsion, and Peter Lucas, Innovation Manager Hydrogen, share their insights.

Reading time: 5 min

How TU Delft is contributing to the healthcare transition

Surgery waiting lists are getting longer, healthcare staff shortages have never been more dire, and the population is aging rapidly. Rigorous changes in the healthcare sector will be needed in order to avoid even greater problems in the future.

A more accurate prediction of near-collisions between satellites with the DelftBlue supercomputer

Even though extremely low, the air resistance at altitude of 600 km does affect the accuracy with which (near-)collisions between satellites can be predicted. Aiming to improve these predictions, Rens van der Zwaard used the DelftBlue supercomputer to determine mission parameters for an experiment involving two nearly identical satellites.

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.

Reading time: 5 min

Energy hub as powerful concept in energy transition

An energy hub can relieve the parent energy system by balancing the local supply of and demand for energy; this means an energy hub is flexible, reliable, and efficient.

reading time: 5 min

Improving cybersecurity and securing against cybercrime

How do we keep the internet, and therefore Dutch and European society, safe?

leestijd: 5 min

How do we keep our cities clean and accessible? | TU Delft

To keep cities liveable, inclusive and accessible, our mobility system must be transformed. Here’s how mobility researchers Niels van Oort, Maaike Snelder and Achilleas Psyllidis work on the accessible city.

Solar panels, solar systems, photovoltaics, energy transition

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

When Alba Alcañiz Moya was younger she went around her house to turn off all the lights when they didn’t need to be on. “Even then I knew I did not want to waste the energy and electricity”, she explains. And that hasn’t changed. As a PhD within the Photovoltaic Materials and Devices group, she focuses on the optimization of solar systems to make sure that they yield as much energy as possible. She does so by developing digital models of solar panels in different situations, and focuses on questions like: What is the effect of shade on the energy output of solar panels? And how do waves affect the energy yield of floating solar panels?

Social skills for digital humans

If anything, the Covid pandemic taught us that real-life interactions couldn’t be replaced by digital ones. This is just one of the reasons why Chirag Raman, assistant professor in the Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatics group, wants digital agents or avatars to interact with humans in a more seamless and lifelike manner. Using artificial intelligence and knowledge of human behaviour, he is teaching machines to understand and deploy human-like social intelligence – verbally, vocally and visually. At the horizon are technologies for a wide range of applications, from distance learning and e-healthcare to immersive games.

Reading time: 10 min

Open data is taking off in aviation – thanks to BlueSky

Why would you buy or sell software commercially if you can get the data from public sources too and can make the tools available to the public? BlueSky, an open-source tool for creating air-traffic simulations, came about some ten years ago in answer to this question. Since then, BlueSky has grown into a community of users from around the world.

critical raw materials, copper, nickel, lithium, metals

Reading time: 4 min

The importance of research into-and with-critical raw materials

David Peck, Associate Professor of Critical Materials and Circular Design, and Benjamin Sprecher, Assistant Professor of Critical Raw Materials and Sustainable Design, along with researchers from all other faculty, make up the core team that deals with research into-and with-critical metals.

reading time: 5 min

Supercharged sustainability: designing circular solar panels

The materials our earth supplies are not infinite. In fact, certain widely used materials are very scarce, with only a few countries able to source and process them – creating a dependency for other countries. These are called Critical Raw Materials. Coincidentally, these materials are used extensively in sustainable technologies. Silicon metal, for example, is used for solar panels. Researcher Malte Vogt wants to protect sustainable technologies from running out of resources: "I design circular solar panels. The goal is to mine the materials only once and use them to build first-generation solar panels for the energy transition and re-use the same materials again and again."

Protecting a Sustainable Future

If you want to know more about the research of Thomas Höllt, you could simply have a look at his work. It should – for the trained eye – speak for itself. And what you will see, will vary from the dispersion of proteins in cells, to the different layers in an old Vermeer painting. His visualization platform does not only help biologists to understand how the immune system works, it also helps them to get to the roots of diseases and come up with specialized treatment. And it can also be used to identify and chart invaluable paintings and could have many more applications.

Reading time: 5 min

This clever slipper with holes in it makes wind turbines significantly quieter

Wind turbines provide one of the cleanest forms of energy in the world, but they have an annoying drawback: noise. Researchers and entrepreneurs at TU Delft have come up with a solution they’ve called MuteSkin®. It’s a clever add-on that can be slipped on a wind turbine blade like a flip-flop and that can dramatically reduce the noise it produces. Now the team is about to take this ‘crazy’ idea from the wind tunnels to the wind farms. Daniele Ragni, Bieke von den Hoff, and Friso Hartog explain how they and their colleagues are tackling this, together with industry partners.

The energy transition under high tension: the High Voltage Technologies Group

A while ago we thought it was no longer needed within TU Delft: a group entirely dedicated to maintaining and developing the use of high voltage. After all, the expectation was that the grid would become decentralised in the Netherlands, and that households would start generating their own electricity. This has partly become true, however, a vast amount of the renewable energy comes in large ‘chunks’, for example through offshore wind farms and large solar fields. "The fact is that we need high-voltage more than ever," Prof Peter Vaessen emphasizes. "This is also the reason we have a new, revived high-voltage group at TU Delft: the High Voltage Technologies Group."

reading time: min

From the plane into the train

reading time: 5 min

Sand on the horizon

Jose Paredes Pineda speelt een spelletje touwtrekken met een brug.

reading time: 10 min

Paving the way for reusing concrete girders

reading time: 10 min

The dance between ice and structures

reading time: 5 min

A new air traffic puzzle: autonomous drones in the sky

reading time: 5 min

How a single bike can improve safety for all cyclists

Reading time: 3 min

The ground truth: airport operations for hydrogen-powered aviation

Reading time: 4 min

Mastering fuel flow in hydrogen-powered airplanes

Reading time: 5 min

Cracking and tracking – ultrasonics for hydrogen-powered aviation

Reading time: 5 min

Flame on for hydrogen-powered aircraft propulsion

Reading time: 5 min

Flying on (liquid) hydrogen: Outstanding challenges and solutions

Reading time: 5 min

How TU Delft is contributing to the healthcare transition

reading time: 7 min

The driving force of mobility

reading time: 8 min

Matching supply and demand for more efficient and sustainable freight transport

reading time: 8 min

When having your head in the clouds is good science

A more accurate prediction of near-collisions between satellites with the DelftBlue supercomputer

Anchoring Power: Ensuring Control and Stability in Offshore Energy Hubs

Reading time: 5 min

Energy hub as powerful concept in energy transition

reading time: 8 min

Puzzling over behavioural models for sustainable greenhouse horticulture

reading time: 5 min

A smart charging network requires smart choices

reading time: 5 min

Battling the data hunger of Big Tech

reading time: 5 min

Improving cybersecurity and securing against cybercrime
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