PRR Project

Summary

Marine HydroelasticityThe development of the so-called Blue Economy has motivated the increased interest in several applications that require hydroelastic analysis to determine their response to waves. Very large floating structures are one such case involving floating airfields, floating emergency bases, floating islands for tourism, or for the production of energy such as hydrogen, to name a few examples. Production of wave energy is being considered from very flexible structures, either floating or in the water. However, it is difficult to construct a single continuum structure because of the large size which can occupy a large area of the sea and cause massive loads in structures.  So, it is necessary to develop modern and sophisticated multi-module floating interconnected structures that can address new trends, needs, and satisfy new requirements for different applications in marine environment especially wave energy conversion integrated with very large floating structure in hydroelasticity.Due to the rapid development of the open ocean aquaculture industry, the large floating fish farms including multiple net cages is becoming more popular around the world; the research on the dynamics of floating flexible multiple net cage system with appropriate geometry has an interest to the recent research content. The dynamic loads of sea waves and wave-induced forces along with elastic floaters via hydroelasticity are useful in the process of designing building, and fatigue analysis of offshore fish cage models for aquaculture. Moreover, aquaculture is moving offshore to increase the volume of fish production and the study of the fish cages requires hydroelasticity to model the behaviour of the net structures that are part of the fish cages.Flexible membranes are one of the kinds of flexible structure that have a wide range of applications in ocean and coastal engineering problems to breakwaters and wave energy system. Ocean wave energy as one of the most promising resources of ocean renewable energy, has received wide attention due to its high energy flux intensity, low carbon impact, and wide-spread availability. Therefore, a new direction and advance on the application of flexible membranes is the study of the dynamics of wave energy conversion-perforated breakwater integration system.Finally, even the traditional naval architecture area requires hydroelasticity theory to deal with the behaviour of the very large containerships that have been built during the last several years, to take advantage of the economies of scale that are required to transport large volumes of manufactured products from Asia to Europe and other parts of the world. So, large container ships are quite flexible and stretch the bounds of present classification rules for reliable structure design. Therefore, the analysis of hydroelastic effect of such ships under waves can confirm its importance for ship safety.These different applications make the field of hydroelasticity a very important one for the Blue Economy type of applications, and since hydroelasticity is not part of the traditional education in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, it is necessary that CENTEC as a leading research centre, promotes this research subject and makes sure that it produces appropriate research results that can be gradually transferred to the teaching activities at IST.At present CENTEC does not have any permanent researcher that is dedicated to the development of the subjects that require this type of formulation and thus it is strategic for CENTEC to open a position for a researcher to develop consistent work on Marine Hydroelasticity, involving the following aspects:Very large floating offshore platforms either with some flexibility or articulated, which are being considered for the deployment of different activities previously conducted onshoreOffshore  aquaculture, which is being developed offshore as arrays of net cages or as platforms that support the cages and house renewable energy devicesDynamics of membrane structures for wave energy absorption, which are being used for floating breakwaters or as equipment to generate electricity from their motions.Dynamics of very long ship structures, in particular the very large containerships that as a result of their length-to-beam ratio are very flexible.The successful candidate needs to demonstrate appropriate research experience in these fields as well as experience in obtaining and leading research projects that can promote the research of CENTEC within these subject areas. Experience in supervising doctoral students is also expected.