CFD application and design

MSc thesis project: Restoring North Sea biodiversity by redesigning scour protection to create safe shelter for marine life

Wind farms are no-fishing areas due to the underwater structures. Those structures that are used as scour protection, can create a very suitable place for reviving the marine creatures. The scouring problem happens where (granular) bed material is removed by the hydrodynamic forces around the turbines’ monopile foundation. The most common strategy to date to prevent damage caused by scouring is to place stones on the seabed around these foundations, our goal is to design an optimal structure for biodiversity enhancement around monopiles that can also contribute as scour protection.

Stones or other under water added structures can be a good shelter for marine life, within a cooperation with Wageningen university biologist, we are trying to find a new, cost-effective, and easy-to-apply protection method for scouring to enhance the biodiversity considerably. Advanced Tower System B.V. works on a dedicated design, which they want to optimize and validate.

It is possible to reduce time and cost by doing part of the research in numerical model simulation. The optimized numerical simulation will be tested with the physical scaling model (lab test) and final designing will be installed in the sea for monitoring.

Numerical verification with experimental test can create the ability to prepare a practical nature inclusive scour protection design. Green energy production with positive biological impact.

The main topics of this project

Modelling the biofriendly elements.
Simulating the wave and current induced flow with turbulent characteristics near the boundaries.
Optimizing the design to reduce the scour and scour protection structure.
Analysing the behaviour of fluid flow around Advanced Tower Systems B.V. biofriendly-models of scour protection in 3D with a CFD method and obtaining the loads acting on the seabed around the monopile.

Your Profile

Knowledge of fluid dynamics.
Knowledge of numerical analysis and algorithm development.
Knowledge of CFD (not essential).

Project Details

Work will be carried out with collaboration of Advanced Tower Systems B.V. in Enschede.
The duration of the project is 6 months.

For more details and general info please contact Dr. Batool Soleimani at vacancy@mecal.nl.