| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/Z533622/1 |
| Title: |
Digital twinning of next-generation massive-scale offshore metal wind support structures |
| Principal Investigator: |
Sadowski, Dr A |
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| Department: |
Civil & Environmental Engineering |
| Organisation: |
Imperial College London |
| Scheme: |
EPSRC Fellowship TFS |
| Starts: |
01 December 2024 |
Ends: |
30 November 2029 |
Value (£): |
1,957,940
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| No relevance to Underpinning Sectors |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
Across the UK and Europe there is a renewed impetus for energy independence through renewables, chiefly wind energy, with pressure to maximise the power output of offshore wind installations while maintaining a constant footprint to minimise cost. Aside from optimising turbine, blade and controller designs, major gains are only possible by greatly increasing the scale of individual turbines and their supporting structures. Overwhelmingly these are rolled tubular towers and monopiles: shell structures which are huge consumers of steel (> 1000 tonnes per tower).
However, the safety of current and future-scale support structures cannot be directly quantified based on current technological understanding, and we are in one of two undesirable situations. On the one hand, arrays of ever more massive, similarly designed and similarly fragile structures could exhibit increasingly frequent failure events. On the other hand, ever more massive, relatively short lifespan structures could unnecessarily consume ever more carbon-intensive resources to be constructed. Either scenario is a threat to the UK's vision to achieve all electricity generation from low-carbon sources by 2035 and carbon neutrality by 2050, in part by developing an additional 40 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 (Net Zero Strategy).
In recognising that certain major problems in engineering are so intractable as to be impossible to solve using established empirical or computational approaches, this five-year Open Plus Fellowship aims to consolidate a modern future-proof engineering discipline that combines classical structural engineering, computational mechanics, high-performance simulation and data science for the study of high-fidelity representations (digital twins) of massive-scale metal shell structures.
ern tower saved from failure saves ~£2M, while even a ~10% reduction in steel saves ~£10M across a 100-tower offshore installation (assuming ~£1k / tonne for structural steel, not including carbon cost).
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.imperial.ac.uk |