Local Crustal Imaging Using High-Magnitude Earthquakes

Global phases are seismic waves that travel through the earth's core before emerging at the surface. Traditionally, global phases are used to obtain subsurface information up to 1 Hz. A recent study, however, found that signal present in the coda of strong, distant earthquakes contains higher frequencies. Quantitative analysis of the coda of...

Fatigue analysis of discharge area of 26kl tank container under railway transportation

Tank containers are intermodal containers for the transport of liquids, gases, and powders as bulk cargo However, hazardous vibration during transportation would generate fatigue damage at discharge area. This thesis aims at calculating fatigue damage at discharge area of a specified tank container. <br/><br/>The calculation is performed in time...

Maintenance Offshore Wind: Feasibility study into alternative lifting systems for offshore wind turbine maintenance operations

In the transition from a fossil fuel driven economy to renewable solutions, the activities in offshore wind energy are growing. Operation and maintenance costs of offshore wind turbines are high, therefore alternative methods should be developed to reduce these costs. The replacement of heavy components, like a gearbox or a generator, is a...

Effect of stochastic material properties on the structural response of laminated composite materials: following the building block approach

This report, which from now and onwards will be called the main body of the thesis, covers the core of the<br/>problem that has to be solved. Generally, the aim of this thesis is to investigate a laminated composite’s<br/>structural response, made of FRP, when its material properties are assumed stochastic instead of<br/>deterministic. The...

Crane fatigue assessment using Multibody Dynamics and Finite Element Method

For decades crane standards are used to assess crane fatigue making use of a static method in combination with factors to take dynamic load effects into account. This is not sufficient to make more accurate predictions. The proposed method benefits from state of the art Multibody Dynamics simulation tool Msc ADAMS and Finite Element software...

Split-hopper barges: Workability of a split-hopper barge in irregular seas

A split hopper barge is a dredging vessel that can split over its longitudinal axis to discharge its cargo. To allow for such an operation, the barge consists of two half-hulls that are connected by hinges at the top and hydraulic cylinders at the bottom. Any forces that act at the interface between the half-hulls have to be transferred by the...

Collision Resistance of Fibre Reinforced Polymer Lock Gates: A study of the behaviour and damage during collision

Over the past years Fibre Reinforced Polymers, or FRP, have started making more of an appearance in civil engineering structures. They have the advantages that they are light-weight, do not corrode and theoretically require little maintenance during their lifespan. Originally they were used to construct reinforcement, cables and small bridges...

Sandwich Plate Systems: The application of Sandwich Plate Systems as impact protection in offshore structures

During operations on offshore platforms, lifting of objects (i.e. containers) brings with it dropped object risks. In the occurrence of a dropped object event, production is temporarily interrupted, resulting in unintended costs. Chicago Bridge &amp; Iron Company (CB&amp;I), a leading engineering company in the design of offshore topside...

Numerical Analysis of Bow Tunnel Thruster Performance

A previous work at Royal IHC, following the observation from sea trials of trailing suction hopper dredgers (TSHD) that the turning performance of bow tunnel thrusters significantly reduced at slow forward speeds, studied the flow behaviour and performance of bow tunnel thrusters at slow forward speeds using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)....

Assessment of passenger comfort according to Eurocode in Dutch trains travelling over tied-arch railway bridges

With increasing velocities of trains, passenger comfort starts to play a larger role in the design of railway bridges. There is little experience with the Eurocode passenger comfort criterion in the Netherlands. It is relevant for the industry to have a way to fulfil this criterion, also in an early stage of railway bridge design. A sufficiently...

Floating Cruise Terminal in Exposed Sea at Curaçao: Feasibility Study on the Dynamic Behaviour and Resulting Downtime

The objective of this study is to determine whether a floating terminal could be a suitable and feasible solution for the realisation of a new berthing location for the cruise ships of the future. This feasibility study is based on the amount of downtime of a terminal due to excessive motions because of wave loading. Therefore, this study...

Solar updraft tower - structural optimisation under dynamic wind action

As fossil fuel reserves are rapidly being depleted, sustainable alternatives have to be found to fulfil the world's energy demand. Numerous concepts have been proposed to generate electricity by harnessing renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power. One of these concepts is the the so-called solar updraft tower (SUT). The SUT consists...

An Investigation on Leakage Behaviour of Seals for Aerospace Applications

This research, performed at Airbus Defence and Space Ground System Test Engineering department in Seville, Spain, is a part of ELDAS (Engineering for Leak Detection in Aircraft Systems) project. It deals with carrying out an investigation on the leak behaviour of the sealing systems used in an aircraft particularly A400M. The sealing integrity...

High Strength Steel Structures – FEM Validation Experiments

A 3-D stress and strain analysis in a three layered model with a single fractured layer: A finite element approach

Natural fracture systems are often influenced by the presence of different layers with contrasting rock mechanical properties. Understanding the distribution of stress between different mechanical layers is essential to the interpretation of fracture networks within these systems. Knowledge of the fracture system’s geometry and spatial...

Design and flow analysis of radial and mixed flow turbine volutes

Radial and mixed flow turbines which are an important component of a turbocharger consist essentially of a volute, a rotor and a diffuser. Vaneless volute turbines, which have reasonable performance and low cost, are the most used in turbochargers for automotive engines. Care has to be done in the design of the volute, whose function is to...