Design Optimization for Railway Transition Zones

Transition zones in railway tracks, which occur at changes in track form and or substructure properties, are known to cause issues with track degradation. Examples can be found where a track section, usually a ballast track, transits to a slab track to cross a roadway or waterway through supporting structures such as bridges, level crossings,...

Model-based motion optimization for quadruped robots with an actuated articulated torso

In recent years, the deployment of ground-based mobile robots has gained more and more interest in various domains. In contrast to other types of mobile robots, legged robots can traverse irregular terrains, climb stairs, and step over obstacles. However, these unique properties intensify the energy demand and require highly advanced perception...

Parametric Optimization of Dynamic Power Cable Configurations: For Floating Offshore Wind Applications

Floating offshore wind turbines offer opportunities to harvest wind energy at deep-water locations, where the construction of fixed-base turbines is infeasible. The dynamic power cables, which interconnect turbines and transport the generated electricity, are under large dynamic stresses due to the environmental loads and the motion of the...

Continuous adsorption in food industry: The recovery of sinapic acid from rapeseed meal extract

Efficient recovery and utilization of valuable components from industrial food side streams is a main driver towards a circular economy. Among different available purification techniques, adsorption can effectively recover these components. However, the conventional batch mode of operation can limit its applicability in food processes due to...

Replicating cohesive and stress-history-dependent behavior of bulk solids: Feasibility and definiteness in DEM calibration procedure

This paper presents a multi-step DEM calibration procedure for cohesive solid materials, incorporating feasibility in finding a non-empty solution space and definiteness in capturing bulk responses independently of calibration targets. Our procedure follows four steps: (I) feasibility; (II) screening of DEM variables; (III) surrogate modeling...

Closing the loop in model-based wind farm control

Open-loop wake steering inconsistently improves the energy yield of wind farms in field experiments in the literature. This thesis matures wind farm control technologies for power maximization in a model-based closed-loop framework towards real-world practical applicability. Firstly, open-loop wake steering is evaluated on a commercial onshore...

Optimizing photon utilization in LED-based photocatalytic reactors

Photocatalysis involves the absorption of photons by a semiconductor to enhance chemical reactions. Examples of important applications include the degradation of hazardous chemicals, reduction of carbon dioxide to valuable chemicals and (partial) oxidation of hydrocarbons. Despite many successful demonstrations of this technology at lab-scale,...

Value of information in closed-loop reservoir management

This paper proposes a new methodology to perform value of information (VOI) analysis within a closed-loop reservoir management (CLRM) framework. The workflow combines tools such as robust optimization and history matching in an environment of uncertainty characterization. The approach is illustrated with two simple examples: an analytical...

The value of 4D seismic data to production forecasting

Minimizing the mismatch in the output of a petroleum reservoir model to 4D seismic data has the potential to increase its production forecast accuracy. However, the impact of 4D seismic data on the economic value of improved reservoir management decisions enforced during the production forecast has not been quantified. This work investigates the...

Framework of Model-Based Health Optimization on the Electrical Power System

The advanced ageing of the electrical power network combined with the inevitable increase of renewable energy utilization and the constant increase of power consumption over the last decades call for a change in the current power network paradigm. Electrical world stakeholders have to embrace the situation and come up with methods of better...