Serviceability of a Cantilever Grandstand under Dynamic Crowd Loading

This thesis presents a novel methodology to determine the reliability of cantilever grandstands under dynamic crowd loading. No method currently exists to evaluate this, despite the occurrence of significant vibrations in such structures, for example in the Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam. These vibrations can negatively affect both the safety...

MCGF piling vibrations: A numerical assessment of the structural dynamics of a Motion-Compensated Gripper Frame during pile driving of XXL monopiles

The increase of demand for offshore wind energy resulted in an increase of larger wind turbines. These turbines are often placed on top of a monopile (MP) substructure. The conventional method for installing these MPs uses a jack-up vessel. However, due to the local bathymetry and soil conditions. This method has its drawbacks, such as...

Effect of structural elasticity on simulation of wind turbines and its verification: OpenFOAM based CFD simulations of HAWT coupled with FEM analysis based on spinning element

As wind turbines get bigger and bigger, the simulation of wind turbines becomes more complex. The increase in size brings about a multitude of intricate challenges that must be addressed in the simulation process. These challenges lie in the different aspects of the simulations such as aerodynamics, structural dynamics, power electronics,...

Effect of aeroelasticity on the acoustic signature of TOP contoured rocket nozzles in overexpanded conditions

TOP contoured nozzles, with large area-ratios, are commonly employed in rocket propulsion systems as they feature an excellent thrust-to-weight ratio. A significant shortcoming to this design is that, during the startup and shutdown transients of a LRE, the internal nozzle flow progresses through a series of overexpanded flow states - Free Shock...

The response of a semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine under misaligned wind and waves

Reducing the levelised cost of energy is crucial to accelerating the energy transition. To develop offshore wind solutions in greater water depths, a floating solution is required. The time-domain simulations of these Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWTs) under wind-wave misalignment used in research and industry projects are computationally...

Dynamic Interaction Between Event Deck Structures and a Jumping Crowd: The influence of human-structure interaction on impact force peaks and internal stresses

Human-induced rhythmic loading is an increasingly critical aspect in the design process of civil engineering structures such as sports stadiums and floors accommodating gym and aerobic classes. There are two main reasons for this trend. First, structures are becoming more slender with improvements in materials and construction techniques and...

Prediction of the nonlinear dynamic behaviour of a concrete slab subjected to blast load

With the rise of hydrogen as a green alternative for fossil fuels, the demand for storage capacity of hydrogen increases significantly. Due to the high risk of explosions in urban environments it brings along, the blast analysis of buildings within in range of the explosions becomes more relevant.<br/><br/>The goal of this research is to develop...

Structural Dynamic Response of the Circular Arch Bridge

The Circular Arch Bridge is a pedestrian bridge consisting out of four different recycled materials: cast glass, ceramic, circument and geopolymer concrete. Due to an increasing amount of vibration problems in modern pedestrian bridges they should not only be designed for static loads, but dynamic loads have to be considered as well. There are...

Dynamic Load Prediction in Offshore Wind Turbines

The rapid development of the wind industry over the past few years has pushed turbine manufacturers to meet the growing energy demands by designing and producing large scale wind turbines.This also means development of larger monopile foundations for the foundation designers in the case of offshore wind turbines.\ Generally, the turbine tower...

Fatigue in floodgates due to dynamic wave loading: A probabilistic design method

The ability to predict the fatigue of flood gates due to dynamic wave loading is becoming increasingly important as coasts and waterways worldwide are being reinforced to suit a changing climate. There are few comprehensive ways to do so however, which often leads to conservative estimates. This thesis presents an integral framework with which...

Including the inertia to a 1D model: A study on energy radiation in railway tracks

Areas of railways with considerable variation of track properties encountered near structures such as bridges and tunnels are referred to as transition zones. Degradation rates at these transition zones are higher compared to the remaining railways. These high degradation rates result in high maintenance expenses. In order to come up with...

Validation of aero-hydro-servo-elastic load and motion simulations in BHawC/OrcaFlex for the Hywind Scotland floating offshore wind farm

Climate change, as a result from global warming, requires an energy transition: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and a radical innovation of the global energy system to proceed apace. Offshore wind is an important source of clean, renewable energy, and it plays a key role in the transition. 80% of the worldwide...

Practical Engineering Design Tool for Vibration Sensitive Laboratory Building Structures: Development of a practical design tool based on a scientific model for an early design of vibration sensitive laboratory building structures excited by traffic induced vibrations for use in engineering practice

The prediction of structural vibrations in vibration sensitive laboratory structures is a complex problem involving computationally heavy 3D models with long computational times. However, in the early design phases of a project long computational times are undesirable. Therefore the problem statement of this Master thesis concerns the...

Capturing 3D Continuum Effects in a 1D Soil-Structure Interaction Model for Seismic Analysis of Offshore Wind Turbines

Offshore wind energy is considered a necessary energy resource, that may stimulate the transition from fossil fuels. Following the successful development in Western Europe, offshore wind is quickly gaining momentum in the Asia-Pacific region. At variance with North-Sea based offshore wind turbines (OWTs), structures installed in the Asia-Pacific...

Reduced order wind turbine aeroelastic modelling for condition monitoring & fault detection

Wind energy has emerged as a promising alternative to fossil fuel energy sources over the last two decades partly due to considerable reductions in the cost of power production. A common trend towards cost reduction has been to build larger and lighter wind turbines. These produce more power per unit and use less material. Another strategy for...

Assessment of the dynamic response of a floating pontoon bridge with a fiber reinforced polymer superstructure

Floating bridges are found at locations where deep water must be crossed for a long distance, such as in Norwegian fjords. The superstructure of the existing floating bridges is usually constructed from steel. In a marine environment these bridges are exposed to dynamic wave loads. As such, the current floating bridges suffer severe damage due...

The dynamic behaviour of pump gates in the Afsluitdijk: Application of semi-analytical fluid-structure interaction models

As part of the Afsluitdijk project the discharge capacity, which is currently facilitated by two sluice complexes, is increased to cope with future sea level rise. It was decided to realise this by an innovative solution: the pump gate. The steel lifting gates, each containing three pumps, will be implemented in the existing sluice complex in...

Impulse Based Substructuring Unravelled; Simulation and Coupling of Structural Dynamics in the Time Domain

One way of deriving the dynamics of a structure, is by combining the dynamics of its substructures. This concept is named ’Dynamic Substructuring’ and it allows us to cope with the increasing complexity of models by dividing them into substructures and deriving their structural dynamics independently. This allows an improvement in computational...