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| Corona related stories

reading time: 6 min

Unmasking the Mask

Everything that is designed influences our cultures and societies. Likewise, cultures and societies, with their respective belief systems and values, influence designers in terms of why they design, how they design, and what they design. There’s a continuous interaction between designing and being designed, between people and the designed world. What is the cultural significance of the defining - and sometimes divisive - symbol of the corona pandemic: the mask?

Watching time: 3 min

Project Safeguard

TU Delft students of Industrial Design Engineering and Technical Medicine have joined forces to develop a smart protective wall that enables testing of possible COVID-19 patients without using scarce personal protective equipment and in any desired location.

reading time: 3 min

Student volunteers offer help in times of corona

When Thijs de Jongh saw an app asking for volunteers to support vulnerable groups halfway through March, he jumped at the opportunity. But instead of filling out the form De Jongh and his fellow students decided to get cracking with the organisation of gewoonmensen.nl, a website for people who need help, during and after corona.

Urbanisation & Mobility

Can walking and cycling make us healthy and happy?

Do walking and cycling make people healthier, or are healthier people more inclined to travel actively? And how does the coronavirus affect our travel behaviour? These are the kinds of questions that scientist Maarten Kroesen is investigating. In his view, situations are often not as simple as they might seem at first glance. He is nevertheless convinced of one thing: we should be walking and cycling more.

Reading time: 4 min

Involving the public in policy quandaries

The Dutch lockdown is provisionally set to last until 20 May. So how will life continue after that date? Niek Mouter is researching the public’s preferences with regard to various exit scenarios. It’s a subject that has sparked a lot of interest, with as many as 18,000 people taking part in this Participatory Value Evaluation in the first two days alone.

reading time: 3 min

Charting pollution around the globe

Satellites are the best available instruments to detect man-made pollution worldwide. Now they can also reveal how government measures to combat the spread of the corona virus are changing our air quality. That impact is huge, atmosphere researcher Pieternel Levelt discovered. She helped pioneer OMI and TROPOMI, currently the most advanced satellite instruments to chart harmful pollutants in revealing detail.

reading time: 4 min

A post-coronavirus society

PhD candidate Lodewijk de Vet stood in the mud for weeks, in order to learn about organisms in the seabed and to take measurements. He wants to understand the Eastern and Western Scheldt better, so that he can help the ecology while simultaneously protecting our country from rising sea levels. His understanding of these areas served as a foundation for the Roggenplaat nourishments, that have since been executed.

reading time: 6 min

A bit of math to constrain epidemics

Most people like to keep both mathematics and epidemics at a distance. But a little bit of the former can do wonders in limiting the latter. Supervised by professor Kees Vuik, two high school students modelled a recent outbreak of cholera in Ghana. He also has a bachelor student investigating the new corona virus.

reading time: 4 min

Giving all children space to play

Several hundred children in the Netherlands are lying in hospital beds, undergoing cancer treatment; around the world, that number is in the millions. Treatment can last for months and, even when a child’s treatment comes to an end, there are the follow up visits, which go on for a further three years on average. Children undergoing cancer treatment lose out on a lot, from attending school to playing sports. Boudewijn Boon, who just completed his PhD at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, developed a framework in his thesis to help these children with something else they miss out on: play.

reading time: 3 min

A revolution in modelling travel behaviour

reading time: 9 min

We\Visit: combatting loneliness with video-calling

Visiting a loved one who’s critically ill: normally that’s possible, but due to the coronavirus, visiting ICUs is no longer permitted. The result is a lonely fight behind closed doors. In an attempt to combat the loneliness, researchers at Delft University of Technology have come up with We\Visit: a tool that facilitates video-calling by appointment. And it was developed at lightning speed after the Reinier de Graaf hospital sounded the alarm.

Watching time: 4 min

Recycling mouth masks

In the fight against the increasing shortage of mouth masks, researchers from TU Delft developed in collaboration with Van Straten Medical B.V. a new way of sterilizing used masks and testing their quality. This could be a successful solution for the rising demand.

Reading time: 3 min

Flying in a V

Reading time: 8 min

How not to waste energy on 5G

From an energy point of view, humanity’s insatiable hunger for mobile data is unsustainable, unless you’re willing to break a few long-held believes in the field of wireless communication. Professor Earl McCune is geared up to do just that.

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Reading time: 3 min

Moved by moving water

Newton’s law of universal gravitation is good news for the Dutch. Ice melting in Greenland and the Arctic glaciers has caused the Netherlands to rise by about 4 centimetres over the last century. Riccardo Riva has been studying the effects of moving water masses from one place to another.

Watching time: 3 min

Project Safeguard

TU Delft students of Industrial Design Engineering and Technical Medicine have joined forces to develop a smart protective wall that enables testing of possible COVID-19 patients without using scarce personal protective equipment and in any desired location.

Watching time: 7 min

The voice of Solotvyno

Former salt empire Solotvyno is located in western Ukraine. Today, the area suffers from the effects of salt extraction: an unstable subsurface resulting in massive sinkholes that threaten the life of the community. Two researchers from Delft University of Technology participated in a consortium to develop a disaster risk reduction plan together with the community. With the aim of giving the population a voice and building on a safer future. This short documentary provides insight into the process.

reading time: 6 min

A fresh perspective on potato growth

Requiring less water and less time to grow than rice, corn or wheat, potatoes may well be the answer to the growing worldwide demand for food. But what are the key factors that determine a successful potato harvest? Asked to provide a fresh perspective, Neil Budko develops numerical methods for the analysis of carefully controlled potato growth experiments.

reading time: 4 min

A post-coronavirus society

PhD candidate Lodewijk de Vet stood in the mud for weeks, in order to learn about organisms in the seabed and to take measurements. He wants to understand the Eastern and Western Scheldt better, so that he can help the ecology while simultaneously protecting our country from rising sea levels. His understanding of these areas served as a foundation for the Roggenplaat nourishments, that have since been executed.

corona

reading time: 3 min

A revolution in modelling travel behaviour

Reading time: 3 min

Resilient water management in India

Over the last decade, uncontrolled growth has transformed rural villages around major cities in India into peri-urban areas. The original water infrastructure in these agriculture-dependent villages is ill equipped to cope and this is creating tensions. Together with local stakeholders, researchers Leon Hermans and Sharlene Gomes are taking stock of vulnerabilities and opportunities for adaptive water management for sustainable development of the areas.

Watching time: 4 min

Recycling mouth masks

In the fight against the increasing shortage of mouth masks, researchers from TU Delft developed in collaboration with Van Straten Medical B.V. a new way of sterilizing used masks and testing their quality. This could be a successful solution for the rising demand.

reading time: 3 min

The breathing of dikes

Reading time: 6 min

A meaty trick: plant-based deception for good

Eating meat is deeply rooted in habits, status, culture, and identity, so it is difficult to reduce our meat consumption. What if instead of viewing the ubiquity of meat in our meals as a problem, we see it as the key to the solution? Just by using a couple of tricks that are already found all around us. Charlotte de Wit, recently graduated student of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft, accepted this meaty challenge.

reading time: 4 min

Into the mud to help nature

PhD candidate Lodewijk de Vet stood in the mud for weeks, in order to learn about organisms in the seabed and to take measurements. He wants to understand the Eastern and Western Scheldt better, so that he can help the ecology while simultaneously protecting our country from rising sea levels. His understanding of these areas served as a foundation for the Roggenplaat nourishments, that have since been executed.

reading time: 4 min

Solar cells available at bargain prices, but still the revolution stagnates

In its Climate Agreement, the Dutch government aims to reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 49% compared to 1990-levels by the year 2030. That’s a laudable aim, says solar energy professor Arno Smets, but achieving it will be a major challenge. ‘It’s difficult to estimate how much reduction in CO2 emissions each measure will actually deliver.’

reading time: 3-4 min

A mine of information in waste data

It is not uncommon for tools to be developed for research projects, but the tool to emerge from REPAiR (REsource Management in Peri-urban Areas) is one to be particularly proud of. And this is not only in the eyes of TU Delft researchers Alexander Wandl and Arjan van Timmeren. “Local and regional authorities in both Europe and the United States can't wait to start using it.”

reading time: 4-5 min

My façade is your façade!?

Recognise this? You need the aircon on in the summer and the heating is on full during the winter, but it never feels really comfortable. It’s definitely not sustainable. By today’s standards, buildings dating from before 1980 tend to guzzle energy, feel uncomfortable and are expensive to maintain. A modern, advanced façade gets rid of some problems, but under what circumstances is this kind of renovation a realistic option? Can façade leasing make the practice of renovation more sustainable? Researchers in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment put it to the test.

reading time: 4 min

Can sandbanks save mangrove forests?

reading time: 3 min

From concrete waste to concrete buildings

reading time: 6 min

Changing the world with only four screws

reading time: 5 min

Circular area development: pioneering on a large scale

Reading time: 8 minutes

Rekenen aan gigantische aspluimen

The Filipino volcano Taal is restless and spitting lava, ash and steam into the air. Volcanologists fear that a new and bigger eruption is imminent. Ten years ago, Europe was under the spell of an enormous ash cloud, following the eruption on the Eyjafjalla Glacier in Iceland. The cloud brought air traffic to a complete standstill and entailed significant costs. Guangliang Fu and Sha Lu, researched how such an ash plume behaves and how you can predict where it will go.

reading time: 6 min

The next phase in aircraft design