reading time: 5 min

Resonance between brain and mind for better design

Caiseal Beardow, master’s student at TU Delft’s Faculty of Industrial Design, built an audio-visual installation that explores how brain and mind respond to subtle changes in a landscape of light and sound that test subjects experience in her installation.

reading time: 4 min

Dutch lessons in the Chinese Pearl River Delta

The Pearl River Delta in the province of Guangdong in southern China is one of the most rapidly urbanising deltas in the world. More than sixty million people now live in an area approximately half the size of the Netherlands. The pace of developments, combined with the consequences of climate change, are creating a complex set of issues. How can a small country like the Netherlands help out?

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| Climate adaptation stories

Best practices to adapt to climate change

reading time: 5 min

LandShapes: made to feel real

Master’s student in industrial design Frederik Ueberschär used artificial intelligence to create non-existent satellite images of the earth’s surface in his interactive installation LANDSHAPES. People can change these landscapes, and in this playful way he wants to involve them emotionally in climate change.

reading time: 4 min

Understanding complex coral reef coasts

Fringing coral reefs provide a sheltered habitat for many sea animals and are a snorkelers’ paradise. But they also form a natural barrier which protects the shoreline and the area further inland. Experiments using 3D printed replicas of a coral are helping Marion Tissier gain an insight into how coral reefs influence and dampen wave energy.

reading time: 5 min

What is the coolest tree?

On a hot, windless day, a leafy neighbourhood may feel 10 to 15°C cooler than an urban area that is more exposed to the sun. Trees thus play a key role in preventing heat stress and the design of climate-proof and healthier cities. “Although we already understand a great deal about the performance of tree species in the built environment, there is very little empirical knowledge about their cooling capacity.”, says researcher Lotte Dijkstra. In order to determine how physical properties such as the trunk and crown shape and the leaf characteristics influence the local air temperature the research team designed and built special ‘climate arboreta’ with sensors installed in each of the 75 tree species.

reading time: 6 min

Urban Ecology: the increasing importance of nature in the city

‘Urban Ecology can have a positive influence in many other areas in addition to biodiversity, such as climate adaptation, health, water and energy consumption and circularity’, according to Nico Tillie, who, together with 26 students, looked at how the forces of nature could be given more room on TU Delft Campus. The coronavirus wasn’t much of a help though.

reading time: 6 min

Magnetic cooling for a greener world

A fridge or air-conditioning system that uses far less energy, is quieter and needs no harmful substances to run. This can soon become reality now that Magneto, a Delft start-up company co-founded by Michael Maschek, is bringing magnetic refrigeration to the market. And this is all thanks to the perseverance of Professor Ekkes Brück, who never lost faith in his affordable commodity.

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

Can sandbanks save mangrove forests?

Reading time: 3 min

Making dikes safer with a bass guitar

| World Water Day 2021

reading time: 4 min

The creepy crawlies that can save lives

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.

reading time: 5 min

Amina Chouairi: From a peculiar relationship to a clear view on the Venetian tides

If the Venetian Lagoon could talk, it would want a conversation with Amina Chouairi. She decided to listen anyway. For her Master’s thesis ‘The Operating Venetian Lagoon: The Agency of Barene’, Amina dove into the Venetian tides. Amina recently graduated from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment with this Master’s thesis which earned her a nomination for Best Graduate TU Delft 2020 and a place in the Archiprix pre-selection.

reading time: 5 min

Value from wastewater

Reading time: 4 min

Water treatment in India: a matter for the local community

reading time: 5 min

Purifying water with diamonds

Diamonds have always captured our imagination as a material for jewellery. Fewer of us are aware that engineers also consider diamonds to be an absolutely prime material with many, surprising applications. Researcher Ivan Buijnsters at TU Delft, for example, focuses on purifying water with diamonds.

reading time: 4 min

Dutch lessons in the Chinese Pearl River Delta

The Pearl River Delta in the province of Guangdong in southern China is one of the most rapidly urbanising deltas in the world. More than sixty million people now live in an area approximately half the size of the Netherlands. The pace of developments, combined with the consequences of climate change, are creating a complex set of issues. How can a small country like the Netherlands help out?

Reading time: 3 min

Water with a barcode

A world without a sewer system is not really something anyone would wish to contemplate. Flooding, smelly streets, not to mention the absence of toilet facilities, would make life intolerable. With approximately 150,000 kilometres of waste pipes the Dutch sewage system is one of the country’s most important pieces of infrastructure. While maintenance is crucial it is also expensive. Assistant professor urban water infrastructure Lisa Scholten, together with Francois Clemens and Juan Pablo Aguilar Lopez are looking at new ways to achieve an efficient inspection and maintenance system. With Leiden University computer scientists Arno Knobbe and Dirk Meijer they have been working on ‘SewerSense’, a project to develop a new inspection method which will also lead to a better understanding of the decision-making processes surrounding sewer maintenance.

reading time: 6 min

Using mathematics to explain why the River Ems is silting up

Why are the River Ems and the Dollard inlet so turbid that they barely harbour any life? Mathematician Henk Schuttelaars (TU Delft) is working on new models to improve our understanding of this puzzling river and find solutions to the problems involved.

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reading time: 5 min

Sweet solutions to a salty problem

Some sixty kilometres, all the way up to Gouda, that’s how far inland the Rotterdam Waterway has been carrying salty North Sea water over the last few years.
Salt intrusion in Dutch rivers is a growing problem for the country’s drinking water supply and agriculture, not only in the Dutch delta but in deltas worldwide. Julie Pietrzak is trying to find better ways of predicting and combating the problem.

6

reading time: 4 min

Dutch lessons in the Chinese Pearl River Delta

The Pearl River Delta in the province of Guangdong in southern China is one of the most rapidly urbanising deltas in the world. More than sixty million people now live in an area approximately half the size of the Netherlands. The pace of developments, combined with the consequences of climate change, are creating a complex set of issues. How can a small country like the Netherlands help out?

reading time: min

Hit the roads safely with autonomous vehicles

When the time comes for autonomous cars to hit the roads, they’ll have to take other road users into account. For example, they’ll need to stop when a cyclist abruptly turns. Laura Ferranti is studying how this can be best achieved. Even when roads are packed with traffic.

reading time: 5 min

Good vibrations? Not for bridges

Due to poor monitoring, many structures are not maintained properly or on time. This results in safety risks and high costs for overdue maintenance. Researcher Alice Cicirello is working on better design and monitoring tools to ensure the secure construction of structures to extend their service life.

reading time: 5 min

Getting it straight: bridges are becoming circular

A large number of bridges in the Netherlands are scheduled for large-scale maintenance work or replacement. In order to minimise the effect on the environment and bring down costs researcher Wenjun Cao is working on a model to assess the potential for circularity of these bridges. This will help the Netherlands to achieve its aim of a fully Circular Economy (CE) by 2050.

reading time: 4 min

Help from on high to solve earthly problems

The ground beneath our feet is constantly moving and that can compromise the stability of buildings and infrastructure. Satellite data are helping Giorgia Giardina to chart the impact of subsurface activity on buildings in great detail so efficient measures to limit damage, cost and safety risks can be taken before it’s too late.

leestijd: 4 min

Op digitaal ziekenbezoek in Reinier de Graaf dankzij Delftse studenten

Vanwege strikte coronarichtlijnen is het voor veel patiënten in het Reinier de Graaf niet mogelijk om bezoek te ontvangen. Door alle drukte in het ziekenhuis kunnen verplegers oudere of zwakkere patiënten niet altijd helpen contact te hebben met hun naasten via welbekende middelen als WhatsApp of Skype. Delftse studenten ontwikkelden een tool die patiënt en familie toch bij elkaar brengt én het zorgpersoneel ontlast.

reading time: 3 min

Aerospace students revive Leonardo da Vinci’s aerial screw (and turn it into an electric personal aerial vehicle for today)

In the midst of the corona pandemic, five aerospace engineering students from Delft University of Technology designed a vertical take-off and landing vehicle based on Leonardo da Vinci’s Aerial Screw and demonstrated its feasibility and physics.

reading time: 3 min

‘We are showing how we can take something as dramatic as Covid-19 and use it to develop world-class scientific research’

For years, Distinguished Professor Smart Urban Mobility Serge Hoogendoorn had been dreaming of a sensor network for research into traffic flows. The fact that it would happen on the TU Delft campus was never part of the dream. A perfect case of “never waste a good crisis”.

reading time: min

‘I woke up in the middle of the night and just knew: we would build this platform’

What do you do when the coronavirus crisis brings your student project to a halt?
For Eco-Runner Team Manager Antonios Kouzelis it was an easy decision:
arrange an alternative! Besides which he and two friends also set up the website
kiezeninquarantaine.nl (choosing while in quarantine), just like that.

reading time: 4 min

‘Coronavirus has brought the service team closer to the faculty’

The buildings were virtually empty and an icy silence filled the corridors, but colleagues in Service Cluster 3 have continued their hard work since the outbreak of coronavirus.

reading time: 4 min

‘This is the kind of education students have been asking for’

reading time: 4 min

‘Making big problems manageable and solving them: that’s what we do as engineers’

Switching to online education in the middle of the semester wasn’t easy for anyone, but how do you do that for a course in which building and testing are so important? Lecturer Michiel Schuurman took it as an opportunity to innovate the production process.

reading time: 4 min

‘We were able to crowdsource professional assistance from across the world’

When Covid-19 struck, Anteneh Tesfaye Tola worried about family and friends in Ethiopia. Supported by the Delft Global Initiative, he was able to take some time off from his PhD research to focus on developing design guidelines for the setting up of emergency medical facilities in Ethiopia. In that way, he was able to assist his country from afar.

reading time: 4 min

Understanding complex coral reef coasts

Fringing coral reefs provide a sheltered habitat for many sea animals and are a snorkelers’ paradise. But they also form a natural barrier which protects the shoreline and the area further inland. Experiments using 3D printed replicas of a coral are helping Marion Tissier gain an insight into how coral reefs influence and dampen wave energy.

Constructies

Reading time: 5 min

Super asphalt lasts longer

Asphalt concrete is a great material for road surfacing purposes but it’s not always the most sustainable of options. Sandra Erkens, professor of Pavement Engineering Practice, is looking for ways of predicting and extending the lifespan of both existing and new pavement materials. Epoxy asphalt may well hold the key to more durable road surfaces. The end of October should see the start of the construction of a trial section on a Noord-Holland road to put the new super asphalt through its paces.

reading time: min

The shipping sector must change its course

Blame culture an obstacle to safety in the chemical sector

Everyone knows small mistakes can have large consequences. Yet when things go wrong in the chemical industry the results can be disastrous, as the recent incident in Beirut shows. Genserik Reniers, Professor of Safety of Hazardous Materials at TU Delft, wants to put safety on the map better than today, in order for human suffering and economic losses to be minimised as much as possible: ‘There's a lot we can achieve relatively easy.’

Reading time: 4 min

What if we all share our rides?

With just a few clicks associate professor Oded Cats empties the streets of Amsterdam of all cars. In a simulation model, that is. ‘Now what if we ban Uber? Or allow only trams or bike sharing services?’ From his office in the CEG faculty building Cats is experimenting with a complex computer model.

reading time: 4 min

Counting grains of sand to understand coastal dunes

The Dutch coastline is continually changing. Coastal engineer Sierd de Vries is using ventilators, wind tunnels, drones, jet skis and laser scanners to gain an insight into the development of coastal areas and dune formation. He can often be found counting grains of sand.

reading time: 5 min

Resonance between brain and mind for better design

reading time: 4 min

Dutch lessons in the Chinese Pearl River Delta

reading time: 5 min

LandShapes: made to feel real

reading time: min

In search of the plastic soup

reading time: 5 min

Sweet solutions to a salty problem

reading time: 4 min

Filling the gap: terahertz waves for next generation sensing and communication

reading time: 3 min

‘The market needs a quiet method for offshore pile-driving’

reading time: 5 min

Resonance between brain and mind for better design

reading time: 3 min

Nature inspires new materials

reading time: 5 min

Tiny autonomous satellites in hot pursuit

reading time: min

Saving lives with a fair emergency communication system

reading time: 4 min

Autonomous robots protect the lives of emergency services in disasters

reading time: 4 min

Airplanes cross borders, so do their environmental effects

reading time: 7 min

Taming the software jungle with evolutionary insights

reading time: 6 min

Applying wastewater treatment technologies to medicine

reading time: 4 min

Dutch lessons in the Chinese Pearl River Delta

reading time: 4 min

Living on the edge

reading time: min

A fighter jet and your health, radar can track both

reading time: 4 min

Using smart technology to make fuel out of CO2

reading time: min

An algorithm for the perfect photograph

reading time: min

Hit the roads safely with autonomous vehicles

reading time: 5, 5 min

City of the future communicates using solar panels
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