reading time: min

From the plane into the train

Few travellers combine plane and train: too much uncertainty, too much hassle. What needs to be done to get passengers on the train for a transfer before or after a long flight? Delft Design master's student Rosa Hendrikx researched how passenger service can be improved, designed a service to combine international train journeys and flights, and graduated cum laude

reading time: 5 min

Sand on the horizon

It’s a decade since the creation of the Sand Motor, an artificial sand bank off the North Sea coast. What happens to a natural system following human intervention on such a large scale.

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| Top 10 Stories in 2021

We are very proud of our Stories of Science. These are the ten best read English stories in 2021.

Stories

reading time: 4 min

Wheelchair owner and companion next to each other thanks to wheelchair attachment

A standard wheelchair is pushed, but if you walk behind it as an attendant, it’s sometimes difficult to keep contact with the person sitting in it, even though it’s a necessity. There’s probably a technical solution to this kind of problem, but then the right people have to know about it.

reading time: min

Neural networks put the afterburners on skin recovery models

First aid for burn injuries is to cool the area for twenty minutes with lukewarm running water. Math can play an important role in choosing the subsequent, often more intensive, treatment aimed at reducing the probability of permanent damage or even disabilities. But these mathematical models for skin recovery must be fast. By applying neural networks, Marianne Schaaphok increased their speed by more than a million times.

reading time: min

Planning a city with conflicting values? No problem!

Increasing urbanisation is creating major challenges in spatial planning. Not least because everyone has different priorities when it comes to organising the public space. For his Master's thesis, best graduate of 2021 in the Faculty of TPM, Rico Herzog, mapped out conflicts of values within a city and developed a model to deal with such conflicts; a model intended to help decision-makers to make better urban planning decisions.

reading time: 4 min

Delft research unravels mystery of motion of cilia

The cilia – tiny hairs – inside our body are important to our health. They help move fluids, such as phlegm from our lungs. Eduardo Gutiérrez Prieto, a master’s student in Mechanical Engineering in the Faculty of 3mE at TU Delft, explains through his research how cilia acquire their motion and how multiple of them can synchronize. This insight could lead to the more effective treatment of various illnesses. For example the treatment of smoker’s cough or other diseases of the respiratory system.

reading time: 6 min

Zhuo-ming Shia: A design process for socially responsible global housing

When there is a global housing shortage, you do not go about creating one new dwelling at a time. Especially when there is a dire need for quality housing, sustainably designed, and befitting the people whom the dwellings are built for. Best Graduate of the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (BK) Zhuo-ming Shia designed a participatory housing design process for Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

reading time: 4 min

Zooming in on and out of a circular region

Like the energy transition, the transition to a circular economy impacts the way we use space. So how should we go about planning structural reuse and value retention? For students on the Urbanism Master's track, this is not merely a theoretical question. A range of spatial strategies have recently been put forward for a circular South Holland region.

reading time: 6 min

Is hydrogen-powered air travel the future?

Hydrogen is a sustainable alternative to kerosene-powered air travel because there are no CO₂ emissions. But hydrogen is also associated with challenges and risks, such as the danger of explosion. TU Delft scientist Dr. Ivan Langella aims to use mathematical models, high-fidelity computational simulations and experiments to develop a zero-emission hydrogen-powered engine that will enable aircraft to fly safely and efficiently.

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: 4 min

Using smart technology to make fuel out of CO2

Too much CO2 in the air is currently causing a major problem: climate change. If it were up to Peyman Taheri, researcher at Materials Science and Engineering at TU Delft, we would be making smart use of surplus CO2 by converting it into a new fuel. A fuel that could power factories and send cars hurtling down the motorway.

reading time: 8 min

New sensor chips: low-cost, smart and efficient

Imagine using a chip to analyse heart cells, or being notified by a smart plaster if your heart rate gets too high. These are two examples of research that Frans Widdershoven is working on. This fresh new pro-fessor is developing new smart sensors.

| TU Delft Best Graduates 2021

TU Delft is proud to present the eight Best Graduates 2021. Each year, the eight faculties select their best graduate. Read below the stories of these eight brand new engineers and their impactful graduation research.

reading time: 6 min

Looking over the shoulder of the pilot of a Flying-V

The first scale model test proved last year that the Flying-V is an airworthy, stable and controllable aircraft. In early November, it was time for the next step: the first simulator flight. Test pilot Thibaut Cappuyns had the honour of taking control of the stick of the SIMONA simulator. The pilot's experience of this revolutionary type of aircraft is crucial.

reading time: min

Neural networks put the afterburners on skin recovery models

First aid for burn injuries is to cool the area for twenty minutes with lukewarm running water. Math can play an important role in choosing the subsequent, often more intensive, treatment aimed at reducing the probability of permanent damage or even disabilities. But these mathematical models for skin recovery must be fast. By applying neural networks, Marianne Schaaphok increased their speed by more than a million times.

reading time: min

Planning a city with conflicting values? No problem!

Increasing urbanisation is creating major challenges in spatial planning. Not least because everyone has different priorities when it comes to organising the public space. For his Master's thesis, best graduate of 2021 in the Faculty of TPM, Rico Herzog, mapped out conflicts of values within a city and developed a model to deal with such conflicts; a model intended to help decision-makers to make better urban planning decisions.

reading time: min

Meltwater from the Austrian Alps

An imposing, compelling and urgent social problem, that is what Master student Sarah Hanus wanted for her final project. She found it high up in the Austrian Alps where climate change is altering river runoff patterns. Using a model she developed herself, Hanus is able to come up with long-term projections of what these patterns will look like in future. Her work earned her the title of Best Graduate of the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Sciences.

reading time: min

Stronger together: Swarm mini-drones sniff out gas leaks

Developing drones that are smaller and lighter than normal drones but still capable of performing the same tasks – Bart Duisterhof has succeeded in doing just that, and has been named Best Graduate in the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. For his Master’s thesis, he developed smart mini-drones that can independently detect gas leaks. “If you’re not afraid of thinking outside the box, you can reach solutions that you might not otherwise have thought of.”

reading time: 4 min

Delft research unravels mystery of motion of cilia

The cilia – tiny hairs – inside our body are important to our health. They help move fluids, such as phlegm from our lungs. Eduardo Gutiérrez Prieto, a master’s student in Mechanical Engineering in the Faculty of 3mE at TU Delft, explains through his research how cilia acquire their motion and how multiple of them can synchronize. This insight could lead to the more effective treatment of various illnesses. For example the treatment of smoker’s cough or other diseases of the respiratory system.

reading time: 6 min

Zhuo-ming Shia: A design process for socially responsible global housing

When there is a global housing shortage, you do not go about creating one new dwelling at a time. Especially when there is a dire need for quality housing, sustainably designed, and befitting the people whom the dwellings are built for. Best Graduate of the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (BK) Zhuo-ming Shia designed a participatory housing design process for Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

A better environment from the comfort of your chair

A modular chair made of blocks in which CO2 has been stored and that can be converted into other pieces of furniture. With his special design - Unito - Riel Bessai, who recently graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Design, wants, above all, to tell a story. “With my chair I am making the global CO2 problem tangible and I hope to encourage people to view our consumer society from a different perspective.”

reading time: min

Perfectly common enzymes the key to green medicines and chemicals

Friederike Nintzel, who recently graduated from the Faculty of Applied Sciences, has an important mission, greening the pharmaceutical and chemical industry by making the production of medicines and chemicals more sustainable. The research she conducted for her master’s degree shows the use of enzymes might be a game changer in this. She earned a perfect ten, published her research and was nominated Best Graduate of her faculty.

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reading time: min

Building differently to combat aircraft noise

Aircraft noise around airports is a major problem, and a persistent one. Researcher Martijn Lugten asked himself whether the way we build houses might hold the key to solving this problem.

Collection Climate Action

reading time: 5 min

Compact nature for the compact city

Urban dwellers need green public spaces. To put oxygen in their lungs and improve their mental health. To capture carbon dioxide and mitigate extreme weather. To ensure balance between the built and the natural environments. But in densely built-up cities there is little space for greenery at ground level. So, what can be done about this? For his graduation project, Menno de Roode studied and designed compact urban public green spaces: “Following nature as far as possible enables you to avoid unnecessary maintenance and management.”

reading time: 4 min

Shelf-stocking robot working independently

A robot that helps store employees by moving independently through the supermarket and shelving products in their proper place. According to researcher Carlos Hernández Corbato of the Department of Cognitive Robotics, this may be possible in the future. But the robot must be able to adapt to the dynamic and challenging conditions in a supermarket.

reading time: 10 min

Innovation needs a place to grow

Mitigating the impact of climate change, facilitating the energy transition, solving the housing crisis… The built environment needs to address pretty big challenges, which ask for innovative solutions. Students at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment have plenty of good ideas to create the necessary innovations, but how can their ideas successfully evolve?

reading time: 4, 5 min

With each other, for each other

Building more homes without rethinking the way we live together will not solve the fundamental issues with the housing crisis. Besides more quality homes for lower and middle incomes, we also need housing solutions that are sustainable, foster strong social connections and are affordable.

reading time: 5 min

The wind app that puts the wind in your sails

Catching the breeze may bring you gold but sail too close to the wind and you’ll miss the boat. Combined with a sailor’s intuition meteorologist Sukanta Basu’s highly detailed wind forecast may well help the Dutch sailing team secure a win at the Olympics this year.

Collection Climate Action

reading time: 5 min

Sand on the horizon

It’s a decade since the creation of the Sand Motor, an artificial sand bank off the North Sea coast. What happens to a natural system following human intervention on such a large scale.

reading time: 9 min

‘As a student, you simply cannot get closer to the professional field’

Fitting new infrastructure into our densely built-up country is becoming increasingly complex. The Integrated Infrastructure Design minor teaches students how to handle this complexity. “This helps us to train a completely different type of engineer,” says minor coordinator Hans de Boer.

reading time: min

A giant pink rabbit on Grote Markt

A 7 metre tall pink origami rabbit has hopped its way over to the Grote Markt, making Delft’s living room its temporary hutch from May 30. The animal was designed with the Delft Fringe Festival in mind by two TU Delft computer science students. ‘We were positively shocked when we heard that we, two computer science students, had come up with the winner,’ Bartek Kotlicki from Poland and Irishman Ben Provan-Bessell said.

reading time: 5 min

Safety in numbers in times of Corona? There can be.

When did we last dance at a pop festival, cheer on our favourite football team or get together with friends for a meal at a restaurant? It all seems an eternity ago. Dorine Duives misses the crowds as well, and not just for the atmosphere. As a TU Delft researcher Duives studies pedestrian crowd behaviour and the arrival of coronavirus and the 1.5 metre society has made her expertise more relevant than ever. As the crisis developed, the focus of her research became firmly centred on safe ways of opening up society again.

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

Campus mobility dashboard to monitor crowd behavior at TU Delft

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: min

From the plane into the train

reading time: 5 min

Sand on the horizon

leestijd: 9 min

A geothermal research well on TU Delft's premises

reading time: 6 min

“We have to close the knowledge gap on ventilation now”

reading time: 4, 5 min

Ultimate challenge: to make 7 million buildings energy neutral on time

reading time: min

High-level language design

reading time: 6 min

The birth of the Delfi-PQ mini satellite

Building Pandemic Proof Cities

reading time: 6 min

Dialogue with residents creates a pleasant living environment

reading time: min

The landslide forecast coming to you from space

reading time: 6 min

The hydrogen car as a crucial link in a sustainable energy system

reading time: 6 min

Looking over the shoulder of the pilot of a Flying-V

Watching time: 12 min

ESP Lab - Lucia Beloqui Larumbe, Power Electronics

Watching time: 12 min

ESP Lab - Peter Palensky, Digital Technologies

Watching time: 12 min

ESP Lab – Miro Zeman, Photovoltaics

reading time: 5 min

A revolution in modelling travel behaviour

reading time: 8 min

Designing for darkness

reading time: 9 min

Avoiding division in climate adaptation

reading time: 4 min

The responsibility gap with self-driving cars

reading time: 8 min

Resilient water management in India through adaptive policy analysis

reading time: 4 min

Wheelchair owner and companion next to each other thanks to wheelchair attachment

reading time: 4 min

More grip on the unpredictable energy transition with GridMaster
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