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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| 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: 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.

| TU Delft and COP26

Discover what our climate scientists contribute to #ClimateAction!

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: 6 min

Climate technology you hope you’ll never need

Could clouds be modified to slow global warming? Cloud expert Herman Russchenberg is investigating climate intervention but hopes his theories will never be put to the test.

reading time: 3 min

Nuance in the quest for climate solutions

With all the uncertainties we are facing, climate engineering (geoengineering) is not a desirable means of combating climate change, but in the future may well be an unavoidable one. Philosopher of technology Behnam Taebi uses an ethics-based approach to try to bring some nuance into the search for technological solutions. Using the Climate Action Hub, he wants to build a bridge between science, citizens and politicians.

reading time: 6 min

Heading for space to save the Earth

A membrane the size of the European continent. Together with other scientists, TU Delft researcher Jeannette Heiligers is currently exploring the possibilities for positioning a gigantic solar shield in space to combat global warming. A huge intervention which is not without its own issues.

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.

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

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: 6 min

Tasty vegetables from a smart greenhouse

A smart greenhouse that calculates when vegetables need water and more heat. That’s what professor Tamás Keviczky from TU Delft’s 3mE faculty is working on. This approach cuts costs and is good for the environment.

reading time: 4 min

Breaking habits for a green world

We separate our waste, take shorter showers and there has been an increase in roof-mounted solar panels. Climate psychologist at TU Delft Gerdien de Vries, sees that in the Netherlands we are trying to put our greenest foot forward.

reading time: 3 min

The breathing of dikes

reading time: 6 min

A golden age for earth observation

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Andreia Martinho, PhD, TPM, artificial intelligence, ethics

reading time: 4 min

The rapid development of artificial intelligence brings its own set of new ethical challenges. In her PhD research, Andreia Martinho is trying to bring the ultra-theoretical world of ethics and the practice of artificial intelligence closer together.

Artificial intelligence with a moral compass

The rapid development of artificial intelligence brings its own set of new ethical challenges. In her PhD research, Andreia Martinho is trying to bring the ultra-theoretical world of ethics and the practice of artificial intelligence closer together.

reading time: 4 min

A box full of jerry can water filters for refugee camps

In early May, Olivier de Gruijter packed a large box of Jerry Can Water Filters. Each one is handcrafted in his workshop. Finally they are going out into the real world, something he has been looking forward to for a long time. Refugees in Gaza and Iraq are going to use the prototypes for the first time. After studying Industrial Design Engineering, De Gruijter came up with a smart, compact water filter that you can screw onto any standard jerry can. A unique and sustainable filter system that rinses itself clean.

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: 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.

viewing time: 11 min

How to Print a Dinosaur

How to Print a Dinosaur? Find out how a combination of new and traditional techniques can be used to restore an ancient creature like never before!

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: 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.

Collection Climate Action

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: min

In search of the plastic soup

To better understand the whereabouts of floating plastic soup, you need to investigate how the water moves at different depths. Angeliki Laskari, researcher of Multiphase Systems at TU Delft, therefore studies fluid dynamics, the science of the movement and flow of water. Her ultimate goal is to help predict how plastic spreads in water.

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.

reading time: 3 min

Increasing demand for renewable energy will lead to the large-scale construction of offshore wind farms in the coming decades. This will result in increased environmental damage for marine life, because anchoring wind turbines in the seabed is currently still a source of noise disruption. GBM Works, a TU Delft spin-off company, has developed a much quieter method of building offshore wind turbines.

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

Increasing demand for renewable energy will lead to the large-scale construction of offshore wind farms in the coming decades. This will result in increased environmental damage for marine life, because anchoring wind turbines in the seabed is currently still a source of noise disruption. GBM Works, a TU Delft spin-off company, has developed a much quieter method of building offshore wind turbines

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: 3 min

Nature inspires new materials

Creating new materials by learning from nature. That’s what Mohammad J. Mirzaali is working on. He looks specifically at hard and soft transitions, which connect a hard bone to a piece of soft tissue in our bodies, for example.

reading time: 5 min

Tiny autonomous satellites in hot pursuit

It doesn’t sound very elegant, launching a bunch of satellites into space only to have them plummet back to earth. But, while falling, they will map the density of earth’s atmosphere – our shield against meteoroids and space debris. It also involves a level of autonomy and coordination that are essential for next generation earth observation technology and future deep space missions.

reading time: min

Saving lives with a fair emergency communication system

We are all familiar with that uneasy feeling when your phone battery is low, the feeling of nearly being cut-off from communication possibilities. But what if your phone is nearly dead when disaster strikes and the battery of your phone literally can mean the difference between life and death? TU Delft researcher Indushree Banerjee has designed a novel fair emergency communication system that can save lives, by extending the battery life of smartphones.

reading time: 4 min

Autonomous robots protect the lives of emergency services in disasters

Search and rescue robots play an important role in rescue missions following disasters. Dr. Jamshidnejad is trying to make these robots even more intelligent so that they can make decisions autonomously in complex situations, thereby relieving rescue workers of life-threatening tasks and making rescue operations more efficient.

reading time: 4 min

Airplanes cross borders, so do their environmental effects

When it comes to the health effects of aviation, reducing total fuel burn may not necessarily be the optimal strategy. And, perhaps even more surprisingly, your flight from Amsterdam to Rome contributes to premature deaths in Asia. Dr. Irene Dedoussi models the global human health impact of air pollution from aviation emissions, helping both airplane designers and policy makers in weighing the various mitigation strategies to make aviation sustainable.

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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?

Collection Climate Action

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: 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: min

From the plane into the train

reading time: 5 min

Sand on the horizon

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: min

A revolution in modelling travel behaviour

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Designing for darkness

reading time: min

Avoiding division in climate adaptation

reading time: min

The responsibility gap with self-driving cars

reading time: 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

reading time: min

Analysing firefighter calls on New Year’s Eve with open source data

reading time: min

Promoting social interaction through online games

reading time: 7 min

Four graduation projects win circularity award

reading time: min

Neural networks put the afterburners on skin recovery models

reading time: min

Planning a city with conflicting values? No problem!

reading time: min

Meltwater from the Austrian Alps

reading time: min

Stronger together: Swarm mini-drones sniff out gas leaks

reading time: 4 min

Delft research unravels mystery of motion of cilia

reading time: 6 min

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

reading time: min

Working proactively for safe gas networks in the Netherlands
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