prof.dr. V. Magnanimo (Vanessa)

TUSAIL

Training in Upscaling particle Systems: Advancing Industry across Length-scales

The overarching objective of TUSAIL is to train 15 creative, entrepreneurial and innovative Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in developing, applying and validating novel methodologies for upscaling of particulate systems across the length-scales and this way to help advance the innovation capacity in European industry. This will deliver a cohort of experts in upscaling techniques able to eliminate industry’s reliance on traditional, costly pilot plants and thereby enhance European competitiveness, reducing risks and saving valuable resources. TUSAIL will start in March 2021, with 15 PhD positions open across Europe.

POSEIDON

Improve offshore infrastructure resilience against geohazards towards a changing climate

POSEIDON is a MSCA Doctoral Network project funded by EU. It brings together an interdisciplinary and intersectorial team to deliver a professionally trained next-generation network of Doctoral Candidates to develop a step change in our capacity to identify, map, assess and predict offshore geohazards and in turn produce ground-breaking methods to prevent, mitigate and boost the resilience of current offshore infrastructure under a changing climate. The consortium is formed by experts across EU countries with universities, research institutions, industry partners and a government body to cover a full training programme on scientific and transferable skills.

Bio-inspired burrowing robot for soil penetration in limited-access sites

The project is funded by NWO, under the Open Competition Domain Science Scheme

Global warming is changing the landscape around us and threatening our safety. Groundwater level fluctuations affect the soil integrity, leading to severe subsidence in the Netherlands, foundation instability and structural damages. Current underground remediation techniques are expensive and ineffective. An innovative selfburrowing robot is proposed to investigate soil and monitor foundations. Bio-inspired by the earthworm movement, the robot burrows in soil with minimum disturbance. Instrumentation allows for continuous foundation examination, soil characterization and local grouting injection. At the same time, the acquired data can be back-engineered as feedback to guide the robot advancement.

Soft Seismic Shields

Engineering smart soils to protect buildings

Since centuries our society pays a heavy toll of dead and damages for earthquakes. Their mitigation poses still formidable challenges to engineers and scientists. Recent construction codes allow to build safe newbuildings. But cost of works is still too high. For structures of historical and architectural relevance that pose tighter constrains to retro-fitting, intervention on the building is often impracticable. In this project we reverse the approach and propose, as mind-changer, to engineer soils into active Soft Seismic Shields against earthquakes.

T-MAPPP

Training in Multiscale Analysis of MultiPhase Particulate Processes and Systems