PhD student Anna Feichtner, a member of the Renewable Energy Group of the University of Exeter ‘s Cornwall Campus and her supervisor Prof. Lars Johanning were awarded the “PhD Placement and Supervisor Mobility Grant China-UK”. As a visiting student, Anna has spent 6 months from April until September 2019 with the Coastal and Ocean Engineering group under the supervision by Prof. NING Dezhi at the Dalian University of Technology (DUT), Dalian, China. The scholarship enabled a strong collaboration of the “ResIn” project working on both numerical modelling and experimental testing. Anna was able to improve her work on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling of the wave interaction of thin porous structures and was participating at the “ResIn” tank test investigations of a floating tension leg platform (TLP) – model with a porous outer shroud.
Various events including the International Workshop on Wave Energy Converters at Zhejiang University in Zhoushan, the International PhD Summerschool in Ocean Engineering at Harbin University and the UK-China Collaborative Workshop on Coastal and Offshore Renewable Energy Systems under Extreme Events in Dalian provided Anna with a valuable platform to present her work and to engage with other researchers in the field.
Anna considers her time in Dalian as a great success, both in terms of research output and personal development and says: “It was great to not only progress with my PhD research but also to experience the Chinese culture!”
Research outcome:
· “Modelling Wave Interaction with thin porous Structures using OpenFOAM”, Conference Paper for the European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC 2019), Naples, Italy
· “Using OpenFOAM with OlaFlow to model the Wave Interaction with thin porous Plates”, submission as journal paper planned soon
