GENERAL FOCUS CIVIL ENGINEERING
The combination of climate change, the energy transition, increasing risks of water scarcity and flooding, continued urbanisation, and the push for circularity are all creating great societal challenges. In our vision, the Civil Engineering discipline has a key role in coping with these societal challenges. The mission of the discipline Civil Engineering is to develop, apply and disseminate knowledge and novel solutions in the domain of civil engineering contributing to a sustainable, efficient, safe and resilient society. Civil engineering focuses on four cross-cutting research themes, i.e. sustainability, efficiency, safety and resilience, and we will reinforce our strengths by investing in the focal points below that are the basis of these research themes.
Computational Methods in Fluid Dynamics for Nature Based Solutions The UT is the partner to understand and model the fluid mechanics required for the development of wave overtopping-resistant dikes and building-with-nature for highwater protection in all its fine details. Fluid dynamics is inherently related to surface waters (rivers, coasts) and their forces on bed and boundaries, which can be both natural (e.g. dunes) as well as artificial (e.g. dikes).
Due to upcoming climate challenges such as increased rates of sea level rise, increased storminess, and higher frequency of extreme river discharges (more floods as well as extreme droughts) it is crucial to understand fluid dynamics at the relevant scales in order to design optimal solutions. This might be traditional hard structures (i.e. dikes) as well as nature based solutions in which we use the dynamics of the natural processes (for instance trapping of sediment at vegetated foreshores).
Research topics
Urbanized coastlines are vulnerable to natural forces of water and wind, and related sand transport. Beach and dunes are first line defences against flooding, which also have an important socio-economic function, recreation and tourism, requiring them to stay natural. Anticipated more extreme conditions due to climate change demand innovative co-evolution solutions protecting both nature and built environment in sandy dune coastal areas providing the essential future protection. Specialised Computational Fluid Dynamics methods, validated by experiments, on real and on specific lab scale is needed, to analyse and predict the impact of aeolian processes on the natural and human structures, and aid design of innovative nature based civil engineering solutions.
Research TOPICS
Soil-Infrastructure interaction To gain more fundamental insight into the behaviour, load bearing capacity and remaining service life of dikes and constructions, we aim to reinforce our fundamental research on Soil Infrastructure Interaction. The cycles of drying & wetting, of loading & unloading, tear & healing, of shrink & expansion result in erosion, displacement and alteration of characteristics (e.g. texture, structure, granularity, porosity). Soil mechanical models are key in understanding the functioning and integrity of these vital infrastructures.
Research TOPICS
Besides the assistent and associate professor positions, a technician for experimental methods (Emre Özturk) has been appointed with the Sectorplan fundings.
