Marie Robert wins the Académie de Marine thesis prize for her PhD at Centrale Nantes

Marie's research aimed at modelling the flow around a ship in waves, combined with the modelling of deformations and efforts of the structure.
 

Research to better predict mechanical fatigue on large vessels 

Given the increasing size of container-type merchant ships, interactions between the classic sea-keeping response and the structural response play a more significant role in ship life cycles. Modelling of hull-structure interactions has become a key issue in the architectural design and ship registration phases.

In this context, Marie Robert's thesis focused on the development of a new tool for numerical modelling of these interactions, based on a detailed representation of fluid  dynamics, with the ICARE tool developed earlier in the LHEEA, and a deliberately simplified representation of the structure.
 
The results presented on barges validated the first steps of setting up the coupling. Particular attention was paid to the appearance thresholds of flow nonlinearities and their impact on the structural response. A first implementation was proposed to solve the free elastic mode model. Parametric studies of added resistance on regular and bichromatic swell completed the work with a view to future calculations on irregular waves. Following this lengthy process, Marie successfully defended her thesis in 2017, supervised by Professor Pierre Ferrant and Antoine Ducoin (Senior Lecturer), in partnership with the company HydrOcéan, now a subsidiary of Bureau Veritas.
 

Académie de Marine Thesis Prize

The Académie de Marine thesis prize is awarded annually to the author of a university thesis in any discipline (law, human sciences, economics, engineering etc), as long as it is on a maritime subject. Marie Robert received this award on October 15, 2018, following in the footsteps of Boris Horel who received this award in 2017.
 

After her PhD, Marie joined SHOM

Marie is now working in Brest at Shom (Naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service) on the European project MyCoast, which aims to improve the capacity of coastal risk management systems in the North-East Atlantic, particularly with regard to marine submersion, maritime safety and coastal pollution.

She is involved in the numerical simulation of ocean circulation in the Bay of Biscay, the aim being to increase the spatial resolution of forecasts and the representativeness of key phenomena in the basin dynamics.

Congratulations to Marie Robert for this prize and a promising start to a research career!