News LHEEA 2021

"Modélisation des phénomènes hydrodynamiques instationnaires sur un trimaran de course au large." (Modelling unsteady hydrodynamic phenomena on an ocean-racing trimaran)

Floatgen, the 2 MW floating wind turbine, installed on the Centrale Nantes offshore test site, SEM-REV (off Le Croisic), produced 14% more power in 2020 than in 2019, reaching an annual total of 6.8 GWh.

Centrale Nantes, Ifremer and University Gustave Eiffel are bringing together their hydrodynamics and mechanical test facilities, to carry out research activities and collaborative projects with French and international companies.

LHEEA (Centrale Nantes/CNRS) is participating in the "Round Robin" test programme of the European Marinet2 project for floating wind turbines and wave energy converters. Within this framework, the tank team is coordinating the work on wave energy and has designed a WEC model comprising two floats whose relative movements are harnessed by a generator.

Applications were open from 15 October to 15 November 2020 in the first Institut Carnot MERS call for projects. The selection committee met on 25 January 2021 and selected 8 projects.

"Contribution à l'étude des émissions à l'échappement des véhicules routiers et de leur impact sur l'environnement dans la ville d'Addis Ababa, en Éthiopie" (Contribution to the study of vehicle exhaust emissions and their impact on the environment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia).

LHEEA's HeloFOW project, undertaken within the WEAMEC framework, aims to develop a hydro-elastic solver for the calculation of structural loads on floating wind turbine foundations.

Sijo GEORGES will defend his PhD on Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 2.00pm. The PhD is entitled: "Direct Numerical Simulation of Transition Induced Vibration over a Flexible Hydrofoil Section" by videoconference from Centrale Nantes.

A €1.5 million project has been funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) programme of the European Union, which addresses the environmental concerns associated with emerging wave energy technologies.

Congratulations to our researchers!

Blue-GIFT is running the third and final call for applications to test and validate marine renewable energy (MRE) technologies in real sea environments that will close on the 23rd of April 2021 at 17:00 UTC.

During the 36th edition of the America's Cup, which took place in March 2021, NUMECA Int.'s FINE™/Marine software, whose ISIS-CFD fluid resolution module was fully developed at LHEEA (Centrale Nantes/CNRS), was again used by the winning team, ETNZ!

During ICOE 2021 (International Conference on Ocean Energy), Thomas Soulard, Research Engineer at SEM-REV, participated in a live session regarding the European OCEAN DEMO programme. Together with Lisa Fitzpatrick, Project Manager at EMEC and James P. Murray, MSc, Programme Manager at Orbital Marine Power, they discussed "Scaling up to Multi-Device: What does it take?".

A joint LHEEA and IFREMER test programme was carried out to assess the influence of the proximity of a tidal turbine's mast on the forces applied to the rotor. These tests are seen as a bridge between many research and teaching activities.

The summary report of the SPECIES project, which was published on 21 May 2021, documents the potential impact associated with the submarine power cables of MRE projects, a recurring issue in consultation processes. The results of this project, coordinated by France Energies Marines and under the scientific direction of Ifremer, are reassuring and do not show any major negative impacts, but do call for further study, particularly with regard to the impact of electromagnetic fields in situ. The SEM-REV team contributed to this project.

Centrale Nantes is a public institution with a scientific, cultural and professional vocation. Centrale Nantes, founded in 1919, trains versatile engineers to a very high scientific and technical level. Equipped with a strong managerial culture, they are capable of placing scientific subjects into a global context incorporating environmental and societal issues.Centrale Nantes offers a postdoctoral position available within the framework of a collaborative project funded by the French National Agency. The recruited candidate will work at LHEEA laboratory in the research group Dynamic of Urban and Coastal Atmosphere (DAUC). The general objective of the DAUC group is to improve the understanding and the modelling of the physical processes involved in the dynamics and thermodynamics of the lower atmosphere and its complex interactions with land and sea surfaces. This research relies on Large-eddy simulation atmospheric models and dedicated field experiments or wind tunnel studies.

The world's first offshore hydrogen production facility, developed by Lhyfe and powered by electricity from a floating wind turbine, will be operational in 2022, off the coast of Le Croisic, at SEM-REV, Centrale Nantes' offshore test site.

The EU-funded Ocean DEMO project 4th call opens on 4 June 2021. Successful applicants will receive free access to test their ocean energy products and services in real sea environments at the project’s network of test centres.

Gaël CLODIC will defend his PhD on Monday, June 07, 2021 at 2.00pm by videoconference on zoom and in lecture theater E (places will be very limited).

Marion Huchet will defend his PhD on Friday, June 11, 2021 at 2.30pm by videoconference on zoom and in lecture theater E (places will be very limited).

The International Towing Tank Conference (ITTC) is a voluntary association of worldwide organizations that have the responsibility for the prediction of the hydrodynamic performance of ships and marine installations based on the results of physical and numerical experiments. The 29th edition of its plenary conference was organized by the LHEEA (Centrale Nantes/CNRS) and the DGA in virtual June 2021.

Arbia Ben Khodja, a Michelin CIFRE PHD student in the LHEEA Laboratory, received the Libersky Prize for the best work by a student at the 15th International SPHERIC Workshop, which was held virtually from 8 to 11 June 2021 from New York. 24 PhD students were in the running. Arbia's paper was on the "Validation of coupled SPH-FE hydroplaning simulations using PIV measurements".

A digital solution to design the anchoring and electrical connections of floating wind farms, optimising the performance and output of subsea connections, has been developed by a group of expert companies within offshore renewables.

With the objective of increasing the technical maturity and the cost competitiveness of floating offshore wind energy, FLOATECH aims to stimulate this transition.

To mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death in 2019, a team of Franco-Italian researchers specialising in fluid mechanics set out to retrace one of Leonardo's most famous drawings in the field of hydraulics. Read on to learn more about this original research project!

On Friday 2 July, France 24 broadcast a feature on offshore wind energy in France. Meet Bertrand Alessandrini, a marine engineering researcher at Centrale Nantes, in the LHEEA Laboratory.

"Numerical improvement and validation of a naval hydrodynamics CFD solver in view of performing fast and accurate simulation of complex ship-wave interaction"

Centrale Nantes is looking for a Early-Stage-Researcher for the FLOAWER (FLOAting Wind Energy netwoRk) project. Find here the complete offer.

Centrale Nantes and Forssea Robotics are happy to announce their collaboration in the Offshore Wind Market survey field.

As part of the CPER Nemo project, two major upgrades are underway for the LHEEA's hydrodynamics and ocean engineering experimental facilities, located on the Centrale Nantes campus.

DNV, the independent energy expert and assurance provider, will lead the process safety study to identify the main environmental, safety and operational risks for the world's first offshore hydrogen production facilities.

Last June, as part of the SafeWAVE project, an offshore operation was conducted at SEM-REV with the project partner RTSYS, with the objective of collecting data near the WAVEGEM wave platform.

Centrale Nantes will be present at this year's Seanergy event in Nantes from 21 to 24 September 2021!

"Experimental Investigation of the High Speed Ditching of Helicopters"

Meet the people behind the research at Centrale Nantes in our series of video interviews. In our fourth edition we meet Professor David Le Touzé of the Research Laboratory in Hydrodynamics, Energetics and Atmospheric Environment (LHEEA).

The French Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MESRI) announced on 21 October 2021 the inclusion of THeoREM on the 2021 National Roadmap for Research Infrastructures.

Last July, the Hydrodynamic and Ocean Engineering Tank at Centrale Nantes, managed by the LHEEA, hosted testing on floating solar panels for the first time. This technology is being developed by the company HelioRec.

A nacelle-mounted LiDAR, which allows upstream wind measurements, was installed in October 2020 on the floating offshore wind turbine, Floatgen, being tested on the Centrale Nantes offshore test site, SEM-REV.

This first, publicly available, environmental impact statement presents the work carried out, the observations and the results obtained on the SEM-REV offshore site, which is run by Centrale Nantes and the CNRS, on the Floatgen floating wind turbine. This 2 MW demonstrator, whose floating platform was developed by BW IDEOL, is deployed offshore and has been producing electricity since 2018.

Caroline Braud, research fellow at the LHEEA, talks about the ePARADISE project, which develops and tests aerodynamic sensors for wind turbines in production. These sensors were tested at full scale on a wind farm operated by VALOREM at Saint-Hilaire de Chaléons (Pays-de-loire).

Laminar-to-turbulence Transition Modeling of Incompressible Flows in a RANS Framework for 2D and 3D Configurations

2 more gold medals for FINE/Marine! Gitana Maxi Edmond de Rothschild and LinkedOut were both winners in the 2021 edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre Normandy Le Havre.