Archive

A chip with a built-in sensor that is so sensitive that it registers a single coronavirus particle. At TU Delft, several researchers in various faculties, including Frans Widdershoven (EW), Peter Steeneken, professor Dynamics of Micro and Nanosystems and Murali Ghatkesar (PME/3mE) are working on this research.

Researchers TU Delft have not only been able to explain how nano-structures in thermoelectric materials can improve energy efficiency but they also propose a commercially more attractive way to manufacture nano-structured thermoelectric materials, increasing the chances for mass-production of thermoelectric energy. Their results were published in Nano Energy.

This week the Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant worth up to 250,000 euros to twelve TU Delft scientists. The grant provides the laureates with the opportunity to further elaborate their own ideas during a period of three years.

Many former students return to TU Delft later in their careers as guest lecturers. Anton Paardekooper graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1992 and has been a guest lecturer at 3mE for six years.

Today, 29 October 2021, Delft University Fund announced the eight TU Delft Best Graduates 2021. Each year, TU Delft’s eight faculties nominate their Best Graduate. On 11 November, during the TU Delft Best Graduate Award Ceremony 2021, one of these eight nominees will receive the prestigious title TU Delft Best Graduate 2021.

What makes things sticky?

Freight transport by water is cheaper and uses less energy than by road. What’s more, there’s more room on the water than on our congested roads. We could fully exploit these benefits by first solving a few notorious bottlenecks, such as container ships that aren’t loaded to capacity, suboptimal vessel navigation and congested locks.

John van den Dobbelsteen and Tim Horeman, together with lab manager Rob Luttjeboer, have a successful way to test recycled sterilized masks and masks made from new materials

How to get the most realistic data from an athlete in action? Take it to the field!

TU Delft and Van Straten Medical have developed and tested a process to reuse masks safely up to five times. The process can be applied directly and by all hospitals.

Self-driving cars can already do quite a bit, but driving as a human being requires something that algorithms cannot do very well: being insecure and careless. A new model that maps the mechanism behind human driving should change this.

Researchers from TU Delft have now developed a new model that describes driving behaviour on the basis of one underlying ‘human’ principle: managing the risk below a threshold level.

Ajay Seth, assistant professor at the Department of BioMechanical Engineering, has received a grant of US$190,000 from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF for his research on the development of Essential Open Source Software for Science. Ajay Seth is receiving the grant specifically for his ‘OpenSIM’ project, an open source biomechanics simulator to study movement to improve the usability, computational performance, maintenance and outreach of the OpenSim open source software and to support the education and training of its users around the world.

During World Cleanup Day on September 19, citizens were encouraged to clean up waste in their street and surroundings. In The Hague, participants on the beach received help from BeachBot, a robot that can recognize and clean up small waste.

Answer to the question of why disposable razors become dull so quickly. And what does a durable Iron Age look like?

Joost de Winter: "The industry is increasingly seeing the importance of research in the field of robotics. Delft engineers lead robotics solutions that enable a company to innovate its technologies."

How can robots function within various processes in a factory? What is a good robot engineer according to the industry? These two questions were central in setting up the new Master's degree programme in Robotics at TU Delft.

Burak Eral and his colleagues are developing a method that allows microparticles to be separated based on their shape.

Exciting research by Lode Huijgens is helping to pave the way for the next generation of ship propulsion systems. Marine Professional finds out more.

ERC has awarded its 2020 Starting Grants to early-career researchers. Two of them are scientists from TU Delft. This European funding will help individual scientists and scholars to build their own teams and conduct pioneering research.

The European Research Council has awarded an ERC Starting Grant to Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani, researcher at Delft Centre for Systems and Control. The grants (1,5 million euros for a five-year programme) are intended to support scientists who are in the early stages of their career and have already produced excellent supervised work.

How can transport on the Rhine between Rotterdam / Antwerp and Basel be improved? That is the central question in the Novimove research program: Novel inland waterway transport concepts for moving freight effectively. The European Commission has allocated nearly € 9 million to this four-year program from Horizon 2020, the Framework Program for Research and Innovation.

To bridge the ever-widening gap between technological innovation and medicine, the new Clinical Technology programme within the LDE alliance was launched six years ago.

Full and prolonged levels of lockdown are unsustainable in the long run. More flexible social distancing approaches are already being applied in many countries and regions, while the tools for decision-making are still ‘work in progress’. TU Delft researchers are using applied mathematics to propose a tool for local authorities that enables them to apply a faster and more flexible approach to social distancing.

Answer to the question of why disposable razors become dull so quickly.

We are pleased to announce that Joost Lötters has been appointed as a part-time professor within the Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering (PME) of the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (3mE).

Scientists in Delft have developed a technique for selectively separating microparticles in a liquid on the basis of their shape. The technique calculates precisely the path that a specifically shaped microparticle will follow in a flow through a narrow tube. This makes it possible to set up a sorting channel, in which the differently shaped particles each find their own way. The new technique, which was published today in the journal PNAS, can be used in a range of sectors, for example in the manufacture of medicines or removing microplastics from water.

As healthcare becomes increasingly complex, Professor Heike Vallery strives for simpler and lighter systems for learning to walk again.

As the research partner in the so-called Hollandse Kust Noord (HKN) project, TU Delft is playing a significant role. Once the wind farm has been built, researchers, led by Professor Jan-Willem van Wingerden, will be able to test their findings regarding wind energy in practice, and the amount of energy generated by the wind farm will be maximised.

A group of TU Delft bachelor students, led by professor Joris Dik, understood the secret of a special piece of wall, without affecting it. Their graduation thesis was published this week in the scientific journal Heritage Science.

Led by Professor Joris Dik, a group of TU Delft bachelor's students was able to discover the secrets of this part of the wall without damaging it. The students’ graduation thesis was published this week in academic journal Heritage Science.

Researchers developed a backpack-like wearable robot to provide balance support during rehabilitation; the GyBAR.

Researchers developed a backpack-like wearable robot to provide balance support during rehabilitation; the GyBAR.

Researchers developed a backpack-like wearable robot to provide balance support during rehabilitation; the GyBAR.

Mahinder Ramdin has been granted 50,000 euros from NWO’s ‘Idea Generator’ programme for his out-of-the-box research idea ‘Recycling of ammonia from animal manure’.

Balance aids currently used in daily life and rehabilitation clinics are helpful but far from perfect. Canes, walkers, crutches, and handrails modify posture and prevent the hands from being used during activities like opening doors, carrying shopping, or answering the telephone. Also more sophisticated tools like mobile bodyweight support systems or robotic gait trainers are bulky or can only be used in specific environments. Andrew Berry, Daniel Lemus and Saher Jabeen, researchers BioMechanical Engineering at TU Delft, led by Professor Heike Vallery, developed a backpack-like wearable robot to provide balance support during rehabilitation; the GyBAR. Fully contained within the backpack is a gyroscopic actuator – a spinning disc repositionable with electric motors – to provide hands-free balance support in multiple activities and environments. The results of the first experiments with human subjects and potential end-users have been published in Nature Scientific Reports.

The global mountain of electronic waste is growing alarmingly fast.

The Open Science Awards recognize researchers or research students who have used Open Science to make their research more accessible, transparent or reproducible.