Background
Nadia recently completed an MSc in Mechanical Engineering at the
University of Edinburgh and was seeking to develop her knowledge further
with a PhD. IDCORE was appealing as it created a bridge between
industrial experience and academic research in the rewarding, rapidly
expanding area of offshore renewables.Prior to working on this, Nadia contributed to another ORE Catapult project during which she learnt how to code using Python.
Nadia’s Project
Nadia’s project partner is the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult
based in Glasgow, the UK’s leading technology innovation and research
centre for offshore renewables. Her project involves the development of a
tool that calculates the combined costs of operation and maintenance on
offshore windfarms, called COMPASS (Combined Operations, People, Assets
and Systems Simulation). COMPASS incorporates different factors, such
as how many people and what vessels need to be involved in each
maintenance activity, the infrastructure required, and the weather data
at the location of a farm. These inputs enable a cost to be calculated
and standardised across multiple projects and so is used by ORE Catapult
teams to assess the impact of different innovations.
IDCORE
This
multi-disciplinary Centre brings together diverse areas of expertise to
train engineers and scientists with the skills, knowledge and
confidence to tackle current and future offshore renewable energy
challenges. The strategic direction of the programme is guided by an
Industrial Steering Board comprising representatives from professional
bodies, employers and regulators. EngD students on the programme (called
Research Engineers) undertake advanced training in technical skills and
competencies as well as transferable skills such as project management,
innovation management, and team working. Alongside this they undertake a
challenging and original research project at PhD level.