Hydrogen is ubiquitous and has two faces. On the one hand, it is at the core of the most promising solutions to our energy crisis. Hydrogen isotopes fuel the nuclear fusion reaction, the most efficient potentially useable energy process. Moreover, hydrogen is widely seen as energy carrier of the future and the most versatile means of energy storage. It can be produced via electrolysis from renewable sources, such as wind or solar power, and stored to be used as a fuel or as a raw material in the chemical industry. On the other hand, hydrogen is widely known to cause catastrophic failures in metallic materials and structures, hampering these opportunities. Metals become brittle when exposed to hydrogen-containing environments, with the fracture resistance decreasing by up to 90%. This so-called hydrogen embrittlement phenomenon not only jeopardises the role of hydrogen as a potential solution to the global energy crisis but also constitutes one of the biggest threats to the integrity of the current energy infrastructure. The problem is particularly severe in aggressive environments, such as those experienced by the offshore industry, as corrosive mitigation strategies like cathodic protection exacerbate the production of hydrogen. Moreover, hydrogen embrittlement is becoming increasingly notorious due to the higher susceptibility of modern, high-strength steels. Decades of metallurgical research have led to the development of metals with high and ultra-high strengths. These modern alloys open new horizons in reducing weight, material use and costs while increasing performance and safety (fatigue resistance). For example, ultra-high strength steels are essential in meeting targets on CO2 emissions through vehicle weight reduction. However, the susceptibility to hydrogen embrittlement increases with material strength and the increasing uptake of these new high-performance materials has made hydrogen assisted fractures commonplace across a wide variety of sectors and applications in otherwise benign environments, from bolt cracking at the Leadenhall tower to rail failures in underground systems. There is an urgent need to understand the multiple physical mechanisms behind this hydrogen-induced degradation and develop models that can predict failures as a function of the environment, the loading conditions and the material properties. This EPSRC New Investigator Award aims at developing a new generation of models that can predict local hydrogen uptake and subsequent cracking by resolving the electrochemistry-diffusion interface and shedding light into critical uncertainties in surface behaviour and trapping. An accurate estimation of hydrogen ingress for a given bulk environment is the main bottleneck preventing the application of current chemo-mechanics models in engineering assessment. Occluded areas such as cracks, pits or other defects exhibit very different chemistry to the bulk environment, and local measurements are unfeasible apart from controlled laboratory experiments. NEXTGEM will merge mechanics with electrochemistry, combining experiments, multi-physics modelling and Bayesian inference to resolve the scientific challenges holding back the applicability of hydrogen embrittlement models. This new generation of electro-chemo-mechanics models for hydrogen embrittlement will be used to enable a safe use of high strength alloys, optimise material selection and inspection planning, and prevent catastrophic failures. The project involves world-renowned academic collaborators with expertise complementary to that of the PI and leading firms in the offshore energy sector, operating the oldest large-scale wind farm in the world (Horns Rev 1). The applicability of the models developed will be demonstrated by continuous monitoring of critical components, in a piece of proof-of-concept research that can have wider implications across the transport, defence, construction and energy sectors.

Over the next decades, there will be a huge expansion of offshore renewable energy facilities to add electricity to the grid and reduce greenhouse gas emissions around the world. Globally, an estimated 17% annual growth from 22 GW to 154 GW in total installed offshore wind power capacity will be seen by 2030. The UK's Offshore Wind Sector Deal (2019) also sets out a goal for the offshore wind sector output being 30 GW by 2030. To meet the ambition of offshore wind energy exploration, it is of great importance to design cost-efficient foundations which, due to the complexity of subsea soil behaviour, remains a major challenge. Offshore foundation designs are well known to be conservative, which has led in part to the foundations accounting for 25-34% of the overall budget of offshore wind farms. The design of offshore foundations is particularly difficult for carbonate soils which cover roughly 35% of the ocean floor because (1) the complex mechanical behaviour of carbonate soils for which a reliable constitutive model is yet unavailable and (2) carbonate soils around foundations often experience large deformations, such as during foundation installation, leading to significant changes of their properties which are difficult to evaluate using traditional finite element techniques. The research proposed in this project aims to develop advanced computer models capable of predicting the mechanical response of carbonate sands at offshore foundations from the installation stage to the operational stage. This will be achieved by developing a novel numerical approach called the particle finite element method (PFEM), for analysing large-deformation soil-water-foundation interactions, and a self-learning simulation framework based on advanced deep-learning techniques for training data-driven constitutive models for carbonate sands. The developed PFEM with the trained data-driven constitutive model for modelling the responses of carbonate sands at offshore structure foundations will be validated under both standard laboratory conditions and high gravity centrifuge testing conditions. The success of the proposed research will not only improve our understanding of the behaviour of carbonate sands surrounding offshore foundations but also provide engineers with a robust open-source computer tool to analyse interactions between submerged carbonate sands and foundations with large deformations and help achieve cost-effective foundation solutions for offshore renewable energy developments.

Wireless sensor networks using radio technology are used to gather data in many applications for infrastructure monitoring, environment monitoring and security. However this technology cannot be directly applied under water since radio waves are absorbed by water. Technologies exist for underwater communication using acoustic waves (sound) to carry data but this is a complex and demanding task requiring sophisticated processing. Hence these devices are expensive (£5-20k), bulky and power hungry which has generally limited their use to relatively small numbers and short duration. This has prevented the large scale deployment of sensor networks underwater despite huge demand for monitoring of subsea assets and the marine environment. The aim of this project is to create a smart underwater sensing framework based on ultra-low-cost underwater communication and sensing devices ('smart dust'). Pilot studies at Newcastle University have demonstrated the feasibility of producing underwater acoustic communication devices known as "nanomodems" which use novel approaches to signal processing to vastly reduce hardware complexity, size and cost. These have manufacturing cost as low as £50, very low receiver power consumption, to enable long life from small batteries, and tiny dimensions. However they can achieve data transfer and positioning capabilities found in much more expensive devices, over distances up to 1km through water. The communication technology will be extended, to further increase data transfer speed and power efficiency, and low cost sensor modules will be developed, along with flexible interfaces for commercially available sensors, to create mass deployable wireless underwater sensor devices. Protocols will be developed to allow large numbers of units to share the same communication channel efficiently while intelligent sensor processing techniques will ensure that the sensor network reliably extracts the maximum information available from the limited resources available. Hence the system will allow users to fully exploit the power of mass deployment, the whole being far greater than the sum of the parts. This will transform underwater sensor networks to allow long term monitoring with high spatial resolution, frequent updates and near real-time data delivery in a way that has been previously been cost prohibitive and impractical. With highly flexible sensor payload, the technology created may be applied to a wide range of monitoring tasks. However, the project will focus on three main demonstrator scenarios in close collaboration with industry & end users: - subsea asset monitoring e.g. condition of subsea cables, risers, seabed installations - marine environment / biodiversity monitoring - chemical or biological parameters - sensor nets for underwater security - detecting sound emitted or magnetic disturbances from underwater threats The novel contributions of this project will be: - Disruptive, low-cost technology enabling mass deployment with battery life of several years. - Large scale underwater monitoring (>100 devices) with high spatial resolution. - Rapid deployment and online data delivery (as opposed to data logging and collecting later). - Intelligent, adaptive sensing to maximise resource utilisation and fully exploit large scale. To maximise the impact of the project, an open test-bed will be created near the Northumberland coast. Potential end-users from across the subsea sector will be invited to take part in a series of workshops to identify new opportunities in distributed underwater sensing, which will be prototyped and evaluated via trials using the test-bed. The ultimate measurable objective of the project will be to demonstrate a step change in the efficiency of subsea data gathering. This will be defined in terms of the data delivered (volume, quality, coverage) versus overall cost of operations (hardware cost, boat time, staff time, infrastructure cost).

This proposal is to establish a DTC in Wind and Marine Energy Systems. It brings together the UK's leading institutions in Wind Energy, the University of Strathclyde, and Marine Energy, the University of Edinburgh. The wider aim, drawing on existing links to the European Research Community, is to maintain a growing research capability, with the DTC at is core, that is internationally leading in wind and marine energy and on a par with the leading centres in Denmark, the USA, Germany and the Netherlands. To meet the interdisciplinary research demands of this sector requires a critical mass of staff and early stage researchers, of the sort that this proposal would deliver, to be brought together with all the relevant skills. Between the two institutions, academic staff have in-depth expertise covering the wind and wave resource, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, design of wind turbines and marine energy devices, wind farms, fixed and floating structures, wind turbine, wind farm and marine energy devices control, power conversion, condition monitoring, asset management, grid-integration issues and economics of renewable energy. A centre of learning and research with strong links to the Wind and Marine Energy industry will be created that will provide a stimulating environment for the PhD students. In the first year of a four year programme, a broad intensive training will be provided to the students in all aspects of Wind and Marine Energy together with professional engineer training in research, communication, business and entrepreneurial skills. The latter will extend throughout the four years of the programme. Research will be undertaken in all aspects of Wind and Marine Energy. A DTC in Wind and Marine Energy Systems is vital to the UK energy sector for a number of reasons. The UK electricity supply industry is currently undergoing a challenging transition driven by the need to meet the Government's binding European targets to provide 15% of the UK's total primary energy consumption from renewable energy sources by 2020. Given that a limited proportion of transport and heating energy will come from such sources, it is expected that electricity supply will make the major contribution to this target. As a consequence, 40% or more of electricity will have to be generated from non-thermal sources. It is predicted that the UK market for both onshore and offshore wind energy is set to grow to £20 billion by 2015.There is a widely recognised skills gap in renewable energy that could limit this projected growth in the UK and elsewhere unless the universities dramatically increase the scale of their activities in this area. At the University of Strathclyde, the students will initially be housed in the bespoke accommodation in the Royal College Building allocated and refurbished for the existing DTC in Wind and Marine Energy Systems then subsequently in the Technology and Innovation Centre Building when it is completed. At the University of Edinburgh, the students will be housed in the bespoke accommodation in the Kings Buildings allocated and refurbished for the existing IDC in Offshore Renewable Energy. The students will have access to the most advanced design, analysis and simulation software tools available, including the industry standard wind turbine and wind farm design tools and a wide range of power system and computation modelling packages. Existing very strong links to industry of the academic team will be utilised to provide strategic guidance to the proposed DTC in Wind and Marine Energy through company membership of its Industrial Advisory Board and participation in 8 week 7 projects as part of the training year and in 3 year PhD projects. In addition, to providing suggestions for projects and engaging in the selection process, the Industry Partners provide support in the form of data, specialist software, access to test-rigs and advice and guidance to the students.

The international offshore energy industry currently faces the triple challenges of an oil price expected to remain less than $50 a barrel, significant expensive decommissioning commitments of old infrastructure (especially North Sea) and small margins on the traded commodity price per KWh of offshore renewable energy. Further, the offshore workforce is ageing as new generations of suitable graduates prefer not to work in hazardous places offshore. Operators therefore seek more cost effective, safe methods and business models for inspection, repair and maintenance of their topside and marine offshore infrastructure. Robotics and artificial intelligence are seen as key enablers in this regard as fewer staff offshore reduces cost, increases safety and workplace appeal. The long-term industry vision is thus for a completely autonomous offshore energy field, operated, inspected and maintained from the shore. The time is now right to further develop, integrate and de-risk these into certifiable evaluation prototypes because there is a pressing need to keep UK offshore oil and renewable energy fields economic, and to develop more productive and agile products and services that UK startups, SMEs and the supply chain can export internationally. This will maintain a key economic sector currently worth £40 billion and 440,000 jobs to the UK economy, and a supply chain adding a further £6 billion in exports of goods and services. The ORCA Hub is an ambitious initiative that brings together internationally leading experts from 5 UK universities with over 30 industry partners (>£17.5M investment). Led by the Edinburgh Centre of Robotics (HWU/UoE), in collaboration with Imperial College, Oxford and Liverpool Universities, this multi-disciplinary consortium brings its unique expertise in: Subsea (HWU), Ground (UoE, Oxf) and Aerial robotics (ICL); as well as human-machine interaction (HWU, UoE), innovative sensors for Non Destructive Evaluation and low-cost sensor networks (ICL, UoE); and asset management and certification (HWU, UoE, LIV). The Hub will provide game-changing, remote solutions using robotics and AI that are readily integratable with existing and future assets and sensors, and that can operate and interact safely in autonomous or semi-autonomous modes in complex and cluttered environments. We will develop robotics solutions enabling accurate mapping of, navigation around and interaction with offshore assets that support the deployment of sensors networks for asset monitoring. Human-machine systems will be able to co-operate with remotely located human operators through an intelligent interface that manages the cognitive load of users in these complex, high-risk situations. Robots and sensors will be integrated into a broad asset integrity information and planning platform that supports self-certification of the assets and robots.