EngD position: Optimizing Spatial Design of Utilities in Urban Underground

Cities increasingly struggle to place buried infrastructure in the subsurface. Network operators expect that the surface below 50% of their streets needs to be opened to upgrade electric networks, maintain sewer, and install new energy networks. In this crowded underground, significant design challenges emerge, but also opportunity arise to reorganize the underground. How can we strike a balance between an optimal layout solution from a technical viewpoint, and an affordable and feasible construction plan for future (utility) streetworks?

When engineering utility lines, designers need to adhere to technical design requirements regarding their placement (including location, trace, depth, and minimum distances to buildings and other utilities). This becomes challenging as new energy networks, water retention solutions, and other buried objects compete for the same underground space as existing networks. Excavation methods become more expensive, and construction works become more prone to surprises, delays, and damages. To keep utilities performing, minimize disruption, and limit excavation damage, municipalities like Gemeente Amsterdam, want to organize their subsurface better. They already are improving the (3D) registers of their underground infrastructures, but further want to understand how design tools can support layout planning. Their goal is to exploit design algorithms to achieve this.

This culminates in the following goal of this EngD, which is to:
Develop an algorithm that automates the design of street cross-section layouts for utility construction projects.

During this project, you work with a supervision team of Dr. Farid Vahdatikhaki and Dr. Léon olde Scholtenhuis (UT) and Gemeente Amsterdam (Marco Scheffers) to gain knowledge about design principles for utility engineering, identify design objectives, and algorithms for multi-utility placement, and validate this on realistic cases. The planned start date for the project is March-15, 2025.

Please send your application using the instructions below before February 14th. Your submission is considered eligible if it includes (only and no less than) the following documents:

• Recent CV (including relevant academic, and (if any) professional experience)
• Motivation letter (max 1.5pg) explaining your interest and relevant background knowledge for the project.
• Overview of M.Sc. degree: including thesis project title, thesis abstract, and grade list

Please contact the selection committee for more information about the project or your eligibility. You can reach them via email on l.l.oldescholtenhuis@utwente.nl (Léon olde Scholtenhuis) and f.vahdatikhaki@utwente.nl (Farid Vahdatikhaki).