Would you like to contribute to improving the design of lock complexes in the Netherlands, thus making them more durable and resilient? Then, this Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) programme could be for you. The PDEng is a 2-year post-master’s degree technological designers programme. This programme at the University of Twente contains an educational part and a design project.

For the design project, you will work with Heijmans, a listed company that combines activities in property development, residential and non-residential building and infrastructure. Heijmans has one ultimate goal that lies at the heart of everything we do: creating a healthy living environment.

The challenge

The Beatrix lock complex is a very busy ship transportation node in Dutch canal network with the annual traffic of 44 000 ships. Its continuous operation is utmost important for nation’s economy, requiring strategic and excellent maintenance and operation schemes. The lock complex may remain safe to use and fit for purpose considering that it is used responsibly.

Designing engineering solutions for locks to withstand damages caused by poor/inadequate their usage or ship operators not follow certain regulations is expensive and infeasible. Thus continuous monitoring of the lock complex is advised. Monitoring could aid (a) developing and aligning operational guidelines of locks for operators, ships and asset managers, (b) and providing design recommendations of locks. Design recommendations could be incorporated in new design standards for future proof lock complexes, resulting in more robust designs that account for modern ships and climate change. Such initiative could keep nations infrastructure fit for purpose and safe to use, while having only planned maintenance activities.

The first step to achieve the goal is to understand how to measure and monitor forces and their extents generated by ship propellers. The next step is to develop a suitable monitoring system and collect in-situ data for damage characterization, propagation and prognosis of the lock complex. The design of a monitoring system has to be based on general understandings of maintenance methodologies.

The mission

“Design a monitoring system for condition assessment of the Beatrix lock complex”. The successful candidate is expected to take on the following tasks:

• Systematically analyse the historic available data such as sonar scans of the canal bed
• Review sensor technologies for measuring (i) forces and their resultants generated by ship propellor, (ii) ship draft/weight, (iv) terrain of the canal bed, and (v) surrounding conditions (cost effectively)
• Design a sensor system for monitoring long-term performance (for conditions assessment) of the lock complex
• Undertake site visits to perform measurements collections, together with the Beatrix lock maintenance team, of the current lock conditions
• Analyse collected measurements and advise for improvements.