Rockets that Fail Safely

Spacecraft failures are spectacular. These unfortunate events are seared into the public memory. One reason why rockets can fail are software bugs. If a rocket’s computer system fails, that infamous blue screen leads to lost work hours, billions of Euro, and lives. Researchers from the Faculty of ICT and Faculty of Engineering (University of Malta) tell THINK about their collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) to test novel satellite software architecture to prevent rocket failure.

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Power of the Wind

Alu_DanielBaldacchinoMy passion for renewable energies was sparked off during my undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Malta. Thanks to ERASMUS, I studied at the University of Strathclyde which had a Renewable Energy course that, at the time, was not offered in Malta.

I spent the last year of my bachelor studies designing and testing part of a wind tunnel to simulate atmospheric wind conditions. This test setup allowed for more realistic wind turbine experiments than previous efforts.

Although I wanted to further my career in wind energy, I opted first to broaden my knowledge in the field of renewables by enrolling for the Masters in Sustainable Energy Technology at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in August 2010.

Over the first year, I worked on several projects. They included designing a smart grid which was presented at the European Joint Research Centre (JRC). I also helped develop an innovative thermal energy plant that exploits temperature differences between the ocean surface and deep-water (>1km deep) in tropical waters to generate electricity.

Over the second year, I again carried out research in wind energy. At the famed Wind Energy Research Institute of Delft University called DUWIND, I looked into the effect wind turbines can have on each other. When wind turbine blades cut through the wind they can change its direction. This can reduce the efficiency of nearby wind turbines making them produce less energy. My results showed that a turbine’s effect on nearby systems diminishes when the wind distortion it causes is limited either by the wind’s inherent instability or other by properties like its proximity to the ground. By exploiting these wind qualities, a wind farm’s efficiency can be improved by up to 15%.

After my Masters I worked for a year at Eindhoven as a flow and thermal analyst at Segula Technologies Consultancy. I developed new components for a company’s cutting edge lithography machines and for fuel cell system development for BOSAL engineering.  Now I have managed to secure a Ph.D. scholarship in wind turbine blade aerodynamics, continuing the work I started in my Masters at DUWIND. This time I am looking into the influence of small flow control devices on the performance of large (10 MW) wind turbines.

 

Baldacchino was awarded a STEPS scholarship for his Masters studies, which is part-financed by the EU’s European Social Fund under Operational Programme II — Cohesion Policy 2007–2013.

Netherlands: a land of bikes, clogs, and research

Alu_MartinaCuschieri

My journey started in 2006, when I started my bachelor in Mechanical Engineering (University of Malta). My passion lay in Materials Engineering, so I focused my undergraduate thesis in this area. I studied ways of improving the corrosion resistance properties of Nitinol, an alloy of Nickel and Titanium. This material is used in many biomedical applications. I built an environment similar to the human body to test the material’s corrosion properties.

After graduating in 2010, I took an M.Sc. in biomedical engineering and specialised in biomaterials (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands). Over this two-year programme as part of my technical internship, I worked at the Orthopaedics Research Department of the Erasmus Medical Centre (Rotterdam). I worked with two other Ph.D. students researching titanium scaffolds for bone defects.

Following my internship, I moved back to Delft and performed another research project again on the alloy Nitinol. We were using it to improve heart stents, tubes used to prop open blood vessels when they are clogged. I created a layer of a ceramic, porous Titanium dioxide, on the surface of Nitinol and then filled the pores with a novel drug that prevents the blockage of blood vessels. Heart stents sometimes fail by getting clogged, the slow release of the drug, which we monitored, would help prevent blockages hence heart attacks at a later date.

But my time in Delft was not yet over. I remained at TU Delft to take up a two-year research position. This time I am researching how natural polymers can be used to make artificial cartilage tissue for patients who need it replaced — a challenging project since I am learning how to set up a new lab for a new subject.

 

Cuschieri was awarded a STEPS scholarship for her Masters studies, which is part-financed by the EU’s European Social Fund under Operational Programme II — Cohesion Policy 2007–2013.