Sunday 5 February 2017

End of secondment in Aberdeen and Training week Barcelona

Hi all ,

Sorry for the disappointing update frequency of this blog, its really a hard task a "not pure breeded social guy". That is why we all want to follow these guys that live of youtube and blogs, but almost anyone can make it :) 

Well, I will do a quick update of the things at work and talk about how was the second phase of my secondment. 

As you know I am now in Aberdeen. A city that I have to tell you is not as bad as as I thought in first place. I was thinking earlier this week, and its true, expectation is the secret for a happy life. Everyone was before, you're going to Aberdeen in Winter? Good luck! Or... you'll go crazy...etc etc 

In the end it wasn't that bad. Its a small city but very nice. Its grey, its true, but has its own spirit. The times were better before when oil was "pumping" people say, well... its the time for new clean energy...I say :) use that positive tension to foment it.

So, this is my last week here. Well, I enjoyed but its time to go back. It was a very enriching experience. 

Talking a bit about my work, which I rarely do but I should. 

These for months of secondment contributed for settling interesting knowledge in the analysis of offshore wind turbines, modelling them, analysing loads, getting the feeling of "something is wrong with these results" and more,  much faster than I would do anyway on my own.  This helped to boost my work a lot and I have to say, I even exceeded my expectation on how much I could get in  this 4+a bit months. Again, low expectations are the secret ! Haha 
It went great, now its time to go back, settle knowledge and return in the future. 
I have been working in applying probabilistic methodologies to Offshore wind turbines in the specific case of the fatigue. Fatigue is a very challenging topic for offshore wind turbines, it can drive the failure of towers for example but also its quite resource consuming. Its good to melt your brain ! 

Lets see, now that things are more settled in the analysis and understanding of the dynamics of the turbine, what value can be added to its probabilistic analysis. I already have very nice ideas that were submitted to a conference, but the complexity is big and I hope to talk about them here very soon. 

You know that we had a trainning week in January? Yes, I would like to leave here a special thanks to all the organisers from TRUSS and UPC. 
It was great, again, Its crazy how much you can learn when the teaching process is carefully aimed. We should really think about this...

Anyway, here we are; all happy. This is us: 



And this is us v them (some of them...): 




Well, I left a topic unfinished I hope to finish it next time. I'll also bring more news on work development too.

Tchin tchin ! New design too

Rui