Organizers:

C. Baniotopoulos1, C. Borri2, C. L. Bottasso3, L. Cappietti2, E. Marino2 

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham, UK
  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Florence, Italy
  3. Chair of Wind Energy, Technische Universität München, Germany

Climate change is nowadays one of the most prominent global threats. With the European Green Deal, the Commission has set the goal to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Within the Next Generation EU fund, at national level, Italy is facing the challenge of climate neutrality through a number of unprecedented actions aimed, among other key goals, to dramatically increase the exploitation of renewable energies (see Missions 2 and 4 of PNRR “National Recovery and Resilience Plan”). The harvesting of renewable energy, in most of the cases, involves systems, structures and mechanical principles which require well rooted knowledge in all the four thematic areas of AIMETA. The aim of the present Mini Symposium is to create a transversal and strongly multidisciplinary opportunity to gather different specializations within the theoretical and applied mechanics community which can be applied to solve the open problems for renewable energy systems. For example, very large wind turbines supported by floating platforms in deep water are characterized by complex fluid-structure interaction problems involving large rotations and deformations. The development of accurate and efficient methods for the solution of such coupled problems has become a fundamental requirement to achieve more reliable and economic designs.

Topics covered by the Mini Symposium (but not limited to) are: 

  • Onshore and offshore wind energy structures 
  • Dynamics of fixed-bottom and floating platforms, including mooring lines 
  • Anchoring systems, soils mechanics and foundations challenges 
  • Computational methods for wind/waves-structure interaction 
  • CFD for renewable energy applications 
  • Wave Energy Converters 
  • Current and tidal energy systems 
  • Multi-purpose floating energy structures (floating solar, hydrogen and energy storage) 
  • Re-use of existing offshore platforms 
  • Structural reliability, fatigue, SHM and maintenance 
  • Energy harvesting from mechanical vibrations 
  • New materials for onshore and offshore energy devices and structures