Research and Innovation in 2020

In 2020, Edycem and Centrale Nantes renewed their research chair on the development of sustainable concrete, headed up by Professor Ahmed Loukili at Centrale Nantes. Today, this collaboration has resulted in the first application on the market to assess the quality of concrete wall cladding.

On 3 December, the company EOLINK and Centrale Nantes formally agreed to install a 5MW floating wind turbine on the SEM-REV test site, off the coast from Le Croisic. Since hosting FLOATGEN, the first floating wind turbine in France on site from 2018, Centrale Nantes is pushing ahead and is set to welcome EOLINK shortly with its innovative and promising wind turbine prototype.

iTWIST 2020 (International Traveling Workshop on Interactions between low-complexity data models and Sensing Techniques) will be held online with a two-day doctoral school followed by three days of workshop.

Alexis Bazin is an assistant engineer in the TSM research group (LHEEA) at Centrale Nantes. As a specialist in a particular model of lithium battery, he was contacted on a matter of urgency by a Vendée Globe Skipper, Sébastien Destremau, to help him pass the endurance test following an unsuccessful initial attempt. Sébastien Destremau's boat is equipped with an electric motor. The Vendée Globe class measurement rules require that competing boats must be able to sail at an average of 5 knots for 5 hours. The endurance test is used to verify this capacity and must be passed successfully in order to compete. To this end, a Vendée Globe official carries out the test with the skipper on the open sea. Alexis was contacted to see if he ascertain what was wrong with two batteries and help ensure that the second attempt was successful. We interviewed Alexis to find out what happened next!

SWEL, Sea Wave Energy Ltd, is a UK based company with its testing facilities located in Larnaca, Cyprus. The company came to Centrale Nantes in October under the MEA programme, an Interreg North West Europe project which aims to increase the technical and commercial maturity of upcoming technologies by providing access to industry leading testing facilities and experts from over the EU.

Ioannis Stefanou, Professor and researcher at Centrale Nantes, took to the stage at TEDxRennes presenting his answer to the question: "Is it possible to control and prevent an earthquake, and if so, how?"

Jie YANG completed his PhD at the GeM Institute and defended his thesis at Centrale Nantes on 8 July 2019. He was awarded the Centrale Innovation 2020 thesis prize in November 2020.

The partners of the Sea-GRID Call for Expression of Interest unveiled today the five winning projects! Enthusiastic responses were received across the board to this call, which aims to develop concrete and innovative solutions for the smart management of electricity produced offshore on the Centrale Nantes test site, SEM-REV. The selected projects focus on new energy storage solutions, multi-use offshore platforms, onshore uses and the development of an underwater hub...

On 4 September, Naval Group, Sirehna and Centrale Nantes signed an agreement to continue their co-operation within their joint research laboratory, the Joint Laboratory of Marine Technology.

At the 13th edition of the Fib International PhD Symposium in Civil Engineering, held online from 26 to 28 August, Aliénor Gauthier-Pouyanne - PhD student at Centrale Nantes within the EDYCEM chair - received the prize for the best presentation in the Durability and Life Assessment category. Congratulations to Aliénor!

The GDR EMR is organising an online workshop on 2 July on "Renewable Marine Energies & Power-to-X: Challenges and Opportunities"

The work of the Research Chair II renewed by EDYCEM and Centrale Nantes focuses on materials capable of meeting the challenges of the city of tomorrow, in particular by reducing the impact of new buildings on the environment and by taking into account all of the emissions over their life cycle, from the time of their construction.

The Research Institute in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (GeM) is taking the lead in organising the ECCM19 conference (19th European Conference on Composite Materials) which will be held from 22 to 26 June 2020 at the Cité des Congrès in Nantes.

The LHEEA is pleased to announce that the "NATO Applied Vehicle Technology (AVT) Panel Awards Committee" has awarded Ms. Ginevra Rubino with the "Fall 2020 NATO AVT Young Contributor Award" for her overall research work on NATO AVT collaborative research projects.

Marine Energy Alliance has reached a new milestone in june by awarding services to 23 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through its Second Call for Applications.

Given Centrale Nantes' dual vocation of training and research, the school strives to disseminate knowledge as widely as possible. Aurélien Babarit, research engineer at LHEEA* and specialist in Marine Renewable Energy, talks online about one of Centrale Nantes' 3 strategic themes: energy transition.

Project leaders and entrepreneurs in energy, the environment or the maritime sectors can apply for 6 months of support.

The CRITT M2A Electrical Test Centre started work on the PEGAS²E (Energy Performance, Management and Autonomy of Electrical Storage Systems) four-year research programme on October 1st 2019.

Doctor Luciano Vidal to work alongside Professor Jean-Yves Hascoët at Centrale Nantes on 3D printing and bio printing.

Nicolas MOËS, Professor at Centrale Nantes and the Research Institute in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (CNRS/Centrale Nantes/University of Nantes) is elected member of the Académie des sciences.

Confirming the outstanding production and availability numbers recorded throughout 2019, the 2 MW Floatgen floating offshore wind turbine, equipped with Ideol’s patented floating foundation and installed on the Sem-Rev test site (Atlantic Coast of France), achieved a new record monthly production in February.

The scanning LiDAR, a wind measurement instrument recently acquired by the LHEEA (summer 2019, funding from the region, ERDF, PIA), was installed on the terrace of the seafront villa in Penn Avel park on the Croisic site on 28 October 2019.

Mr. Philippe Bolo, Member of Parliament for Maine et Loire, and Mrs. Angèle Préville, Senator for Lot, invited Jean-Marc Benguigui, Head of the Engineering for Ecological Transition option, and Bertrand Huneau, of the GeM Laboratory and faculty member at Centrale Nantes, to take part in a scientific round table.

The MERS Carnot Institute (Marine Engineering Research for sustainable, safe and smart Seas) was one of 37 Carnot Institutes to be granted official certification on 7 February for a period of 4 years. Its ambition is to boost collaboration between companies and research laboratories to develop sustainable and ocean-friendly maritime activities.

The LS2N (Laboratory of Digital Sciences of Nantes) is organising the 27th STP (Production Sciences and Techniques) Days for the GdR MACS (CNRS Research Group in modelling, analysis and management of dynamic systems) which will be held at Centrale Nantes on 12-13 February 2020.