Pushing boundaries:
A researcher’s perspective - Juan
In this interview, we catch up with Juan, who shares insights into the progress of his research on offshore wind turbine modelling and monitoring. Now approaching the halfway point, Juan reflects on key milestones, shifting expectations, and the challenges ahead — including soil nonlinearity and the pursuit of innovative monitoring solutions. Read on to learn more about his journey, achievements so far, and what’s to come in the year ahead!
You’re almost halfway through the program. How do you feel about your progress so far?
Overall, I am very satisfied. Some days everything goes well, we get the desired results, and I’m more optimistic. Other days (most of them!) a bunch of issues appear, things need to be replanned, and it feels like very little has been done. Considering that we’re in the second year, the progress is good; there are achievements, but also tasks to do.
Has the project met your expectations? If so, how? If not, what has surprised you the most?
It has changed them. When I started, I did not visualize the research’s aim and challenges properly. In recent months, I could get a better understanding of offshore wind turbine (OWT) modelling and monitoring, the challenges, and the previous work on these topics. Now, I’m more aware of the complexities (nonlinearities, noise, variability), but also of the tools that can be employed for the monitoring of OWTs (finite element models, soil-structure interaction, system identification).
Looking back at the past year, what stands out as the project’s most significant achievement or milestone? Were there any unexpected successes or breakthroughs?
The formulation and implementation of a OWT model that considers soil nonlinearities, multidirectionality, dynamic behaviour, and wave loading. We could extend and gather models for each phenomenon in order to account for all of them and get more realistic simulations. The accuracy and versatility of the analyses was definitely a significant achievement.
As we progress through 2025, what are you most looking forward to in terms of the project’s next steps? Any major developments or goals on the horizon?
The big goal is to implement or develop a monitoring methodology to track the soil state continuously. To that end, I will work on system identification, model updating, and remote monitoring and undertake a secondment with a professor with expertise on these fields in Taiwan.
What do you see as the biggest challenge for the project in 2025? How do you plan to navigate these challenges? Are there any opportunities that excite you as well?
The major challenge is the nonlinearity of soil. This property prevents the use of frequency-domain techniques that have proved to be accurate; thus, it adds a lot of complexity to OWT monitoring. Nonetheless, this let us explore different approaches such as ARMA models, Bayesian filtering, machine learning, among others. I’m very optimistic with these methods because they can deal with uncertainty, real-time analysis, or noise.