Maritime traffic in the Arctic region is rapidly increasing. But there has been a huge increase in marine casualties in this region due to its extremely harsh environment and the severe safety challenges for ships’ navigation teams. SEDNA will develop an innovative and integrated risk-based approach to safe Arctic navigation, ship design and operation, to enable European maritime interests to confidently fully embrace the Arctic’s significant and growing shipping opportunities, while safeguarding its natural environment. More specifically SEDNA will create and demonstrate the improved safety outcomes of: 1. The Safe Arctic Bridge, a human-centered operational environment for the ice-going ship bridge using augmented reality technology to provide improved situational awareness and decision making whilst enabling integration with new key information layers developed by the project using innovative big data management techniques. 2. Integrated dynamic meteorological and oceanographic data with real time ship monitoring and ice movement predictions to provide reliable decision making for safe and efficient Arctic voyage optimisation. 3. Anti-icing engineering solutions, using nature inspired approaches, to prevent ice formation on vessels, eliminating ice as a ship stability and working-environment hazard. 4. Risk-based design framework to ensure that vessel design is connected to all key hazards of ship operation in the Arctic. The holistic treatment of the ship design, operating regime and environment will improve safety and minimise impact over the entire life cycle. 5. A CEN Workshop Agreement on a process to systematically address safety during bunkering of methanol as a marine fuel along with safety zone guidance for three bunkering concepts: Truck to Ship, Shore to Ship and Ship to Ship. To maximise impact, SEDNA will provide formal inputs to international regulatory regimes regarding regulation adaptation requirements for its safety solutions.

This project aims to develop a framework that will integrate data collected and recorded through a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system for marine energy converters, in order to estimate reliability levels at component and system level in real time and evaluate its ability to further fulfil its intended function. Obtaining a more well-informed understanding of the actual state of the system, alternative operational strategies can be adopted, particularly taking into consideration its residual capacity after extreme environmental events, optimizing its inspection and maintenance scheduling and hence reducing the OPEX. Application of the developed framework on an existing prototype wave device, already developed by the Chinese partners, will allow its validation and extension to future applications. This reference case will be employed in order to classify its components and determine potential failure modes and limit states to assess failure. From the key failure mechanisms that will be identified, arrangements for Structural Health Monitoring will be proposed obtaining data from relevant measurements (ie strains and accelerations) that can then inform the reliability evaluation in real time, updating its operational strategy, particularly taking into consideration residual capacity after extreme environmental events. Outcome of the project will be a generic framework applicable to a range of marine energy devices.

Large scale power generation from tidal currents will require the deployment of large numbers of tidal turbines arrayed in close proximity to one another. This presents significant challenges; turbine-in-wake interactions, as well as significant opportunities; arraying turbines side-by-side in closely spaced fences can significantly enhance their performance. Extreme weather survivability and the ability to maintain offshore systems are key to delivering economic and durable tidal energy systems. A potential solution to these challenges is floating systems supporting multiple closely spaced turbines. Such systems will provide rapidly deployable, retrievable and maintainable multi-turbine systems that deliver high performance. This project will conduct a preliminary assessment and feasibility study of floating closely spaced tidal turbine arrays. Specifically the project will seek to optimize the hydrodynamic performance of multiple closely spaced turbines supported from a single platform and determine their load and response when subjected to combined wave and tidal flows. The project will also seek to determine the suitability and stability of mooring systems under such loads and the platform's static and dynamic response leading to definition of permissible operating regimes.

The Made in China 2025 report, highlights ocean renewable energy technologies as one of the 10 areas of opportunity for UK and Chinese companies. The "Outline of the National Marine Economic Development Plan" specifically targets the development of novel ocean farming methods, more productive but also more socially and environmentally compatible. In the EU, the "Blue Growth" program aims at sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors, already representing 5.4 million jobs and generating a gross added value of 500 billion euros a year. Offshore structures are very costly. The main idea of a Multi-Purpose Platform (MPP), integrating (for example) renewable energy devices and aquaculture facilities, is to find the synergies to share manufacturing, installation, operation and maintenance, and decommissioning costs. This has the potential to, save money, reduce the overall impact, and maximize the socio-economic benefits. MPP development poses cross-disciplinary challenges, since they simultaneously aim to achieve several potentially conflicting objectives: to be techno-economically feasible, environmentally considered, socially beneficial, and compatible with maritime legislations. In the EU, previous research focused on farms of multi-megawatt MPP (ocean renewable devices + aquaculture systems), with very few/no attempts to investigate lower rated power systems suitable for island/coastal communities. In China, previous projects aimed at island communities focused on renewable energy, but they did not integrate any aquaculture elements. Therefore, for island communities, novel fundamental questions arise, especially in terms of techno-economic feasibility and assessment and maximization of socio-environmental benefits at a completely different scale, but still requiring a whole-system, cross-disciplinary approach. The proposed solution is to investigate which are the specific challenges arising from the integration of these different offshore technologies, and with a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle them, making sure that all the dimensions (technological, economic, social, environmental, legal) are taken into account. The renewable energy technologies (Which wind turbine? Which wave device? What kind of solar panel?) and aquaculture systems most suitable for the needs of an island community will be identified, and the "cross-disciplinary" questions will be defined, e.g. "What is the impact of the noise generated by the renewable energy devices on the (closely co-located) aquaculture species growth rate?". Answering these questions, the novel contribution will consist in developing approaches to assess the feasibility of an MPP system, focusing on: global MPP dynamic response to metocean conditions, overall integrated control and power management strategies, environmental impact, socio-economic risks and benefits. The potential of these methodologies will be then show-cased through two case-studies, one focusing on an island community in China, and one in the UK. This consortium brings together internationally recognised experts from three Chinese and three British universities and institutes, for a total of 20 investigators, in the fields of solar and offshore wind and wave energy, control systems for renewable energy devices, environmental and socio-economic impact of renewables and aquaculture systems, aquaculture and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture development, and ecosystem modelling. These investigators are also leading members of the research community, directly involved in: Renewable Energy Key Lab of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IEC and Chinese National Standardization Committee for Marine Energy Devices, Supergen Wind Hub, EU Energy Research Alliance JP Wind, ITTC Ocean Engineering Committee, the Royal Institution of Naval Architects Maritime Innovation Committee, ICES WG-Marine Mammal Ecology, International Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem, Ecopath Consortium Advisory Board.

The Project is cooperation between Universities of Northumbria (UK), Universidad de Castilla - La Mancha (Spain), Universita Politecnica Delle Marche (Italy), Beijing Institute of Technology and Harbin Engineering University (China); Seifullin Kazakh Agro Technical University and Pavlodar State University (Kazakhstan); South Ural Sate University and Bauman Moscow State Technical University (Russia).A significant number of vehicles in the above Partner Countries are equipped with Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) having technical and ecological performance inferior to that deployed in EU, US etc. A switch to modern ICE designs, similar to that, deployed in the developed countries, is required. New technology requires a new type of specialists with a deep knowledge of the state-of-the-art and technological advances in this area. All Partner Universities have Departments of Internal Combustion Engines or Transport. However, the current syllabus remains based on outdated materials and approach and also problems were identified in education of PhD students. The project aim is the deep modernisation of existing syllabus in advanced ICEs technology, improving quality of education and teaching, which includes enhancing existing and application of new learning and teaching tools, methodologies and pedagogical approaches. This will involve modernisation of learning outcomes and ICT based practices. At least 36 modules in all 6 partner Universities will go through modernisation. Approximately 50% of content for each of 36 modules will be renewed with structure, outcomes and teaching methods for each module being revised. In application to all 6 partner Universities the modernised part of the selected modules will worth about 180 ECTS credits. Additionally, Improvements in Skills Development of PhD students will be carried out for meeting career targets and their better integration into international community.