Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

The research program will carry out CFD and wind tunnel tests of the stability and buffet response of flexibly-mounted bridge deck models. The bridge decks will be fitted with aerodynamic control surfaces of the oscillating flap type. A combination of sensors on the deck, a digital control system and electrical actuation of the flaps will be used to increase the bridge stability in the heave-torsion mode. Quasi-three-dimensional CFD will be used first to compute flutter boundaries. The critical wind speed for flutter onset will be evaluated from the responses at different subcritical wind speeds. The system response to indicial control-surface movement will also be computed and the results used to model bridges, first on a section of the deck and later on a three-dimensional model of a full bridge. Measurements will be made, for a range of bridge parameters including deck geometry and smooth/turbulent incident winds, to assess the effectiveness of the system in increasing critical flutter speeds and alleviating buffeting and vortex-induced-vibration for full scale suspension and cable-stayed bridges. These tests will also be used to validate the numerical results.

The need for new forms of surveillance of territorial waters and the ability to detect potential risk events and initiate rapid response action has increased with the rise in global terrorism. In any response strategy to enable rapid prediction of the pathways of floating objects or dispersed fluids it is necessary to have accurate forecasts of surface sea state and currents available. It is well known that predicted currents from existing operational ocean forecasting models suffer a reduction in forecasting skill in coastal waters. This has serious consequences for rapid-response spill forecasting and search and rescue (SAR). A UK company, BMT, is responsible for the UK national search and rescue support system SARIS. This proposal, between Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory and BMT, has two aims a) to demonstrate improvements in state-of-the-art drift forecasting through a better understanding of the value of incorporating real-time currents into drift forecast models in coastal seas and b) to give recommendations for improving the accuracy of forecast currents. The POL Coastal Observatory in the Irish Sea provides the framework for this evaluation. We will run a test operational period in which forecast currents will be used in BMT model systems to simulate typical spill and SAR scenarios and tracked drifters released within the Coastal Observatory during the operational period. We will explore the value of assimilating the surface currents measured by the Coastal Observatory HF radar into these systems and we will run a coupled surface wave-current model to explore the impact of wave-current interaction on forecast coastal currents. The results will help to establish key research issues and define a basis for improving operational forecasting of coastal currents around the UK.

Floods are the most common and widely distributed natural risk to life and property worldwide, causing over £4.5B worth of damage to the UK since 2000. Managing flood risk therefore presents a substantial challenge to this and future governments. Arising from the requirements of the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), flood hazard maps for the UK must be delivered by December 2013. Due to limitations in current methodologies these maps take a deterministic approach to mapping catchment scale flood hazard, and do not incorporate climate change projections. Climate projections are predicted to result in the increase of UK properties at risk from flooding and coastal erosion: understanding the uncertainty these bring to flood hazard is therefore of vital economic significance to the UK. Different methods to assess or determine flood hazards have evolved through research and practice. However, these do not allow for uncertainty estimates to be explicitly included within the process. While uncertainty analysis has been an area of research over a number of years, it has not yet achieved widespread implementation in flood modelling studies and decision making for a number of reasons. With developments in the field, such as improved computational power and newly available standardised climate datasets, incorporating uncertainty into assessments is becoming increasingly possible and indeed essential. It is clear that a gap currently exists in uncertainty estimation in flood hazard prediction, particularly in relation to climate change projections, and that this area of research is critical to current policy and operational drivers. This proposal has been developed to comprehensively address this gap. The project will develop a novel probabilistic modelling framework to assess the impact of uncertainty arising from climate change on flood hazard predictions, generate exemplar probabilistic flood hazard maps for selected case study catchments and attempt to quantify the change to flood hazard as a result of climate projections.

Safety is a paramount consideration for offshore operators. Offshore industries, including oil and gas exploration/production, marine renewable energy and shipping, must abide by industry regulations that take into account the effects of a hostile working environment on structures and ships. The principal aim of this project is to identify a rational and practical data interrogation procedure so that realistic waves and currents can be included, along with winds and sea ice conditions, in structural analysis. This project brings together physical oceanography and the mathematics of fluid structure interaction, to address the likely extreme loads on a selection of structures and ships, in a wide range of offshore environments. This integrated approach requires a synergistic and collaborative effort proposed here, in partnership with industrial partners concerned with marine advice and safety. The substantial and varied datasets to be used for this analysis are obtained from state-of-the-art ocean and wave models, running in both hindcast and forecast mode. We will use data from models with "high to very high" spatial resolution, sampled at high time frequency (ranging hourly to daily), in order to capture extreme forces on structures and ships. Our innovative analysis will refine assessments of structural integrity, a matter of specific interest to ship and offshore structure classification societies. In developing the throughput and use of ocean and wave forecast data, these assessments may also be of use in real-time offshore operations, and we will develop this capability. In summary, we will integrate high-quality hindcasts and forecasts of ocean currents, tides and waves, in a variety of environments, including the effects of sea ice in high latitudes. In this way, we will provide the best possible advice on forces and environmental conditions experienced by offshore structures and ships, for both classification and operational purposes.