General framework of the activity
Nantes Université has never stopped moving forward. In the last 50 years, Nantes Université has taken training and research to the highest level and in 2015 took a spot in the top 20 of French universities ranked in the Times Higher Education. Faced with today’s challenges, we reinvent a new university model that places the student at the centre of its attentions and the human being at the heart of its dynamics and its ambitions. Nantes Université promotes interdisciplinary as a factor of innovation and academic success. Dynamic, competitive, creative and socially responsible, Nantes Université possesses the assets to promote local, national and international cooperation.
Specific skills in the MRE field
Within the MRE field, biologists, physicists, economists, geographers and lawyers collaborate as a team of 80 researchers on innovating research projects, especially in the CNRS Research Federation « Sea and Littoral research Institute » (IUML). The areas of expertise are numerous, from pure technological research to social and human sciences:
- Material durability
- Structural monitoring
- Reliability of offshore structures and foundations
- Bio-colonization
- Storing and transporting energy
- Economic evaluation of MRE
- Marine spatial planning
- Legal framework for decommissioning
- Social acceptability and use conflicts
Test facilities applicable to MRE
Testing Platform in marine environment / UN-SEA-MD Test-Center
The capacity to test all materials (composites, concrete, iron, …) in simulated natural and accelerated condition for: deep sea, immersion area, splash and tidal zone and spay area, coupled with mechanical loading (abrasion and static or cyclic loading).
Products or services in MRE
The possibilities of collaborating with the University are various and supported by our private subsidiary Capacités and its business units (Erimat, IXEAD , Mer, ITIS , Iréalité):
- Collaborative projects
- Technology transfer
- Prototyping and technological measures
- Trials, tests and controls
- Provision of scientific equipment
- Expertise: studies, strategic consulting, decision support
- Recruitment of experts with high added value: CIFRE doctoral thesis and doctoral experts.
Projects in MRE
Our main ongoing projects:
- SURFFEOL (Monitoring the reliability of wind turbine foundations)
- HYDROL44 (Designing, controlling and assessing turbines)
- ECOSAM2 (Relieving floating and submerged structures by using composite materials)
- EMODI (Offshore Energy grid-MOnitornig and DIagnosis)
- IBOCS (Iron Ballast for Ocean Cable Solutions)
- “Network connection” Project
- UIT -MG Project (Underwater Imaging Techniques for Marine Growth)
- INDUSCOL: sustainability of multi-material structures in renewable marine energy,
- OMDYN: development of dynamic umbilicals
- ABIOP (Accounting for BIOfouling through established Protocols of quantification)
- MHM MRE (Mooring Health Monitoring)
- GENOME (Île d’Yeu New Energy Management and Electrical Optimisation) : R&D Prize SEANERGY 2017 !
WEAMEC PROJECTS :
Training in the MRE field
Initial training :
Nantes Université gathers 11 UFR (Units for Research and Teaching), 7 institutes, and 1 engineering school (Polytech Nantes). In the field of MRE, the offer for academic training courses is increasing with now 13 graduations in masters in sciences, most of them open to work-linked training and some of them labelled by the Atlantic and Britanny Sea Cluster (PMBA):
Master’s degrees :
- Marine Biotechnology and Bioprocessing
- New and Renewable Energies
- Civil and Maritime Engineering, Maintenance
- Computational Mechanics
- Mapping risk areas
- Ecosystems and bioproduction
- Geography and maritime space management
- Law and safety of maritime and ocean activities
- Economic evaluation of sustainable development
- International finance and maritime logistics
- International relations and history of the Atlantic world
- Planet Earth, Planets and Environmental issues
Professional degree :
- Head of operation and maintenance for offshore wind power
Continuous training :
University of Nantes has developed, with Centrale Nantes, the WEAMEC “MRE Technical Advisor”.