Unique application for hydraulic engineering projects
TU Delft, Deltares and Van Oord have combined their knowledge of logistics, water movement and hydraulic engineering projects in the open source package OpenCLSim. In recent years, they have worked closely together on this solution in the context of DigiShape. The result is a robust and generically applicable simulation package that can be used to simulate the behaviour of complex water logistics in relation to currents and waves.
‘This application is unique,’ says initiator Mark van Koningsveld of TU Delft. ‘It brings together specialist knowledge in the field of logistics processes, water movement and dredging and offshore projects. By simulating all transport movements and keeping track of how much material has been moved, it can be investigated how the progress of the project is influenced by equipment choice, production speed, sailing distances, sailing speeds, weather-related downtime, et cetera. This allows you to compare different implementation strategies in detail and consider which option best suits the circumstances. The basic simulation software was developed at TU Delft and is open source. Parties can add their own in-house data to set up practical applications.’
Ideal combination of open source and in-house shell
“Because this package has been developed for many different logistics applications, the software is quite generic and we can use it at Van Oord in a wide range of calculations,” says Bas Hoonhout, data scientist at Van Oord. ‘In order to win and execute dredging and offshore projects, we often have to quickly compare many different execution strategies to see which one best suits a customer’s needs. Of course, what fits best depends on local conditions such as soil conditions, current conditions and wave climates. OpenCLSim offers us the ideal combination of open source knowledge from the world around us and at the same time the possibility to add our internal company data in an internal shell. While we can’t share our internal data, we at Van Oord have already been able to contribute to the open source OpenCLSim, by making new python modules that we have added available to the wider community. In this way, we all benefit from the collaboration.’
Water movement and interactive models
Fedor Baart, data scientist at Deltares, is also enthusiastic about the collaboration. ‘Each cooperation partner has added something to the other parties that they could not have achieved on their own,’ he says. ‘And everyone has also got something out of it for themselves. At Deltares, we were able to put our expertise to good use in the field of water movements and interactive models. At TU Delft, they are strong in water logistics. Add to that Van Oord’s expert knowledge of hydraulic engineering and you have an interesting new application that each organisation could not have developed individually. Establishing these kinds of collaborations is an important added value of DigiShape.’
OpenCLSim community
The fact that there is now a ready-made product does not mean that the collaboration will end. ‘By doing it together, we have all benefited,’ says Mark van Koningsveld. ‘Moreover, the OpenCLSim community is growing. The fact that OpenCLSim is open source also makes the software extremely suitable for graduates and PhD students to develop new innovative applications. New developments are discussed and coordinated by means of a steering group, in which participants from TU Delft, Deltares and Van Oord, among others, are represented. This prevents an addition by one organization from unexpectedly destroying a previous functionality that was added by another organization. But, perhaps even more importantly, the coordination also ensures that ideas that are alive in multiple organizations can be tackled together. Anyone who is interested can contact me: only together can we accelerate the digitization of the water sector.”
