During the MOST-symposium on 21 November 2019, two awards for best graduation theses were awarded to students that have graduated in a subject related to offshore or dredging engineering.

KIVI Offshore Technology organizes these awards each year with the following objectives:

  • Accentuate the importance of research in Offshore Technology
  • Inform the industry and society about results of graduation projects
  • Stimulate students to study Offshore Engineering & to deliver a high quality graduation thesis
  • Strengthen the connection between students & KIVI

For graduation projects on Universities of Applied Science (HBO) as well as for Technical University (TU) graduation projects, a separate award is reserved. For both of the awards, KIVI Offshore Technology composes a jury of experienced and independent professionals from the offshore industry. For both awards, each of the nominees receive a year long free KIVI membership, while only the winners receive a cash prize of 1500 euros. The awards of this year were sponsored by the National Institute of Shipping and Shipbuilding (NISS, http://niss.nu).

HBO Award

This year, the following HBO students were nominated for best thesis in an offshore related subject:

  • Maarten de Jong (Avans University of Applied Sciences), with his thesis titled “Design of a composite hangar door”
  • Stefan van Reine (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences), with his thesis titled “Future-proof intermediate gantry design”
  • Bas Slingerland (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences), with his thesis titled “Ramp-taut wire maintenance system”

This year’s HBO award jury consisted of Joannes Collette, Jaap den Ouden and Hendrik Goos. At the award ceremony during the MOST symposium, mr. Collette explained that the jury had decided that Maarten de Jong was the rightful winner of this year’s best HBO thesis award. Maarten presented his thesis findings during a brief presentation, explaining his design of a system that efficiently transports components to the top of an offshore wind turbine from a floating vessel, without the need of a crane.

TU Award

The jury of this year’s best TU thesis award in an offshore related subject consisted of George Lagers, Wim Jolles, Martijn Nieuwenhuijs and René Huijsmans. The following TU students were nominated for the award by their graduation mentors:

  • Olivier Baas, with his thesis titled “Nonlinear behaviour of ferromagnetic steel”
  • Hugo Taams, with his thesis titled “Guidance, navigation and control of autonomous vessels: An implementation using a control-based framework”
  • Martin van der Eijk, with his thesis titled “Numerical modelling of homogeneous aerated-water wave impacts”
  • Hristo Ivanov, with his thesis titled “Reduction in capacity of steel wire rope slings subjected to forced bending”

The winner of this year’s best TU thesis award is Olivier Baas, as explained by George Lagers on behalf of the jury. Directly after he was declared to be the winner of the award, Olivier presented a summary of his thesis on the relation between stress and magnetization of high strength steels. In order to stimulate Offshore & Dredging Engineering professors at the TU to guide their students towards the best possible outcome of their graduation theses, KIVI Offshore Technology awarded Olivier’s professor Mirek Kaminski with the professor’s award for best TU thesis.

KIVI Offshore Technology congratulates Maarten de Jong and Olivier Baas on this achievement!