Postgraduate research opportunities Innovative environmental conditions classification to unlock standardisation & mass manufacturing of floating offshore wind turbines
ApplyKey facts
- Opens: Friday 26 June 2026
- Deadline: Thursday 30 July 2026
- Number of places: 1
- Duration: 3.5 years
- Funding: Home fee, Stipend
Overview
This PhD project will develop a novel methodology for classifying environmental conditions to support the standardisation and large-scale manufacturing of floating offshore wind turbines. By integrating metocean data and statistical clustering approaches, the project aims to define practical environmental classes that enable cost reduction and accelerated deployment.Eligibility
Applicants should hold a First-Class or strong Upper Second-Class degree (or equivalent) in offshore engineering, naval architecture, mechanical engineering, applied mathematics, statistics, or data science. Experience in numerical modelling, data analysis, or programming (Python/MATLAB) is desirable.
Project Details
Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) face high costs and slow deployment due to lack of standardisation. This project will develop a methodology to define environmental classes based on wind, waves, and currents, enabling scalable and cost-effective designs. The research includes defining design load cases, selecting key environmental parameters, and applying clustering techniques to derive severity thresholds.
This project integrates offshore engineering, data science, and statistics, and offers opportunities for industry collaboration in floating offshore wind.
Funding details
This project is offered as a funded PhD opportunity. Funding is expected to cover tuition fees (home rate) and provide a stipend in line with UKRI rates.
While there is no funding in place for opportunities marked "unfunded", there are lots of different options to help you fund postgraduate research. Visit funding your postgraduate research for links to government grants, research councils funding and more, that could be available.
Supervisors
Dr Shen Li
Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow
Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering
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Number of places: 1
Shortlisting and interview process may apply.
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Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering
Programme: Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering