The yearly installed percentage of offshore wind jacket substructures is rising. The most common installation method for a jacket structure nowadays starts by driving the foundation piles in the seabed through a pre-piling template. The jacket is then lowered on top until the legs are resting on the foundation piles through friction-based stopper connections. In order to rigidly fix the connection, grout is pumped into the annulus between the pile and leg. During the curing period of grout, generally taken as 24 hours, environmental loads cause the jacket to oscillate in various directions. As a result, the jacket leg will move relative to the foundation pile. This movement, which is called Early Age Cycling (EAC), can cause crack formation in the cured grout therefore decreasing the shear capacity of the connection. The DNV GL has restricted this relative movement to a conservative 1 mm within the first 24 hours due to a research gap on the subject. The strict regulation forces companies to use expensive EAC mitigation concepts of which the real effects are a debated issue.

The objective of this research is to gain insight into the modelling approach and the magnitude of EAC movements and investigate how they can most efficiently be minimized. This is achieved by investigating three phases: 1) simulating a number of load cases on a global jacket model and extracting interface forces near the seabed, 2) using these interface forces to assess the EAC movement on a detailed pile-leg reference model with a full circular stopper 3) analysing this reference stopper by testing three modified configurations. These configurations are designed with respectively two, three and four brackets yielding the same contact area. A sensitivity study is then performed by increasing the contact area.

The largest EAC movement within all models can be measured at the tip of the jacket leg. The location of this movement on the circumference of the leg varies based on the loading condition and stopper model. In general simulations on the reference model showed EAC movements below 1 mm due to a uniform stress distribution from the stopper to the foundation pile. For larger wave loads, sliding occurred resulting in large EAC movements. The initial modified configurations show significantly larger EAC movement when compared to the reference stopper. In general, the EAC movement decrease when the number of brackets increases. This is the result of a more even stress distribution around the circumference of the pile. A phenomenon visible for the two bracket stopper is rotation around the axis of the wave direction resulting in large EAC movement. This effect, denoted as moment induced rotations, should be limited by all means. A sensitivity analysis on friction showed that sliding could most efficiently be solved by increasing the friction coefficient. This is highly recommended since it greatly improves the performance of the stopper connection for larger waves.

This research could be further extended by performing a large sensitivity study to normalize the current results. This would be needed to verify whether the current conclusions can also be adopted for general use.

To provide insight into factors that play a role for DT in the humanitarian sector, a combination of literature and expert interviews was used to identify relevant criteria for the humanitarian sector. In accordance with prevailing literature, these factors have been categorised in people, process and technology factors. People factors include leadership, human resources, culture, organisational structure. Process factors were: alignment operations & IT, long term commitment Management, long term commitment network, long term commitment donor, crisis response, Legal issues. Finally, technology factors included both data and digital. The identified critical DT factors were translated into an assessment framework making use of the CMMi Maturity Model approach. For each factor and maturity level combination, there is an explanation of what a humanitarian organisation has to comply with, before advancing to the next level. This ensures that national societies can generate an overview where they currently are and what steps to take to advance. To adequately deal with the barriers and increase practical applicability of the framework, separate barrier-overcoming-strategies have been formulated.

Situation: Information management enables humanitarian organizations to make adequate interventions based on timely, appropriate and trustworthy information. A crucial type of information are identities, because they can be used to assess vulnerability and efficiently manage aid distribution. Vulnerability determines who receives aid first because resources are always limited. This information is increasingly being stored and processed in identity systems.
Complication: Most identity systems are centralized and produce analogue proofs of identity such as passports or ID cards. These systems are susceptible to privacy and data breaches. Centralization leads to single-points-of-failure and could lead to fraudulent behavior resulting in people lacking formal proofs of identity. In general there is limited interoperability between identity systems and limited collaboration between the owners of these systems.
Approach: To create an interoperable and shared digital identity system using a Design Science Research strategy and systems engineering approach. This system must be distributed, protect privacy and put the identity owner in control of his or her data. The foundation of the system consists of Humanitarian Information Management principles, Privacy-by-Design principles and Self-Sovereign Identity principles. This research creates a functional blockchain based system, that enables identities for the use-case of Cash Transfer Programs.
Results: We present a validated set of ten design decisions that represent the trade-offs that have been made and prescribe a blueprint for a technical design.
Next steps:Future research should be done on how such a system could be implemented and used. This would require a process design approach that has to be developed, Also, elaborate research into user experience and user interfaces should be conducted.