The Nordic Water Network is proud to announce its first three PhDs, who successfully participated in the Nordic Water Network program, and we would like to use this opportunity to congratulate them in their achievement. The program is characterized by a co-supervision from two network partners while enabling research and training at at least two NWN partner institutions through financial support of mobility actions.
Raja Abou Ackl, PhD
Raja Abou Ackl, who emerged as the first PhD out of the program on the 10th of January 2018, was supervised by professor Paul Uwe Thamsen at TU Berlin and senior director of mechanical development at the pumping company Grundfos, professor Christian Brix Jacobsen. In cooperation with Grundfos, Raja worked during his PhD project titled “Enhancing the design of the wet pit pumping stations based on experimental and numerical investigations” on providing a valuable easy-to-enforce design and operating recommendations for wet pit pumping stations.
Jan Bartl, PhD © Susanne Bartl
Jan Bartl, who defended his doctoral thesis on the 19th of April 2018 titled “Experimental testing of wind turbine wake control methods” set his focus on optimization of concepts to reduce power losses and fatigue loads on downstream turbines. He was supervised by professor Lars Sætran at NTNU Trondheim and professor Paul Uwe Thamsen at TU Berlin.
Jan was followed shortly after by Angela Gerlach, who defended her doctoral thesis on the 25th of April 2018 titled “Design Parameters of Vortex Pumps: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies”. Supervised by professor Lasse Rosendahl from AAU Aalborg and professor Paul Uwe Thamsen at TU Berlin, Angela Gerlach tackled several solutions to optimize the design of vortex pumps.
Anna Lyhne Jensen and Raja Abou Ackl
We also are eagerly awaiting the 14th of August, when Anna Lyhne Jensen will be completing her PhD project in cooperation with Grundfos, supervised by professor Lasse Rosendahl and professor Paul Uwe Thamsen. She focuses on the simulation of clogging effects in waste water pumps caused by textile materials such as wet wipes. Her dissertation will be published with the title “Characterisation of Rag Properties and their Transport in Wastewater Pumps”.