Delft Outlook July 2017

DELFT OUTLOOK

NO. 2

JULY 2017

YEAR

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BART REIJNEN

‘You have to stick up for yourself’

Maximum transparency GLASS LABORATORY FOR ELECTRON MICROSCOPY MENTOR ALUMNI PROGRAMME

Students and alumni help each other

Heritage THEME

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COVER PHOTO Willem van der Poel is now 90 years old. He first built the Testudo computer, followed by ZEBRA. He is currently programming a simulator that performs calculations the way ZEBRA did. With his youthful energy and appearance, the man seems younger than the machine, which of course he cannot be.

(Sam Rentmeester, photographer)

EDITORIAL

Saskia Bonger DELFT IN BRIEF 04

Heritage

Did you know that the Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) faculty basement houses a club for ‘older gentlemen’ who enjoy tinkering with early electronics? The story of these ‘bolt fanatics’ and ‘sparkies’ later in this special heritage issue makes one thing clear: history is alive.

At first sight, old instruments and apparatus may appear to be junk, but appearances can be deceiving. The tales of the master clocks and radio beacon indicators in the EEMCS basement stir the imagination and open a window on worlds that are not so far removed as we sometimes think in these days of mobile phones, the internet and social media.

It’s also very educational, relates one of the bolt fanatics, because students “should also know where we’ve come from”.

Our editors’ quest through TU Delft’s heritage has uncovered many wonderful stories.

THE PATENT 28

Read all about the legacy of the Botanical Garden, or the tribulations of the Bankaboor drill and its inventor, who died young. And just why does the faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (3mE) hoard over 300 model ship hulls?

The answer has a lot to do with beauty and emotions.

TU Delft is sitting on a mountain of diverse heritage. The TU Library basement alone holds 42 kilometres of books and thousands of pieces of teaching and research memorabilia.

Over the next 25 years, historians and curators will be filtering through these and all the university’s other heritage to piece together the full story.

In this issue, Library Director Wilma van Wezenbeek calls on alumni to get involved. Not everyone will get to work in the EEMCS basement, but donations are always welcome!

COLUMN

Remco de Boer

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ALUMNI MENTORS 30 IN PERSON 32 AFTER DELFT Huub Halsema

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HORA EST 34 THE FIRM E-Trailer

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INTERVIEW

Marina van Damme

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Saskia Bonger, Editor-in-chief

ALUMNI NEWS 38

page 07

Theme Heritage

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

COLOPHON

Editorial staff Saskia Bonger (editor-in-chief), Dorine van Gorp, Katja Wijnands (managing editors), Tomas van Dijk, Sam Rentmeester (photographer), Roos van Tongeren, Connie van Uffelen, Jos Wassink, T +31 (0) 15 2784848, E-mail delftoutlook@tudelft.nl Contributing writers Jorinde Benner, Remco de Boer, Auke Herrema, Stephan Timmers Design Jelle Hoogendam Typesetting Saskia de Been Printing Quantes Subscriptions delftoutlook@tudelft.nl Delft Outlook is the magazine of TU Delft

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18 Basement men Preserving TU heritage

22 Bart Reijnen

‘I am a child of the Top Gun generation’

26 Van Leeuwenhoeklab Transparency in electron microscopy

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DELFT IN BRIEF Hyperloop test pipe

ObeCity Lisa ten Brug believes that the world is one big playground.

She graduated from ABE last April with a thesis on the subject of a playground containing a large concrete seagull, a bird’s nest and a water play area.

When designing her playground,

Ten Brug collaborated with schoolchildren from Beverwaard, a neighbourhood in Rotterdam. Her ultimate aim is to reduce the incidence of child obesity by encouraging them to exercise more. ‘ObeCity’ is the title of her thesis. delta.tudelft.nl/33164

Dutch national radio and television, outgoing Minister Schultz-van Haegen and more than 100 invited guests witnessed the unveiling of a 30-metre-long steel pipe with a 3-metre diameter. On 1 June, Europe’s first Hyperloop test facility was opened at the Green Village in Delft. Devised by Elon Musk, Hyperloop is a type of

public transport that promises to be faster than a plane and cheaper than the train. Earlier this year, a team of TU Delft students won the design competition in California and decided to launch a start-up called HARDT to further develop the design. BAM, a major infrastructure company, is supporting HARDT’s work. delta.tudelft.nl/33233

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Wrongly addressed

We were sorry to see that we sent you the March edition of Delft Outlook featuring the wrong name. We hope that you nevertheless enjoyed reading the magazine, and would like to thank you for your calls and emails pointing out the mistake. We appreciate you taking the time to get in touch.

Kite power

Wubbo Ockels patented airborne wind energy almost twenty years ago. The technology is rapidly scaling up: Dr Roland Schmehl, head of the KitePower research group (AE faculty) , regards 100 kilowatts as a milestone project. The system requires much less material in comparison to stationary wind turbines (about 1%) and higher energy potential in the same location because of wind speeds rising with altitude. The blue 100 kW generator will be stationed at the former Valkenburg airfield, now dedicated to kite power and drone development. Over the last two years, the KitePower group has received two grants of over three million euros each. The first client is the Dutch Ministry of Defence. delta.tudelft.nl/33332

Trainspotting

It sounds like a scenario for a Hollywood blockbuster, but it could actually happen: a train transporting hazardous materials derails in a residential area.

In their quest to be better prepared for such a disaster, last April ProRail called on the help of dozens of EEMCS students. During a hackathon, the students were challenged to design a data processing system that would enable ProRail to quickly establish the contents of every train. This information is recorded on the carriages in code, but collating it all – using video cameras adjacent to the tracks – is quite a job. delta.tudelft.nl/33113

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

Battery Lab

In April, TU Delft opened a new laboratory dedicated to developing batteries. The Battery Lab is located in the Reactor Institute Delft (faculty of Applied Sciences). Lab manager Frans Ooms explains that this is the first time that all steps in battery development have been brought together under one roof, from fume cupboards for developing new ceramic materials to a testing room in which 150 individual batteries can be tested simultaneously.

TU Delft researcher Dr Researcher Marnix Wagemaker also said he was pleased with the proximity of the PEARL neutron diffractometer, which enables live research into changes in materials. delta.tudelft.nl/33040

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Delta goed digital PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

The university publication Delta is moving with the times. The final edition of the paper magazine was published in May. This will be replaced by a brand-new website, offering a platform for constructive journalism. That is, journalism with an engineer’s mentality befitting of TU Delft, with scope for insights and ideas from students and employees. A Delta Lab will be set up to serve as a platform for co-creation, mainly for students. Delta will moderate this sanctuary, where students will be given plenty of freedom to showcase what they are making, what they are working on, and what they think. delta.tudelft.nl/33072

Tight-fitting outfit

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

Team Giant-Alpecin and TU Delft developed a new cycling outfit for Tom Dumoulin, using a 3D body scan and a 3D-printed model of the cyclist. Wouter Terra (AE) fitted the mannequin with various outfits, made from different materials, and conducted research in the wind tunnel to ascertain which combination offered the least air resistance. He managed to reduce drag by roughly 1%. delta.tudelft.nl/33052

Dancing on glass

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

Walking on it for the first time is a bit unnerving, but there is no need for fear. The glass bridge installed in the Green Village this spring can easily hold dozens of pedestrians. This was proved in an experiment conducted in May by Prof. Rob Nijsse. The Professor of Structural Design and Building Engineering invited young people to skip, jump, march and dance to hardcore house music on the bridge. The bridge yielded a little to the impact. Measurements indicate that only 50% of the calculated maximum capacity was reached. “This is the first time anywhere in the world that a bridge has been constructed and tested in this way”, says Nijsse. delta.tudelft.nl/33025 en 33165 (videos)

Mini supercomputer This spring, researchers from TU Delft and Leiden University presented a new supercomputer no larger than four pizza boxes. The Little Green Machine II (successor to the 2010 version) is perfectly suited to conducting repetitive calculations such as those required in astronomy, geophysics

and hydrodynamics. Performing 200 million operations a second, the LGM II has processing power equal to that of 10,000 PCs. The machine’s secret is using quick and cheap graphics cards (GPUs) instead of customary CPUs. Professor Kees Vuik (faculty of EEMCS): “GPUs are less flexible than

CPUs. They are excellent at conducting simple calculations, but you should not bother them with ‘IF-THEN’ formulas.”

Massive calculations often involve numerous repeat calculations, which is exactly what the LGM II was designed for. delta.tudelft.nl/33053

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The students of the Delft University of Technology (DUT) Racing Team have participated in the global Formula Student competition since 2001 and are currently ranked 2nd in the world. On June 16 they presented the electrical DUT17, the latest vehicle in an impressive heritage

collection. In 2004, the students were still using petrol.

At just 125 kg, their vehicle was one of the lightest in the competition. With this DUT04, they finished tenth in Formula Student UK.

PHOTO: MARCEL KRIJGER

Heritage

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Heritage

TEXT: ROOS VAN TONGEREN PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

Breakdown?

The call boxes are gone At the end of 2017, the iconic yellow call boxes along the Dutch highways will be consigned to history.

The poles will be removed from July onwards. Infrastructure department Rijkswaterstaat and roadside assistance club ANWB reason that motorists always carry a mobile phone these days.

It is the end of an era – an era in which Delft secretly played a significant part.

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n the old days, if you had a breakdown you could only ask someone in the vicinity to call roadside assistance. The ANWB later put a little sticker on members’ car doors with a number to call for the ANWB to send roadside assistance to repair your car.

The first telephone poles were installed along the Afsluitdijk in 1955, but these were not the call boxes that appeared some time later. The first ten call boxes were installed as a test in 1960 along the A13 between Rotterdam and The Hague, running right past Delft. The roadside assistance station – a sort of garage with an office – stood by the Pauwmolen (now gone). “Roadside assistance used to patrol the highway,” explains ANWB spokesman Markus van Tol. “But they did so less often after the call boxes were installed.” It took a further ten years before a nationwide call box network was installed in 1970.

Delft design

The first call box comprised a square pillar that was designed in Germany. Around 1965, the ANWB installed eighteen call-boxes, nicknamed ‘kletskop’ after a round biscuit, along the Oosterscheldebrug.

From 1970, a new design developed by Philips was used, which featured the two familiar flaps.

In the 1990s, IDE student Chrétien Gerrits designed the now iconic call box for his graduation project. “I wanted to complete a graduation research project in the public space”, Gerrits recalls. “I received the commission from Rijkswaterstaat and KPN. I never expected they would put my design into production, and now they’re dotted across the country. That is strange and surreal, but it feels like an honour.” The design is similar to that of its predecessor. “That was a design choice on my part; the old type was

beautiful”, says Gerrits. “But its functioning and construction were completely different. The old type was too tall, so children, wheelchairs users and shorter people were unable to reach it. In my design, the loudspeakers are in the centre to direct the sound towards the shells. It is 70% cheaper than the previous one and made from recyclable materials, even before anyone was much concerned with recycling. It is a really simple, solid design.”

Highway emergency exit

Gerrits does not support the decision to remove the call boxes in the near future. “It is a good five years too soon. Not everyone has a charged phone with them in their car. Highways are closed structures bordered by ditches or fences to prevent people from getting onto the road – or leaving it. I foresee this leading to significant problems, such as waving people stuck on the hard shoulder, which will cause a chain reaction in the already excessive traffic flows.

I don’t agree with the reasoning that the call boxes are insufficiently used. Compare it with a building’s emergency exit; that isn’t constantly in use either, but it’s good it’s there all the same.”

But the ANWB does not envisage this sort of problem.

“The call boxes were used around 300 times per month, which is a fraction of the total number of calls that we receive”, says Van Tol. “It is an antiquated system that has been around for 60 years and needs replacing. The call boxes also sometimes send ghost alerts of constant calls while no-one is actually standing there. They are no longer reliable.”

Reusing the poles

So, the call boxes must go, concluded Infrastructure and Environment Minister Melanie Schultz van

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Haegen in October 2014. Rijkswaterstaat, which owns the poles, has outsourced the task of removing them to Van Doorn Geldermalsen, sister company of Ecoleon. Ecoleon is now seeking ways of reusing – or upcycling – the poles. To this end, it has set up a website where anyone can submit suggestions (hetverhaalvandepraatpaal.nl).

“We have already come up with a whole list of ideas ourselves”, says Ecoleon’s Simone Thoolen. “For example, a charging station, a music box, or an information terminal for events. If I look through my eyelashes, I can visualise it as something totally different, like a huge toothbrush, with wheels on it, for a daycare centre, or a chess piece – or the kind of thing you find in the Efteling amusement park.”

So why set up the website? “We are looking for something for which we can do a big production run so that we can make back the development costs.”

Picked up for the last time

Not all of the 3,300 call boxes will be reused. Some will be sold or donated to museums. It has not yet been determined precisely how many will be sold nor the price tag. Interested parties can also get in touch via the website. “It is quite a job to remove all of

the call boxes, because the poles extend as far below ground as above, to stop them blowing over.” Ecoleon wants to issue a QR code for each pole in order to identify exactly where it was located. The company hopes to have gathered them all in by around 1 October.

Therefore between 1 July and 1 October, some nonoperational call boxes will still be by the roadside.

Lisanne Addink-Dölle of VerdraaidGoed has designed a cover for them for during this period. And – what

‘I foresee this leading to significant problems, such as waving people stuck on the hard shoulder’ a coincidence – Lisanne is a former IDE student!

Following her graduation in 2010, she set up her own company. “VerdraaidGoed does a lot of upcycling work – in this instance for Rijkswaterstaat”, she says.

“The covers are made of leftover material from old banners and window displays. We use the photos of the latest fashions hanging in shop fronts to make covers. They are all sewn in the Netherlands.” <<

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Heritage

PHOTOS: SAM RENTMEESTER

The Botanical Garden: 100 years old and still in full swing

Several artists created special pieces for the Botanical Garden to celebrate the centenary.

Is it a city park with history, or a green laboratory? It’s both, says director Bob Ursem about ‘his’ botanical garden. He talked to us about its uses and patents.

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t was Professor Martinus Beijerinck, legendary founder of the Delft School of Microbiology, who came up with the idea that Institutes of Technology should have a garden to be able to practice Technical Botany. The very first garden was located behind his office at Oude Delft. His successor, Professor Gerrit van Iterson, took that idea to the next level. On 14 October 1917 the current Botanical Garden was opened, and it became a unique piece of Delft heritage as well as a hidden city park.

The main purpose of the garden was to extract vegetable raw materials such as fibres, wood, gums, resins and latex, and there was often a particular focus on plantations in the Dutch East Indies. Industrial uses were never far from people’s minds, as research into extracting peanut oil (Calvé), raw materials for eau de Cologne (Boldoot) and rubber (Vredesteijn) demonstrated.

Ursem stresses that the garden is still used for research and scientific

applications, such as the development of the pink LED light that is used in today’s greenhouses, and a mechanism that opens and closes depending on the humidity. Some mosses are also capable of doing that, and it might even be possible to apply this characteristic to rainwear.

“Nowadays, everything has to be sustainable. People want to analyse the life cycles of materials and use a ‘cradle to grave’ approach. Then you naturally start to see and use nature as a source of inspiration”, says Ursem, who is in absolutely no doubt that, for that reason alone, the garden will still be there in a hundred years’ time.

An extensive programme has been put together to celebrate this jubilee year. The book ‘100 Hoogtepunten’ (100 Highlights) by Gerrit van der Veen and Pieter van Mourik, has just been published (Delft Academic Press) and Trudy van Wees’s book, ‘Het Groene Laboratorium’ (The Green Laboratory), has also appeared recently. A symposium entitled ‘100 years of Plant Technology’ will be held in September. JW Full programme at: botanischetuin.tudelft.nl

Rock Museum Three years ago, the collection of minerals, ores and other rocks that was stored in the attic of the former Mining Engineering building found a new home at Naturalis. Thanks to the efforts of alumni, a small part was retained at Delft and is on display in the Mineralogical-Geological Museum (MGM).

Professor of Mining Engineering Herman Vogelsang began the collection back in 1864. Mining Engineering scientists and students then continued to collect minerals and ores while on expeditions.

The collection expanded and grew into a unique assortment of approximately 150,000 stones. The university’s collection is now owned by the state but curated by Naturalis. After selection a further 5,000 remained. The collection is not only used for exhibitions but also for research. Such as the thin slices of rock so finely polished as to be transparent, which makes them particularly interesting to examine under a microscope.

App The MGM has developed an app with texts and animations about various ores and minerals. The collection has been photographed and you can zoom in on the minutest details. The app was the initiative of Jules Dudok: “There are amateurs across the whole country who are interested in minerals and the app enables them to examine the collection.” RvT Download the app at: sciencecentre.tudelft.nl/mgm

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Model Plants

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here they stand, on top of the cupboard in Martinus Beijerinck’s former laboratory in the Science Centre: the model plants manufactured by Bertels. The oldest date back to 1870. They were produced to facilitate teaching, since models are more illustrative to work with than images. In addition to the model plants, TU Delft boasts the only complete catalogue from which model plants by the manufacturer Brendel could be ordered. The catalogue, dating from 1913-14, is no bigger than an A5 notebook, but it is such an exceptional item that the Director of the botanical gardens in Berlin travelled all the way to Delft just to see it.

Some of the models are made from papier mâché and

others from Bakelite, the predecessor of plastic. Their age can be determined by their feet – the round wooden ones being the oldest, the square ones somewhat younger and the green squares the most recent. They consist of different components and can be completely taken apart. “But I don’t do that anymore,” says Lesley Robertson, curator of the Beijerinck room. “It takes me at least three hours to put them back together again!” At present, the Beijerinck room can only be visited by appointment, but from the end of this year it will be open to the public during the Science Centre’s regular opening hours. JW sciencecentre.tudelft.nl

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Heritage

PHOTOS: SAM RENTMEESTER

On the banks of the towing tank

Dr Lex Keuning has now entrusted his life's work to Jasper den Ouden (photo) and Michiel Katgert.

In the 142-metre long towing tank housed in the 3mE building, history sits on racks along the wall. There are over a hundred model hulls of skûtsjes, utility vessels, motor cruisers and sailing yachts.

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he wooden hulls date from the 1970s and were milled and planed by hand into supple, flowing forms. The later models are made of plastic, but still by a craftsman’s hand.

These models are the silent witnesses of what is known among yacht designers as the DSHYS: the Delft Systematic Yacht Hull Series. This is a measurement programme that was initiated in 1973 by Professor of Marine Hydromechanics Jelle Gerritsma.

The objective was to use the towing tank results to create a calculation aid to help yacht designers determine the nautical properties of their designs.

Drag tests were conducted in which a four-ton aluminium trolley on a track would veer from side to side in the tank at a maximum speed of nearly 20 kilometres per hour. Beneath this, bathed in light, the model hull sliced through the water. Each test provided values for aspects such as drag, lateral forces, longitudinal angle of the vessel (trim), and sinkage. The measurements for each hull took at least a week to complete.

And that was not all, recalls Dr Lex Keuning, who headed up the programme until two years ago. “Based on the mother ship, we made three models with slight increases and decreases in breadth, each of which we then towed. The first systematic series consisted of nine models. Over 39 years, a total of 70 different sail yacht variety hull shapes were tested, from ‘cigar-shaped’ to ‘pregnant whale’.

Dr Keuning has now entrusted his life’s work to Jasper den Ouden, MSc

and Michiel Katgert, MSc. Den Ouden maintains the towing tank’s website with a databank of measurements and publications and has granted hundreds of requests for login codes from around the world. He says there is zero likelihood of the old models getting back in the water due to the enormous advances that have taken place in the interim in terms of materials usage, design insights and hull shapes. But he says that though the hulls’ scientific significance has waned, they have gained a historical and even emotional significance.

During guided tours, the visitors run their hands over the curves of the sometimes bizarre hull designs.

Perennial favourites are the earliest wooden models. Here at the towing tank, beauty is within arm’s reach. JW dsyhs.tudelft.nl delta.tudelft.nl/26151

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Bankaboor drill all around the world In this hundred-year old chest lie the components of the Bankaboor drill – in miniature. The model was donated to TU Delft by the Figee firm to illustrate the drill’s capabilities to mining engineering students.

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he Bankaboor drill, a true innovation, was designed by the young Johannes Evert Akkeringa (1829-1864), the fifth mining engineer to graduate from the former Royal Academy in Delft. His first job was on the island of Banka, near the southern tip of Sumatra, where the government of the Dutch East Indies was mining tin ore. The management wanted a drilling device that could locate the shallow tin sands more accurately. They were not satisfied with the traditional tjam the Chinese used to delve for tin.

Akkeringa designed a 3-meter long pipe with a 10-centimetre diameter fitted with a cutting shoe.

The long, extendible cylinder was driven into the earth by the weight of four men standing on a round platform at the top. Through a series of boreholes,

it could accurately determine the depth, thickness and tin content of the ore bodies. After a few small improvements the apparatus became a successful Dutch export product. It is still used today in difficult to access areas to prospect for tin, gold and other minerals in soft rock.

Unfortunately, Akkeringa barely had the opportunity to witness his invention’s success. The first drill shipped from Amsterdam to Banka in 1860. Just four years later, at the age of 35, in Buitenzorg (now Bogor, West Java) Akkeringa succumbed to the typhus he had contracted on Borneo. Alas, life in the tropics was difficult and extremely unhealthy for many Delft mining engineers. JW Source: B. Manders, ‘175 jaar TU Delft, Erfgoed in 33 verhalen’, published by Histechnica, 2017.

The city as an archive Both the city of Delft and TU Delft have many hidden collections. Architecture students have been studying on how to display them all. Their work is currently on show.

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ifteen Master’s students had the task of designing a public building at Gasthuisplaats as part of their graduation project. They had to design a building in which the hidden collections of the city and TU Delft could be displayed and rotated. It also had to be a place where students and citizens of Delft could come together, as well as a building which the city could use to present itself to the outside world. To get the ball rolling, the fifteen students went into the city to study different public buildings, such as old TU buildings.

“That helps you see where the buildings are located in the city, and you start to get a coherent picture,” says Willemijn Wilms Floet, lecturer. They then made 3D drawings of the fifteen buildings based on floor plans, cross sections and facades. The students had to think about what a public institution actually is and how people want to meet each other. What kind of character should the property have and what will be its role in the city?

In the end, some students came upon the idea of creating a public building in the form of an archive. Others chose an education or knowledge centre, or large iconic buildings. For many, the Prinsenhof was the source of inspiration. Marta Szczepańska’s design (shown in the photo) is one example of this. The models and building studies will be on display in the Prinsenkwartier until 6 July. JW

‘The city as an archive’ – Prinsenkwartier in Delft, Sint Agathaplein 4, until 6 July.

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Heritage

Testudo: slow but steady It was not the Netherlands’ first computer, but it was the first to survive longer than two weeks: the Testudo.

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he association of Friends of the Academic Heritage of TU Delft, Histechnica for short, will not let the university’s 175th anniversary go unmarked. It was established in 1974 to promote the importance of properly managing TU Delft’s academic heritage and to provide the best possible support in this regard. The association’s work takes the form of eight Saturday morning lectures a year, hands-on work with museum pieces and – specially for the anniversary – a book in which current and former Delft academics celebrate 33 highlights from the collection.

Well-known highlights include Prof.

Vening Meinesz’s Golden Calf, the Delft proton synchrotron and the Testudo computer. The book also presents portraits of professors, mathematical geometrical models, and the scientific value of ping pong balls. The various items are organised by faculty.

The 240-page book will not be for sale to the public, but all members of Histechnica will receive a copy – including any new members, Dr Van Woerkom promises, but only ‘while stocks last’! The book seems set to become a piece of heritage in itself! .

JW

histechnica.nl

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s a student, computing pioneer, games fanatic and Professor Emeritus Willem van der Poel (born 1926) hand-built Delft’s first computer for optical calculations: the ARCO. While in hiding during the Second World War, he realised how such a calculator could operate using telephone relays, but it would require hundreds of them. Years later, as a student at the Delft Institute of Technology, he obtained the first 600 from the Head of the Mathematics Department at the Dutch PTT. He tuned the relays and soldered the wires together. He then constructed a single cabinet of 70 x 100 cm; the calculator comprised a total of five such cabinets.

Following his graduation in 1950, other students continued to expand the calculator for a further two years. By 1952, the Delft optics computer was complete.

The research group headed by Optics Professor Bram van Heel, under whom Van der Poel completed his studies, used the computer for twelve years to calculate light diffraction for optical lens systems. Van der Poel recalls: “The input was fed in on Telex perforated tape. Fixed sizes were inserted into a plugboard. You could play with the angles and distances between lenses.

It was connected to a typewriter which spat out the answers. Someone later dubbed it the Testudo – Latin for tortoise – because it was so slow.

But it was very steady! The Testudo frequently operated overnight without supervision. It took sixteen hours to do as much as a single human could do in eight.”

The Testudo’s greatest limitation was its memory. The five cabinets contained

enough space for 32 registers which could each store 32 bits, totalling 1,024 bits of memory.

At the PTT, Van der Poel continued to build computers and designed the electronic calculator PTERA, a vacuum tube computer that was in use from 1953 to 1958 – and actually worked for about half of that time. Part of the

‘The Testudo took sixteen hours to do as much as a single human could do in eight’ PTERA later returned to Delft under the name of ZEBRA. With itst 498 vacuum tubes and 509 transistors, the machine was used in Delft from 1958 to 1967.

In 1962, Van der Poel was appointed Special Professor at the Delft Institute of Technology alongside his work at the PTT’s Dr Neher Laboratory. In 1967, he joined the Delft Institute of Technology in a full-time capacity.

Fifty years later, one of the five cabinets that once made up the Testudo sits in the study collection in the basement of the Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty. Three have found a place in the academic heritage deposit in the TU Library. All the relays have ‘disappeared’ from the last one. The ZEBRA, too, has generally remained in storage.

Incidentally, the very first computer in the Netherlands was the automatic relay calculator ARRA I, which was used at the Mathematisch Centrum, later the Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science. However, the design did not stand up technically, since the relays became overloaded at high speeds. On start-up, the ARRA I generated a list of random numbers as instructed, but stopped doing so shortly afterwards. JW

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Around the world in 1.5 hours

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

eeps, crackling noises and sputtering sounds suddenly start to come through the speaker: DelfiC3 has just appeared on the horizon and been picked up by ground control, which is located on the top floor of the EEMCS faculty building. “It’s already passed by on the eastern horizon a couple of times this morning,” says AE student Nils van Storch.

“This afternoon it will pass by in the west. It will have orbited the earth in 1.5 hours.”

Van Storch comes here regularly to make any necessary adjustments. He checks whether the nanosatellite, which was launched in 2008 from India, is still working properly. And he hopes that one day he’ll be able to capture a signal from the C3’s successor, the Delfi-n3Xt. This second satellite stopped transmitting signals three months after it was launched in 2013. NORAD, an American institute that monitors air traffic and keeps track of satellites, confirmed that it is still orbiting around the earth - at an altitude of 630 kilometres.

The radio silence may be due to a software problem. “When the battery is empty, it recharges using solar power”, says Van Storch.

“The computer then reboots and, you never know, the satellite might start to transmit again.”

DelfiC3 was developed by EEMCS and AE students. It is no bigger than a milk carton and weighs 2.2 kilograms. It is the first satellite in the Netherlands

to be built by a university and its students. The purpose of the project was to find out if a series of small satellites - and by extension the miniaturised technology used in those satellites - is easier to use than the larger standard satellites which are currently being used in space. TvD

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PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

Electron microscope in retirement The EM300 elektron microscope has made the atomic world visible.

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hat first draws the eye is the fluorescent green screen directly beneath the electron column. Electrons that pass through the preparation form an enlarged image on the screen. Researchers would examine the image via the optical microscope, which is attached to the outer side due to the vacuum in the microscope.

According to microscopy expert Prof.

Pieter de Kruit, from the faculty of Applied Sciences, it is difficult to overestimate the significance of electron microscopy. The ability to form an image of details smaller than 1/10th of a nanometer using the De Broglie wavelength of accelerated electrons has made the atomic world visible, so we can now describe the internal structure of cells and bacteria.

The electron microscope has also become an essential tool in materials science for studying the connection between structures and macroscopic properties such as strength and rigidity. Furthermore, electronic circuits could never have been

miniaturised without the electron microscope.

The first electron microscope was constructed in 1931 by Ernst Ruska, who went on to receive the Nobel Prize, at the Technical University of Berlin. Delft Physics Professor Hendrik Dorgelo was close to Ruska but had no budget to purchase one of his microscopes. In 1939, Dorgelo’s student Jan Bart Le Poole proposed to design and build an electron microscope for his graduation project. Despite the intervention of the Second World War, Le Poole succeeded in creating his first image by 8 April 1941. A year later, he began constructing a 150 kilovolt transmission electron microscope at the Technical Physics Department at the TNO/Delft Institute of Technology, financed by the Delft University Fund and several Dutch companies. The war forced Le Poole to be self-reliant.

Nevertheless he contacted Philips, believing that the electron microscope could be of interest to the company.

Following the war, Le Poole caused a sensation with demonstrations of his microscope. Many notable figures came

to see it, including Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard. Thanks to various important personages personally urging Anton Philips to reconsider, Philips eventually manufactured a series of electron microscopes. It established Philips Electron Optics, with Le Poole, who had since become Professor of Electron Optics at the Delft Institute of Technology, in an advisory role. The first model of electron microscope was the Philips EM100; the company sold 400 of these. In 1967 the EM300 followed, with a more sophisticated focusing device and the ability to produce diffraction patterns for identifying the structure of microcrystals. Now, 50 years on, the old workhorse that revealed viruses, crystals, organelles and so many other wonders of the atomic world to researchers stands in a corner of the brand new Van Leeuwenhoek Laboratory as a piece of history. JW Source: P. Kruit, ‘De Philips EM300 Elektronenmicroscoop’, ‘175 jaar TU Delft, Erfgoed in 33 verhalen’, published

by Histechnica, 2017

17

View There is no identity without history. That is the mantra of TU Library Director Wilma van Wezenbeek. She is currently working on an enormous task: telling the story of TU Delft’s entire history for the university’s 200th anniversary in 2042.

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

T

he TU Library accommodates 42 kilometres of books and thousands of instruments and other educational and research memorabilia. It is an impressive collection. At the same time, it is eerily quiet in the library basement, where all this heritage slumbers in storage. “An item is nothing special in and of itself,” says Van Wezenbeek. “It is dead. You need to know its story and the people associated with it. We are going to bring these objects to life.”

Last year, Van Wezenbeek put together a team of five people who are tasked with doing just that. “They are almost all young people in their thirties. We also have a university historian, a person who puts together exhibitions and a curator.”

The curator is responsible for determining which items to keep and which to throw away.

“If you keep everything, you no longer have any overview and essentially you have nothing,” says Van Wezenbeek. “But it is hard to let things go.”

“Try to imagine what it feels like to throw books away. We wrestle with it, but it’s part of the job.

If a book is no longer being lent out or used, if it wasn’t written by a Delft academic, and if it does not belong to a transitional period in which people started conducting research or teaching in a different way, then we need to ask ourselves whether we ought to keep it. We try to set our emotions aside and be pragmatic.

Why is heritage important? As a university,

we have always created things that are of relevance to society: dikes, bridges. That is our history. Our history and heritage shape our identity and also our future.

We can be very proud of TU Delft. Identity awareness is becoming increasingly important for fundraising purposes. In the United States, many people donate to their university. They are extremely proud of their academic institutions. Now that government funding for universities is tapering off, it would be wonderful if we could also attract donations from Delft alumni.

We are working towards a significant event: the university’s 200th anniversary in 2042. At this point, our history is still quite fragmented. Over the next 25 years, we want to have comprehensively documented the whole story.

We aim to have researchers and alumni tell their stories themselves – both retired academics and researchers who are active today. For example, Prof. Leo van Kouwenhoven could tell the story of his discovery of the Majorana particle.

To attract people’s attention, we need to put in real effort and produce film clips, interactive exhibitions, blogs and books. A piece of apparatus tends to be a black box nowadays.

With the arrival of microelectronics, you can no longer see how an object functions. The story behind it then becomes considerably more important.” TvD

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NO. NR22 JULY JULI 2017 2016

TEKST: TOMAS VAN DIJK FOTO'S: SAM RENTMEESTER

BASEMENT MEN

19

Rotary dial telephones, Morse code equipment, old radios â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the history of electrical engineering can be found in the basement of the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. A team of retired enthusiasts, mostly former TU Delft staff, spends every Monday tinkering and archiving here. >> Read more on page 20

20

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NO.2 JULY 2017

TEXT: TOMAS VAN DIJK PHOTOS: SAM RENTMEESTER

ees Wissenburgh (78) estimates that he’s had twenty-five thousand tubes in his hands. For the last five years or so, he has managed the storage area for these old electrical components: tubes for radios, radar and TVs. “This collection was started by a TU Delft staff member who had worked as a radio operator. He had been to sea and had connections everywhere”, explains the former analogue electronics lecturer. The room is filled to the ceiling with hundreds of boxes. “What’s in those boxes is often a surprise.”

One of the tubes has an eagle and a swastika drawn on it. “This comes from a German V2 rocket”, says Wissenburgh. “It’s a unique item. V2 rockets were fired to England from The Hague and other locations. I still vividly remember the sound they made. It resembled that of the jet engine of a modern aeroplane. Clutching my teddy bear, I would sit in the stairwell listening. If the sound suddenly stopped, you knew that the rocket had crashed.

One came down just around the corner from my aunt’s house.”

“I built my first radio with tubes as a young boy. They’re back in fashion now. They’re ‘retro’. Some people say that the sound of a tube amplifier is

Peter Stiefelhagen: “This is good stuff. These radio beacons enabled the pilots to determine their position.”

warmer than that of a transistor amplifier. I don’t believe a word of it. It makes no difference for sound reproduction. Sure, if you want to distort the sound of an electric guitar a tube amplifier sounds better. It provides nicer overtones.”

Bolt fanatics and sparkies

Jan Meijers (72) and Frans van Zuijlen (70) are repairing a load resistor. “With a device like this we can test generators that generate 380 volts”, explains Meijers. “The load resistor had to be disassembled because it contained asbestos. This device is from the high-voltage laboratory. Is this heritage?”(laughing) “Everything

‘It’s important for the students that we save all this equipment’ involving power current is slowly but surely becoming heritage.”

Meijers is a precision mechanics man, and has been since his military service.

He worked on flight instruments at Twente air base. “They call me a bolt fanatic here. And we call those who work with electronics ‘sparkies’.”

“Tinkering is fun. You can’t just throw old things away can you? It’s impor-

tant for the students that we save all this equipment. While students need to work in the new computer age, they also need to know where we come from.”

Mad about masters

“I’m fascinated by masters”, says Rob Timmermans (70). “I try to rescue as many as I can from old buildings.

Slaves don’t interest me as much.”

Timmermans enjoys playing with jargon. What he’s really talking about are master clocks. Long before we used GPS to set our clocks, we used these pendulum clocks for this purpose.

They were highly accurate and often hidden away in basements deep underground, away from vibrations and pressure and temperature fluctuations.

These clocks sent the time to dozens of other clocks – slave clocks – to ensure that they all ran in sync.

“The development of these clocks really took off a century ago”, says Timmermans. “All over Europe, the railways started to run on schedule.

The time had to be the same at every station. This system also became commonplace in big office buildings.”

Often a master clock alone wasn’t strong enough to control all the slave clocks. The signal was then sent to an amplifier first. Timmermans is wor-

Rob Timmermans: “Master clocks were highly accurate and often hidden away in basements deep underground, away from vibrations and pressure and temperature fluctuations.”

21 king on such an amplifier now. He is preparing for an upcoming exhibition called Op tijd schakelen (‘Switch on time’).

“I spent forty years in telecommunications, for Siemens, Alcatel, KPN and other companies. I launched numerous initiatives to preserve heritage. I founded the Dutch Telecommunications Heritage Foundation (Stichting Telecommunicatie Erfgoed Nederland).

But this, the master clocks, is something I do privately. It’s a passion.”

Jack-of-all-trades

Peter Stiefelhagen (77) can be found in the basement every Monday. He’s been coming here for ten years now.

He is busy mounting a World War II radio bacon monitor on a panel containing instruments from allied bombers.

“This is good stuff. These radio beacons enabled the pilots to determine their position.”

On-board compass, temperature gauge, exhaust temperature gauge – the engineer has already installed dozens of instruments and linked them to a panel with named buttons. Press a button and you’ll see a red light illuminate next to the instrument concerned. “All of these devices come from aeroplanes that crashed or were destined to be scrapped.” Stiefelhagen is a jack-of-

Jan Meijers and Frans van Zuijlen: “Everything involving power current is slowly but surely becoming heritage.” all-trades in the basement, working on different projects. Before focusing on flight instruments, he restored a gyrocompass that had stood outside on the deck of a big ship.

Circulatory system of garden hoses

“There’s a story connected to this doll”, says Piet Trimp (68). “I worked on this fifteen years ago for the electronic instrumentation research group. A student used this doll to refine a technique for guiding catheters through a patient’s bloodstream when placing a stent. What was different about this

Kees Wissenburgh: “Some people say that the sound of a tube amplifier is warmer than that of a transistor amplifier. I don’t believe a word of it.”

was that the catheter had magnetic sensors, enabling the physician to see where the catheter is in the bloodstream. That means that he didn’t have to make new X-rays all the time.”

“The doll is made of polystyrene and came from a shop display”, continues Trimp, who started working in the basement when he retired three years ago. “I cut it through lengthwise and used garden hoses to model a circulatory system on the inside. This doll is genuine TU Delft heritage.” <<

Piet Trimp: “A student used this doll to refine a technique for guiding catheters through a patient’s bloodstream when placing a stent.”

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‘I am a child of the Top Gun generation’

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As a recent engineering graduate he worked on the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest plane, later became chairman of the Dutch aerospace sector, and now heads a company with a turnover of over 1.5 billion dollars.

Bart Reijnen has been voted TU Delft alumnus of the year.

TEXT CONNIE VAN UFFELEN PHOTOS SAM RENTMEESTER

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NO.2 JULY 2017

How did you react when you heard that you were nominated alumnus of the year?

“Why me? How did they end up picking me?

All the more so because I have been living and working in Copenhagen for six months.

Apparently I’m an example of what a career in aerospace looks like.”

Why did you choose aerospace engineering?

CV

“I’m a child of the Top Gun generation. Even before the movie was released I wanted to be a fighter pilot, but I was rejected, partly due to the proportions of my upper and lower body.

If I were to use the ejector seat of an F16, my legs would remain stuck behind the dashboard.

That’s not ideal… So, what then? Simple: something with planes, but not in maintenance.

So you either go to the Royal Military Academy or study aerospace engineering. That fact that this was regarded as a difficult degree programme was an incentive for me.”

more sustainable and more quiet, we now face the issue of autonomous flight. Unmanned aerial vehicles already exist. The question is: will this lead to us flying without pilots? We’re also going to see flying cars. Many existing or future technologies will make such adaptations possible. You now see a stronger synergy between technologies from aerospace engineering and those from automation and electronics. In the past, innovation was often said to come from aerospace by definition. Now, as well as spin-offs from aerospace in other sectors you also get spinins in the opposite direction. I think we’ll see this more and more.”

Ir. Bart Reijnen studied aerospace engineering before taking on a management What challenges does this raise for the faculty? traineeship. Airbus asked him to work on “The challenge of staying in the lead. In robotics, the biggest passenger for instance. TU Delft has already developed plane in the world, good initiatives in that area, meaning that you the A380. After that occupy a chair across several faculties – a broader he started working chair, so that you enhance the interaction at what is now called between robotics and aerospace for example.”

Airbus Group. That What was your thesis on? company bought “A simulator for training air traffic controllers. It Would like to be a professor?

Dutch Space, with was a joint graduation project by four students “I used to think about becoming a secondary Reijnen becoming in Munich in 1995, two from TU Delft and two school teacher after completing my studies. My director in 2006. He from TUM. Very educational.

It was exciting for father taught mathematics. I do enjoy working became chairman the faculty because it had little experience with with students, certainly at this point in my career. of the SpaceNed There comes a moment in your forties when you industry organization graduation projects at companies. Times have think: I’ve had a lot of opportunities, so what can the same year. In 2013, changed, but people still had a rather negative view of it in those days.

And also, how do you I do for the next generation in return? I try to he started working assess the individual contributions?

I think it was encourage that in the companies I’ve managed. at Airbus Defence & We have a mentorship programme to guide Space where he was ground-breaking for the relationship between TU Delft and companies like Airbus. It was young people and teach them the tricks of the responsible for all manned space flight the forefront of a wave of students conducting trade. I recently saw that TU Delft also has an and exploration. Since graduation projects or doing internships abroad.” initiative that links alumni to students. That’s a November 2016, he good method of contact and coaching.” (See page has been CEO of Air- You started your career with the biggest passenger plane ever?

30: ‘Students and alumni help each other’) bus subsidiary Satair, “I first spent a year following a programme which delivers spare for young managers at DASA. That took me to How do alumni benefit from mentoring? parts and services Toulouse, where I worked on the biggest and “Alumni stay connected to the thinking patterns, to airlines and main- newest aeroplane in the world. It was an exciting interests and expectations of young people: tenance companies because the A3XX, as it was known then, Generation Z. It’s important to continue to throughout the world. time, was all over the newspapers. It was a great understand them. I’ve always felt young and still Reijnen is married and project, truly motivating because it attracted do, but I’m not even a millennial. A generation has two daughters. He attention throughout Europe and beyond. gap can occur if you don’t keep up to date is an honorary memPlaying a part in that was fantastic.” on what moves young people. I encourage ber of the Netherlands everyone to stimulate that connection between Space Society and generations in their own company. I think the Leonardo da Vinci What are the current developments in aviation? many alumni already do that through study study association. “Besides the fact that it all has to be cleaner,

25

associations or TU Delft. I think it is beneficial to both sides. At least it has been in my experience.”

How do you view today’s TU Delft engineer?

“What still makes the difference in Delft is a strong focus on cooperation and teamwork. You are a team member and not just an individual. Of course we speak good, understandable English without a heavy accent, but what I find important myself is a value that is in increasing demand in leadership: a ‘speak-up’ culture.”

What do you mean by that?

“It means that TU Delft students express their opinions and can substantiate them respectfully.

Also, students don’t hesitate to break through several levels of hierarchy. I think that’s because you have to stick up for yourself in a student

‘It means that TU Delft students express their opinions and can substantiate them respectfully’ association as well as in the faculty and in Delft social life. And that’s important in business later on, too. If you learn that early on, you can build on it later.”

Is that what you learned in Delft?

“If you asked my mother that question, she would immediately nod and say: absolutely! She always says that ‘something happened in Delft’, which turned me from a relatively shy country boy from Limburg into someone who is not afraid to state his opinion and speak in front of large audiences.

I had the opportunity to do so thanks to the study association. I’m not saying this scenario will work for everyone, but it did me a lot of good as a person.”

What do you think are the most important developments in aerospace?

“I think we are living in fascinating times. Since man first set foot on the moon, there has been a select group of people who can call themselves astronauts. A tremendous step will be taken in

the coming years, making space travel accessible to more and more people. There are many initiatives involving rockets and capsules, both commercial and institutional. It’s no longer just NASA or ESA or the Russians or the Chinese.

There are many commercial initiatives that greatly reduce the barrier to space flight.”

Do you think that’s a good idea?

“Absolutely. It’s basically the same idea that caused aviation to take off at the time. That step is certainly possible for space travel now. So why wouldn’t you take it?”

For reasons of sustainability, for example?

“I am absolutely in favour of progress. If we didn’t support progress, we would never have made it to where we are today in aerospace, but I do think there’s room for that discussion. You shouldn’t shy away from the debate, especially the environmental issue.”

Anyone can buy a drone. Should we be happy about that?

“In principle, I’m very happy about that.

It’s amazing what can be done with those technologies nowadays, but it shouldn’t lead to chaos. There must be control. You shouldn’t have to regulate everything, but I think safety has to come first, particularly in aerospace. And that applies to drones, too.”

Is it realistic to send people to Mars?

“We don’t have to go that far yet as far as I’m concerned. It’s an extreme that I have reservations about. It brings you back to a very select group of people like we had with the first man on the moon. That tremendous step I just described is more about seeing the universe, viewing the earth from more than one hundred kilometres up.”

Would you like to do that yourself?

“Yes, absolutely. All astronauts say the same thing: seeing the Earth as a blue dot from the outside changes your perspective. Not just literally – you take a different approach afterwards. You see how vulnerable the earth is, and its place in the great universe. That’s something I would like to experience some day.” <<

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TEXT: JOS WASSINK PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

The glass laboratory Maximum transparency is what microscopy expert Pieter Kruit wanted for the new Van Leeuwenhoek Laboratory. It became a glass house within the old Applied Physics building.

T

he entrance isn’t finished yet. It will feature a wall-sized comic strip drawing about the history of microscopy, From Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to the most advanced electron microscope.

To create it, Delft artist Mark van Huystee worked closely with professor of particle optics Prof.

Pieter Kruit (faculty of Applied Sciences). The history wall forms a fitting entrance to the Van Leeuwenhoek Laboratory for Advanced Imaging Research (VLLAIR), where researchers will develop new methods of microscopy and imaging.

The possibility of a completely new microscopy lab emerged because the old laboratory had to make way for the expansion of QuTech. Pieter Kruit opted for transparency: “You have to be able to look inside so that students, visitors and colleagues can see what’s happening.

Conversely, doctoral candidates and students are no longer hidden in the dark. Physicists used to shut

themselves away from the world, but nowadays they are more social, open and communicative.”

OPENNESS

A glass microscopy lab is sometimes met with practical objections due to unwanted diffused light. Daylight is often less problematic than preventing laser light from leaking outside.

Therefore, lasers are only used in the new lab with the blackout curtains closed. They open automatically once the laser is switched off.

The transparency goes beyond the visible. It also stands for openness towards users and industry, enabling biologists to view their samples in a new light, for instance.

Microscope manufacturers can develop and test new methods here in cooperation with TU Delft. Kruit is also clear and transparent about that cooperation: research results will be published. Findings can be protected by patents.

An example of such cooperation is the Delft start-up company Delmic,

which combines optical and electron microscopy. Delmic now has an attractive demonstration lab within VLLAIR, where users can view the samples they bring along.

Another example is the multi-beam microscope being developed here.

An electron microscope normally scans an area of a few square micrometres, Kruit explains. But biologists often have samples of a few square millimetres, i.e. a million times bigger. Then it’s nice to have 196 beams (14 x 14) instead of one. “There’s quite a difference between spending one day scanning, or two hundred.”

MULTI-BEAM MICROSCOPE

The multi-beam microscope uses technology developed by Mapper, which uses multiple electron beams for ultra-fine semiconductor lithography (chip technology). Kruit shows the multi-beam microscope, which at first glance appears identical to the other electron microscopes here. That required some ingenious interventions.

‘Physicists used to shut themselves away from the world, but nowadays they are more social, open and communicative’ Comparable setups elsewhere are larger and much coarser, says Kruit, beaming with pride.

Those who enter the former D wing of the physics building see a building within a building. Its central axis, with blue floors and walls, provides space for supporting technology: cooling, electronics, vacuum pumps and climate control. If the temperature in a microscopy lab fluctuates by more than a degree, researchers see their preparations ‘walk away’.

All kinds of equipment buzzes in the blue hallway, leaving the white laboratories on either side serenely quiet.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES

Together, the central axis and laboratories form a glass box, which you can walk around. Doing so with Pieter Kruit, you realise that researchers here are pushing the boundaries of feasibility. In the first lab on the corner, a doctoral candidate is working on ultra-fast laser technology to enable changes to be recorded in a millionth of a

Pieter Kruit with doctoral candidate Aditi Srinivasa Raja in one of the VLLAIR labs. millionth of a second, which is the timescale on which phase transfers occur in semiconductors. Other setups have an ion beam, which can be used to build 3D structures with a resolution of 10 nanometres during observations.

As a nod to the past, a fifty-year old Philips electron microscope stands in the corner. Undoubtedly the pride of the department at the time, it is now a museum piece.

Kruit and his staff are pleased with

the result. They had to wait a year longer than scheduled because the location in the physics building changed twice. Aside from that, the construction was completed within budget and on time.

One day this laboratory too will make way, when the Applied Sciences building is demolished.

“But at TU Delft you never know when that’ll be”, says Kruit lightheartedly. <<

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OCT-14-055 Splitting isotopes for radiotherapy

PATENT

Inventors: Pablo Serra Crespo, Rupali Bhardwaj, Marcel de Bruin, Jorge Gascon, Hubert Wolterbeek, Antonia Denkova

ILLUSTRATION: STEPHAN TIMMERS

T

he unstable isotope lutetium (177Lu) is used in hospitals for radiotherapy on neuroendocrine tumours. A by-product of manufacturing it in atomic reactors is metastable 177mLu, which has a much longer half-life of 160 days (as opposed to six days for 177Lu). The consequence of this? Long-lived radioactive waste in hospitals.

Delft researchers are currently investigating the possibility of instead producing long-lived 177mLu and extracting the unstable 177Lu out of it. Bert Wolterbeek and his colleagues envision a system comprising a vat of bonded 177mLu, from which the displaced 177Lu can be leached. This would present three advantages to hospitals: no longlived radioactive waste, fewer trips to reactors to collect short-lived radioactive material, and a cost saving to boot.

But how do you separate two isotopes that are chemically identical? To this end, the researchers are making use of a strange property of 177mLu: when 177mLu expires, the nucleus gives off energy to surrounding electrons which then escape out of the atom, leaving the nucleus critically short of electrons. The positive charge of the remaining ion is so great that it is repelled by its chemical environment.

Two doctoral candidates are now investigating which approach is most promising: binding the escaping 177Lu in a gel (‘liquidliquid extraction’) or leaching the 177Lu in a water phase out of a solid on which 177mLu is deposited. Bonded solids are the most familiar technique to hospitals since technetium (99Tc) is also ‘milked’ out of a molybdenum generator in clinics in the same fashion. JW

COLUMN

E

29

Drowning

arly in May, the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS) released alarming news: faced with ‘largescale drowning’, the Wadden Sea might not see out the century. The culprits proved to be rising sea levels and sea bed subsidence, partly due to the extraction of natural gas. Too little attention had been paid to the long-term effects of gas drilling.

The report that brought these bad tidings was commissioned by the Wadden Association. The NOS interviewed their Director on Radio 1, an article was published on the NOS website and, just to be sure, they also sent a reporter out to sea. After all, it might just suddenly disappear.

While I was reading the article, an alarm bell was ringing in my head. You see, it did mention that the Wadden Association had commissioned the report and that the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, TU Delft and Utrecht University had ‘contributed’, but it failed to state who had actually drafted the report.

Trouw newspaper came to the rescue. The reporter turned out to be a science journalist, whom the newspaper referred to by name.

That’s slightly unusual, by the way: a journalist who writes a report commissioned by an interest group, which reveals that their championed cause could end up kicking the bucket.

But whatever, it’s not against the law.

A Google search reveals that the journalist is extremely active in the anti-fossil fuel movement. He writes, for example, the posts for @ Fossielvrij on Twitter. The aim of the people behind the account: ‘We want the Netherlands to be free of fossil fuels. And the rest of the world, too. Preferably now, not later. A huge challenge. Blood, sweat and tweets…’.

But what was the deal with the NIOZ, TU Delft and Utrecht University? The report stated that their collaboration consisted of two people reviewing sub-themes.

How their feedback – and that of three anonymous reviewers, whose involvement also came up – was incorporated, was ‘the full responsibility of the author’.

Although this further increased the role of the author, the NOS decided not to mention his name – a decision that would have got you booted off a high school newspaper editorial team. If you report alarming research news, the researcher should be mentioned; especially – and in this case, that is of more than passing relevance – if they spend their free time fighting fossil energy.

The NOS failed to do so, instead naming three unsuspecting, renowned knowledge organisations.

This gave the impression that the report was – Scout’s honour – quite up to scratch. That could still be the case, of course, but with these sorts of news network antics, no one would blame you for having your doubts.

Remco de Boer is a technology & science communication specialist

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TEXT: JIMMY TIGGES PHOTOS: SAM RENTMEESTER

Students and alumni help each other The number of applications for the Mentor Alumni Programme of the faculty of Aerospace Engineering was well above expectations. How does this programme benefit alumni and students? Two pairs share their experiences.

M

any students have no idea what they exactly want to achieve with their studies.

Many alumni want to stay in touch with the faculty and improve their coaching skills. Coordinators Femke Verdegaal and Mechteld van Beijeren of AE compiled these data and started the Mentor Alumni Programme (MAP) last October, with over 100 students and 84 alumni having registered.

The alumni, from recent graduates to retirees, come from all sectors of industry, and the students from various phases of their degree programmes.

Pairs were formed using algorithms executed on a database. The aim was at least two hours of contact between student and alumnus-mentor every month for five months, by Skype, telephone, email or in person.

For participant Jaime

Raymond van Es (left) and Jaime Vázquez Bustelo.

Vázquez Bustelo MAP was a godsend. The student from Spain wasn’t entirely happy during his internship.

“I was only busy studying, without thinking about the goal. I was looking for a mentor with wideranging experience.” That mentor was Raymond van Es, who recalls how

he worked on his own thesis in 1990. “There wasn’t much support. I worked for Fokker and continued to do so after obtaining my Master’s degree. Today there are many more options, which is why I found MAP a good initiative. After graduating, I worked as an aerospace

engineer and, after completing my MBA, as director of marketing & sales for a big insurance company. Now I have my own businesses, Chipin and Fairzekering, as well as working as a consultant for Ortec. I tried to give Jaime insight into the choices I made and the pros and cons,

to help him make better decisions.”

Vázquez Bustelo now has a better idea of what he wants: “I don’t want to stay in one place, but work in different European countries. There’s a whole continent to explore. I also know that I need to find valuable work that I really believe in. Being able to study here is a privilege. With that comes the responsibility to give something back to society.

I’m extremely grateful to the people behind this

Jaime a useful perspective.

I have benefited a lot from various coaches throughout my career. And, as a mentor, it’s interesting to hear Jaime’s experiences living in the Netherlands.

That broadens your own perspective on life.”

Cristina Mendoza Ramirez earned her Bachelor’s degree in Mexico and had many questions when starting her Master’s degree programme in Delft.

“I also had ‘dumb’ questions, like: What can you ask

Students can learn from our mistakes.

You help each other and stay in touch with the faculty’

‘

My marks weren’t so high, because I was having a hard time here. In Mexico performance is very important, but my mentor William told me that they focus more on competences in the Netherlands. Thanks to him I could gather my thoughts. He helped me

William Pyfferoen and Cristina Mendoza Ramirez. programme. It’s well organised, with a clear process. Things are offered to you rather than assigned to you.”

Van Es: “The programmes for engineering students today are excellent, offering numerous options. That’s why I think my experience in different roles can give

professors and can you keep emailing them?” she says. “In Mexico professors are usually at their desks, but here they’re rarely in the office. So you have to email them. That was new to me, as were motivation letters. We don’t have those in Mexico. MAP was good for my self-confidence.

with my motivation letter and my CV, and with the type of questions I could expect during an interview.

This led me to find a professor who has a project with KLM, where I’ll start working on my thesis from 1 May.” Her Flemish mentor William Pyfferoen,

planning manager at helicopter transport company NHV Group, was able to turn to his internship supervisor after his studies.

“MAP seemed like a good opportunity to help someone with their first steps in the real world. I also learned a lot from it myself.

When I have to hire young people, I now have a better idea of their views, interests and expectations. When I was looking for a job, I knew roughly what I wanted, but not exactly how to go about getting it. It’s good to share that experience with today’s students. They can learn from our mistakes. I found it to be an interesting project for both parties. You help each other and stay in touch with the faculty.”

The second MAP cycle started in March. William Pyfferoen is again involved as a mentor. Raymond van Es isn’t, as he is too busy at work: “You have to have time for it. Do it right or not at all.” Before Vázquez Bustelo considers becoming a mentor, he wants to learn a lot of life lessons first: “Those wide-ranging experiences were the most useful part of Raymond’s story.” << More information: aementor-alumni@ tudelft.nl

In Person

Hans Wamelink TPM

Is the new dean of the faculty TPM. He studied Civil Engineering at TU Delft, returned in 2006 as Professor of Design and Construction Management, and was founder and Director of the consultancy agency Infocus.

Wamelink specialises in construction process innovation and was previously acting dean of the faculty of ABE.

Henri Werij AE

Became dean of the faculty of Aerospace Engineering as of 1 June. Prior to his appointment, he was Director of Space and Scientific Instrumentation at TNO. Werij obtained his doctorate in nuclear physics with honours and was a researcher at various (international) institutes. At AE, he hopes to ‘make new connections and inspire young people’.

Lotte Leufkens 3ME

Is student entrepreneur of the year. With CloudCuddle, her mobile bed tent for disabled children, this Mechanical Engineering student won the Dutch final of the Global Entrepreneur Award. The bed previously also won prizes from the KIVI, Medical Delta, Philips and ASN Bank.

Luc Soete SUPERVISORY BOARD

The Minister of Education has appointed Professor Luc Soete as a member of the TU Delft Supervisory Board. After studying Economics in Ghent, Soete obtained his doctorate from the University of Sussex.

He was Rector Magnificus at Maastricht University and has worked for organisations including the OECD. He succeeds Professor Douwe Breimer, who served as Vice Chairperson of the Supervisory Board for ten years.

Eight Vidi grants for leading TU Delft researchers

T

he Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded eight TU Delft researchers Vidi grants of up to €800,000. These funds will enable them to establish their own research groups.

Dr Jeroen Kalkman (Delft Center for Systems and Control, 3mE) will use his Vidi grant to illuminate zebrafish.

Literally.

Dr Rienk Eelkema (Chemical Engineering, AS) is developing catalysts that enable the adjustment of the structure of materials. This is useful for stem cell cultivation and sustainable aircraft paint.

Eelkema’s colleague, Dr Jorge Gascon, is also developing a catalyst – specifically, one that converts methane gas directly into liquid methanol.

Jorge Gascon Dr Brian Tighe (Process & Energy, 3mE) uses computer simulations to understand the rheology of materials, both in pipelines and in veins.

The research conducted by Dr Lucia Nicola (also 3mE) is in a similar field.

She uses computer simulations to research friction.

Dr Alessandra Palmigiano (TPM) researches multi-agent phenomena and applies innovative mathematical logic techniques to improve evolutionary forecasts.

Dr Riccardo Riva (Geoscience and Remote Sensing, CEG) researches rising sea levels. His project charts the regional differences.

Finally, there is the project of Dr Andy Zaidman (Software Engineering, EEMCS). He develops techniques to improve software. “Learning from software errors systematically enables the efficient improvement of software”, he explains.

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H

e is not one of those people that you see with binoculars at an airport. When he travelled by plane, he liked the sound of being a pilot, but never seriously entertained the idea. No, Huub Halsema was just interested in engineering. “That is always bound to come in handy”, he explains. A good friend of his opted for physics, but Halsema considered airplanes more interesting and more concrete.

He graduated in 1996 with a thesis on fibre-reinforced composites, specifically the production of a carbon hockey stick. Halsema then figured that it was time for gainful employment.

Back then, the IT sector was clamouring for new blood. “People were bombarded with offers.” He chose an IT position at Raytheon, an engineering agency in The Hague. Halsema even became head of the help desk for a while, before switching to Statkraft, a Norwegian energy company based in Amstelveen. As an engineer, he was not put off by calculations to establish the risks of contracts or for intelligent energy purchases. He now believed that the social importance of energy

‘When you are selling chips or doughnuts, you can get away with saying “Sorry, sold out”, but that does not work with electricity’

Is Aerospace Engineering a tough subject? ‘ We’ll see about that’, is what Huub Halsema thought when he started studying at TU Delft.

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

After Delft

Name: Place of residence: Marital status: Programme: Student association:

Huub Halsema Delft, The Netherlands Married, daughter (10), son (9) Aerospace Engineering Delftsch Studenten Corps

exceeded the importance of flight.

After two years in Düsseldorf, love brought him back to the Netherlands.

He took a job as an energy policy official at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. That was in the politically turbulent year of 2002. “I worked for Minister Jorritsma for a while, and in the following six years for Herman Heinsbroek, Joop Wijn, Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst and Maria van der Hoeven.” Halsema focused on questions such as what you can leave to the market when liberalising energy.

“When you are selling chips or doughnuts, you can get away with saying ‘Sorry, sold out’, but that does not work with electricity.”

Who better, then, to advise energy

company Eneco regarding the sustainable energy subsidy and European regulations regarding the purchase and sale of energy? After taking up his new position, he sometimes returned to The Hague, but this was to lobby for Eneco. What appeals to him is that in his view the company ‘really focuses on sustainability’. He sees the search for meaning as a leitmotiv in his career. After he became a father, he wanted to do something to ‘make Delft better’. So he started as city councillor and group chairperson of D66. He left the council after taking a new position at Eneco last March: maintaining administrative relations with the shareholders, and therefore also with the City of Delft. CvU

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NO.2 JULY 2017

HORA EST If you want to educate technical students to independent thinking scientists, it's crucial to teach them humanities.

Daniel Szombati, engineer nanotechnology

“When you teach students only one subject, you narrow their field of vision. They will then view the world from that single perspective. This certainly applies to the field of physics, which may reasonably be considered the basis of all science.

People often have a stronger belief in physics than in art or religion because of the objective set of

rules that underpin its scientific practices. But, in my view, the social sciences and the natural sciences have mutually influenced each other throughout history. Science is a human creation and therefore cannot be considered in isolation from the human mentality. It is important to draw attention to this interrelationship.”

Crack turning is determined by local stress field.

Mayank Gupta, aerospace engineer

Illustration: Auke Herrema

The love of Dutch for water does not only reflect itself in their urban planning and art, it also manifests itself in their beer.

Kristof Vaes, industrial designer

In design research, the term ‘design strategy’ is generously used, yet poorly understood.

Deger Ozkaramanli, industrial designer

The emergence of the brain drain phenomenon in southern European countries, mainly attributed to the financial crisis, is beneficial to the economy of the northern European countries.

Aikaterini Varveri, civil engineer

First class cars should be abolished in commuter trains.

Dena Kasraian Moghaddam, engineer policy and management

Playing sports not only stimulates the brain but also Formal education restricts the natural inherent teaches the value of failure and success. creativity of an individual.

Gaurav Nanda, physics engineer Mayank Gupta, aerospace engineer

Intelligence should not be an important criteria for Sometimes rewriting a program is more efficient doing research, but perseverance is crucial. than debugging the original code.

Xiaoyan Wei, mathematical engineer

Mohammed Latifi, computer engineer

35

THE FIRM Aerospace Engineering alumnus Rick Lenssen (26) and former Construction Management and Engineering student Boy Trip (24) from E-Trailer plan to save the ailing caravan. They are using advanced technology from the Nuon Solar Team, which is set to make the vehicles ‘smart’.

PHOTO: MARCEL KRIJGER

R

ick Lenssen spent two years in TU Delft’s Nuon Solar Team. After completing that adventure, he decided to introduce the technology to other vehicles together with his associate Boy Trip. “A caravan seemed like the most suitable option”, Lenssen says.

It is also the most rewarding, with a superannuated market bursting with potential. And that is without even mentioning the target group of retirees, who, if the entrepreneurs are to be believed, are at their happiest when outdoing their neighbour on the campsite with the latest gadgets.

SMART-Trailer was launched in March of this year: an app that uses sensors to keep a constant eye on your caravan when on the road. The app monitors factors including tyre pressure, brake temperature and whether the vehicle is level – quite handy to avoid tipping over. The size of the package depends upon how much you are willing to pay. The standard package costs about €120, and new (paid) modules are being added all the time.

“SMART-Trailer is actually part of a three-stage rocket”, Lenssen explains.

“The app is part of the E-Trailer (an electric caravan), which features E-Brake, an ingenious caravan braking system. We originally wanted to immediately start developing the electric

Boy Trip (left) and Rick Lenssen. caravan, but the Netherlands Vehicle Authority put paid to that idea. You see, our technology was not covered by any legislation for vehicles. We could not just let it loose on the roads.”

It would take forever to wait for the legislation, so the pair decided to split their invention into three sub-products. “This allowed us to maintain the cash flow, and we have expanded from five members of staff in 2015 to 25 employees now. We’re not making a fortune yet, but we are earning more than the student grant.” Incidentally, this is partly thanks to the Climate-KIC Label that they were awarded due to the sustainable nature of their E-Trailer. With its own electric drive and

braking system, it can easily be towed by a small, light car.

Their first sub-product, the SMART-Trailer app, only really started generating cash in May. Lenssen: “That was when people took their caravans out of storage to get them ready for the summer. But moving the Smart-Trailer from an idea to the shelves within six months is an achievement in itself.”

He thinks that the future looks very bright. “In five years’ time, we will have conquered the European caravan market and will be working on Australia. The United States is also on the cards, as that is where 75% of all the world’s caravans are found.” JB e-trailer.nl

Names: Company: Established: Product:

Rick Lenssen and Boy Trip E-Trailer 2016 Sustainable caravan, app and braking system In five years' time: “We will have conquered the European caravan market and will be working on Australia.”

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NO. NR22 JULY JULI 2017

TEXT: TOMAS VAN DIJK ILLUSTRATION: QUTECH

An unhackable quantum internet is approaching In a Science article, published June 2nd, researchers from QuTech and colleagues from the University of Oxford described a technique to make quantum repeaters, which are presumed to be fundamental for a future unhackable quantum internet.

D

r Ronald Hanson and his team at QuTech (Faculty of Applied Sciences) became famous by demonstrating an error with Einstein's work.

Their sophisticated experiment demonstrated entanglement of two electrons in diamond chips on two opposite sides of the campus.

In 2015, their Loophole-free Bell test was published in Nature. The instantaneous communication between two distant entangled quantum bits proved to be real, even though Einstein had always rejected it as ‘spooky actions’.

Now, less than two years after that ground-breaking experiment, the Hanson team presented a method to design an internet based on quantum entanglement and photons. This internet should be inherently safe because no-one can eavesdrop on entangled qubits.

QUANTUM REPEATERS

Photons are regarded as the most promising quantum information carriers. The problem, however, is that as the light particles travel through air

or fibre, the information encrypted in photons degrades rapidly. The Delft researchers believe they can tackle this problem with quantum repeaters: combining multiple weak quantum links into one stronger one.

“Whereas we first realised entangled information between two electrons

‘In five years we will connect four Dutch cities in a rudimentary quantum network’ in diamonds, we now also are using one of the nuclear spins present in each diamond to temporarily store the entangled information”, says Hanson. With the information stored safely, the scientist can entangle the electrons again and combine these entanglements into stronger links.

The first demonstration of a quantum internet might be closer than you might think. According to Hanson, “In five years we will connect four Dutch cities in a rudimentary quantum network.”

In China big strides are being made too. Hardly had the ink of the Delft/ Oxford article dried, than scientists at the University of Science and

Technology of China in Shanghai had also a Science article published (‘Satellite-based entanglement distributuion over 1200 kilometers’) in which they describe how they used a satellite to send quantum information through space. By sending information through near vacuum, the signals are not disturbed.

SENSATIONAL

“What the Chinese have done is sensational”, says Peter Humphrey, of QuTech. “I suspect satellites will become an important part of the future internet. But the Chinese technique has limitations too. The Asians succeeded in sending information from A to B through space, not in sending it to many different nodes.

In order to send information in all directions you need repeaters. Maybe like the ones we are working on. Who knows, one day satellites might be carrying our repeaters and form the infrastructure of the internet.” << N. Kalb, A. A. Reiserer, R. Hanson et. al. ‘Entanglement Distillation between Solid-State Quantum Network Nodes’, Science magazine, June 1, 2017

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TEXT: CONNIE VAN UFFELEN PHOTO: THOMAS KOOPMAN

Marina van Damme: Honorary member of KIVI

‘It is a challenge to do something with your life’ Few people are destined to become honorary members of the Royal Dutch Society of Engineers (KIVI) at age 86, but this distinction was awarded to Marina van Damme in Delft on 8 June during the presentation of the grants bearing her name.

When asked for her initial reaction, Van Damme indicated the tears running down her cheeks. “I already had a medal but now I’ve been promoted to honorary member. It is the very highest honour. It’s very special.”

In 1947, Van Damme took out an interest-free loan to study chemical technology at TU Delft, then the Delft Institute of Technology. “Only one student in a hundred was female”, she says of the male-dominated field. After graduating in 1953, she worked for five years at the Central Laboratory of the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). She started her career as a researcher at Royal Dutch Salt Industries (KNZ), now part of AkzoNobel. She became first Head and then Adjunct-Director of the laboratory.

In 1965, she was the first to obtain a PhD from the University of Twente with her thesis entitled: ‘Influence of additives on the growth and dissolution of sodium chloride crystals’. On turning 40, she transitioned to the

Van Damme is a great advocate of female engineers business development section, ultimately becoming Akzo’s Director of Chemical Strategy and advisor to the Executive Board. She sat on the Supervisory Boards of TNO and ABN AMRO

Marina van Damme is moved as she receives the plaque from KIVI Vice-President Joliene Brouwer. and on various committees of VNO, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the European Commission.

Van Damme is a great advocate of female engineers. What’s her motivation? “I am the only one of my generation and the subsequent 20 years’ worth of Delft graduates who has had a proper career because my husband was willing to take a step back. We have an active reunion association and I saw all the other women’s progression stagnate, both at the university and in other roles. They couldn’t break through. I thought, ‘We’re going to do something about that’.”

So she established a Marina van Damme grant worth €9,000, intended as a prod in the back for female engineers. To date, 36 women have been awarded the grant. “All these years, I have noticed that it provokes women to think about their career instead of just thinking, ‘I’m fine where I am’”,

says Van Damme. “It is a challenge to do something with your life.”

WINNERS: LEAH SOSA AND JETTY VAN GINKEL

This year at TU Delft, for the first time this challenge has been extended to two candidates: Leah Sosa and Jetty van Ginkel. American engineer Sosa completed her Master’s in Maritime Technology Ship Hydromechanics in Delft and intends to use her grant to fund an expensive Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) at Insead in Fontainebleau. Having obtained her PhD in Bionanoscience, Van Ginkel intends to qualify as a registered technology transfer professional to be able to oversee the introduction of medical discoveries onto the market.

Architects Siska Surja and Maria Vasiloglou-Verhagen received runner-up prizes of €2,500 from the Fortuna Fund, with a supplement of €1,500 from the honorary KIVI member. <<

Review of Alumni Anniversary Events

Histechnica, (the association of friends of TU Delft’s academic heritage) presented the first copy of the anniversary book to Anka Mulder.

The book presents stories, by various authors, about 33 objects from TU Delft’s history. It is a limited edition, available exclusively from Histechnica histechnica.nl.

Research Exhibition: ‘More than worth it’

Alumni Anniversary Event: Technology for Life

On 8 June, alumni were invited to view the 175 (!) most innovative research projects at the Delft Research Exhibition. ‘It was more than worth it’ and ‘Next time I would like to come for three days’ are some of the feedback received by the alumni organisation.

Each research project was presented by the researcher in person, and there were a large number of tours, excursions and speed lectures.

Presentation of ‘History of TU Delft in 33 objects’

To mark TU Delft’s 175th anniversary, Geert Jan Olsder, President of

The celebratory alumni programme ‘Technology for Life’ on 9 June comprised various lectures and presentations. Keynote speaker Prof. Jack Pronk described the latest developments in the field of biotechnology; the iGEM team explained how they are manipulating bacteria; the Project March team presented their exoskeleton for paraplegics; and the successful YES!Delft start-up Physee (inventor of the PowerWindow, a window that generates energy) laid out their vision on the future of sustainable energy.

That day, aerospace engineer Bart Reijnen was named Alumnus of the Year 2017. You can read an interview with him on p. 22, entitled: ‘I am a child of the Top Gun generation’.

Historic alumni on the Walk of Fame

The anniversary provided an excellent reason to add 17 alumni from the university’s past to the Walk of Fame.

Watch the video on the 17 selected alumni and their achievements at tudelftforlife.nl. Only exceptional alumni who dedicated themselves to science were chosen in order to inspire current and future TU Delft students, staff and alumni. You can find the Alumni Walk of Fame in the Mekel Park on the TU Delft campus.

TUDelftForLife.nl: the global online community for alumni You are not a TU Delft engineer for the moment only: you are one for life. It’s a distinction to be proud of! tudelftforlife.nl is the new worldwide meeting place for all TU Delft alumni.

Expand your network and get in touch with former fellow students and other TU Delft alumni. Keep yourself up-todate with the latest news and events via tudelftforlife.nl.

A vibrant community requires an active group of users who share information in an appealing online environment. Your own profile page and the ability to contact fellow alumni directly are important improvements to the new community. The ‘world map’ has also been integrated. Everything can now be found in one place.

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Alumni Activities 14 July Alumni gathering in Tokyo 6 September Dutch Engineers Alumni Event in Madrid 7 September Dutch Engineers Alumni Event in Barcelona 10 October IDEA League Alumni Event in Delft 28 October 150 years of Leeghwater – Mechanical Engineering You can find more information on these activities at tudelft.nl.

CONTACT Questions, comments or a change of address?

TU Delft Alumni: alumni@tudelft.nl alumni.tudelft.nl

Support TU Delft talent by donating to the Delft University Fund: ufonds@tudelft.nl universiteitsfonds.tudelft.nl NL48ABNA0441482295 for the attention of ‘Universiteitsfonds Delft’

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NO.2 JULY 2017

The lab of...

Clinical lab

PHOTO: SAM RENTMEESTER

FrĂŠdĂŠrique Meeuwsen is a medical doctor/ researcher completing her PhD in the Biomechanical Engineering department.

She is devising a means of monitoring the use of medical instruments and apparatus using sensor technology, with the ultimate goal of improving efficiency and patient safety in operating theatres. She can test technologies in the Clinical Lab prior to conducting in vivo testing in the research operating theatre at the Reinier de Graaf hospital (RDGG) in Delft. Her partners in this research project include Maarten van der Elst from the RDGG and DSW/ Phoenixstichting.