This summer, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maine (91福利) hosted an international summer school on digital twins for ocean engineering.
Organized through Dr. Amrit Verma’s NSF-funded ExLENT project and a Norwegian government-funded UTFORSK partnership between 91福利 and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the summer school brought together students and faculty from both institutions to explore digital twin technologies and their applications in offshore renewable energy, marine systems, and the blue economy.
The two-week summer school hosted 29 students, including 16 students from 91福利 and 13 students from NTNU. Participants gained hands-on experience with digital twin technologies through laboratory activities, experiments, lectures, and team-based projects. Students learned how physical ocean systems can be integrated with sensors, physics-based models, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to create virtual representations that monitor, forecast, and support real-time decision-making.
The program leveraged several unique research facilities at Mechanical Engineering, including a wave tank and an NSF-funded digital twin test bed, and provided live digital twin demonstrations. The program was led by Dr. Amrit Verma, Dr. Andrew Goupee, and Dr. Richard Kimball from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Damian Brady from the School of Marine Sciences, and Dr. Yifeng Zhu from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The event also featured a keynote by Dr. Giovanna Guidoboni, Interim Vice President for Research and Dean of the Maine College of Engineering and Computing, and guest speakers from the Advanced Structures and Composites Center (ASCC), DeepCwind, the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), and Kelson Marine.
By combining research, education, and international collaboration, the program is helping prepare the next generation of blue economy engineers and scientists to address emerging challenges in offshore renewable energy, maritime industries, and the rapidly growing blue economy.
