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Innovation in materials and test protocols, as well as physical and numerical investigations, is required to address the technical challenges arising due to the novel application of components from conventional industries to the marine renewable energy (MRE) industry. Synthetic fibre ropes, widely used for offshore station-keeping, have potential application in the MRE industry to reduce peak mooring line loads. This paper presents the results of a physical characterisation study of a novel hybrid polyester-polyolefin rope for MRE mooring applications through a round robin testing (RRT) approach at two test facilities. The RRT was performed using standard guidelines for offshore mooring lines and the results are verified through the numerical modelling of the rope tensile behaviour. The physical testing provides quantifiable margins for the strength and stiffness properties of the hybrid rope, increases confidence in the test protocols and assesses facility-specific influences on test outcomes. The results indicate that the adopted guidance is suitable for rope testing in mooring applications and there is good agreement between stiffness characterisation at both facilities. Additionally, the numerical model provides a satisfactory prediction of the rope tensile behaviour and it can be used for further parametric studies.

Round Robin Testing (RRT) is a well-known method for assessing the reproducibility of a test or verification of a new test procedure of almost any kind. In the EU funded network COST Action TU1404 ‘‘Towards the next generation of standards for service life of cement-based materials and structures”, an Extended Round Robin Testing program (RRT+ ) was planned as a fundamental tool to obtain input data for a range of concrete properties and validate non-standardised testing techniques. In this paper, detailed information on the planning, conduction and analysis of Phase 1 of the RRT+ is presented. The aim of Phase 1 was to define and confirm the best practice for creating a comparable reference concrete mix for RRT programmes. With a total of 45 laboratories from Europe, Japan and Canada, RRT+ was one of the most extensive round robin testing programmes targeting cement-based materials., The authors also acknowledge the financial support of EDF, France; CEVA Logistics, Austria and Germany; OeBB Infra, Austria; Staten Vegvesen, Norway and Schleibinger Gerate, Germany. The support of the research network COST TU1404 (COST Association) is also gratefully acknowledged.

Durability tests of reflector materials for concentrating solar applications are crucial to guarantee the profitability of the plants and to ensure a proper efficiency during their lifetime. A standard including a set of five accelerated aging tests is close to be published by the Spanish standardization entity AENOR, within the sub-committee AEN/CTN 206/SC117. Under the framework of the STAGE-STE project, a Round Robin Test was organized by six partners to evaluate the comparability of results obtained in their respective laboratories after performing these durability tests. According to the results, in general a good agreement among the partners was found, with negligible to slight reflectance losses. In addition, it was noticed that the reference standard used in the reflectance measurements is of high importance. The conclusions of this work will help to improve the standard in future versions. The research leading to this work has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 609837 (STAGE-STE). The authors would like to thank the participants of the working group for solar reflectors of WG 2 of the Spanish sub-committee AEN/CTN 206/SC 117.