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Dr. Cuong Dao

Dr. Cuong Dao

Biography

Dr Cuong Dao (BSc '06, MSc '09, & PhD '16) obtained his PhD in Reliability and Maintenance Engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada. Prior to joining Bradford University, he was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the Department Engineering, Durham University (2018-2020) and a Postdoc Researcher at the University of Twente, The Netherlands (2016-2018). He also served as a Mechanical Engineer at Canon Vietnam Ltd. and Reliability Engineer at Enmax Generation Canada.

Dr Dao is currently a Programme Leader of MSc programme Renewable and Sustainable Energy and was previously a Programme Leader for BEng/MEng Mechanical Engineering (2021/22 and 2022/23). He has been teaching several UG/PG modules in the Faculty of Engineering and Digital Technologies, University of Bradford as well as in his previous academic institutions.

Dr Dao is leading a research group of 1 research associate, 7 PhD students and several MSc students doing research on Reliability and Sustainable Energy (RSE). Please see the RSE group website here.

Dr Dao is an active researcher in the reliability, digital modelling and simulation, planning, control, operation and maintenance management of mechanical engineering and sustainable energy systems. If you are passionate about doing research in this area or have any questions related to our programmes, please send an inquiry to d.c.dao@bradford.ac.uk.

Research

Dr Cuong Dao research focuses on reliability analysis, digital modelling, planning, control and maintenance management of mechanical engineering and renewable energy systems. He has rich experience in working with industry and bringing academic research to practice through his current and previous research projects in the UK and EU. He has involved in several interdisciplinary research projects in renewable energy and heat networks systems, planning, digital modelling, operation & maintenance, engineering asset lifecycle management, AI and reliability-based optimisation. He has papers published in Reliability Engineering & System Safety, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Wind Energy, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, and Journal of Transportation Engineering and is a reviewer for several journals & academic conferences in the field of Mechanical, Reliability, Maintenance, and Renewable Energy Engineering.

Research Interests:

  • Renewable and sustainable energy systems
  • Reliability data analysis
  • Intelligent modelling and digitalisation
  • Operation simulation
  • Maintenance management

Dr Cuong Dao is currently supervising/co-supervising 6 PhD researchers and a Research Associate in the above research areas. Please see more about the Reliability and Sustainable Energy Research Group (RSE group website) here.

I am currently recruiting a KTP Associate in Intelligent Digital Modelling of Heat Networks. This project (2.5 years) is to develop an energy digital twin model to support diagnostic, prognostic and predictive maintenance of heat networks: https://jobs.bradford.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=HR0178350 If you are interested and have any inquiries, please send an email to d.c.dao@bradford.ac.uk.

I do not have funds to provide financial support to PhD Students at the moment. If you are self-funded or holding an external scholarship, you are welcome to contact me to further discuss your research ideas, plan and support. For further research interests and PhD student inquiries, please contact d.c.dao@bradford.ac.uk and find more about research degrees at the University of Bradford here.

Research projects

UK-Vietnam Transnational Educational Partnership in Advancing Clean Energy Transition

Role
PI
Date

This project aims to create a platform for research and educational collaboration in clean energy technologies, supporting Vietnam in training the next generation of technical personnel for energy transition towards net-zero. The ultimate goal is to establish an institutional partnership that fosters transnational training programmes, strengthens staff capacity and promotes exchanges among students and researchers in the sustainable energy sector.

Intelligent Digital Models for Community Heat Networks

Role
PI
Date

The KTP project is to develop an integrated Energy Digital Twin (EDT) model for Switch2's community heat network that can support reliable and efficient system operations and maintenance. The model will be able to support future system designs, upgrades and optimisation via 'hardware-in-the-loop' testing and development of realistic use case validation.

Engineering Sustainability and Diversity in Global Partnerships

Role
Co-PI
Date
to

Using Engineering as a subject platform, the project will deliver three activities: (1) research activities focusing on marine renewable energy, offshore wind energy and tidal stream energy; urban flooding prediction, water pipeline leakage, and river flows. (2) workshops exploring China's unique geographical advantages in developing and utilising offshore renewable energy; and debating the sustainability goals in engineering - United Nations Goals & Sustainability concepts. (3) a study abroad and exchange good practices handbook on cultural awareness, equality, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability.

Statistical Analyses for Industry (SAFI)

Role
Co-PI
Date
to

The scope of SAFI is to design, develop, and market instructional products and services (courses, workshops, demos, etc.) for industry. SAFI is committed to high quality instructional and educational training, and provides a core deliverable of programmes, courses, and learning objects for the distance education, distributed learning, and e-learning markets.

AI for Reliability-based Feature Optimisation with Driver Contextual Intelligence (AIR-FORCE)

Role
Co-PI
Date
to

AiR-FORCE (Artificial Intelligence for Reliability-based Feature Optimisation with Driver Contextual Intelligence), is a collaborative project between Jaguar Land Rover, the Institute of Digital Engineering and the University of Bradford, focusing on real-world vehicle data, including data-over-the-air (DOTA) supports the development of advanced driving behaviour models, which can be implemented in real time Engine Control Unit (ECU) controllers to optimise vehicle reliability and performance.

HOME-Offshore: Holistic Operation and Maintenance for Energy from Offshore Wind Farms

Role
PDRA
Date
to

This project will bring together and consolidate theoretical underpinning research from a variety of disparate prior research work, in different subject areas and at different universities. Advanced robotic monitoring and advanced sensing techniques will be integrated into diagnostic and prognostic schemes which will allow improved information to be streamed into multi-physics operational models for offshore windfarms. Life-time, reliability and physics of failure models will be adapted to provide a holistic view of wind-farms system health and include these new automated information flows. While aspects of the techniques required in this offshore application have been previously used in other fields, they are innovative for the complex problems and harsh environment in this offshore system-of-systems. 'Marinising' these methods is a substantial challenge in itself. The investigation of an integrated monitoring platform and the reformulation of models and techniques to allow synergistic use of data flow in an effective and efficient diagnostic and prognostic model is ambitious and would allow a major step change over present practice.

Optimization For Conflicting Performance Requirements Of Rail Operation And Maintenance

Role
Post-doc researcher
Date
to

The development of an asset life cycle plan that specifies for all components on a track what type of maintenance (e.g., corrective and condition based) to perform, and when to do that, such that the defined KPIs are achieved. Using historical data and physical models of degradation, it can be determined which (critical) failure modes to expect how often. Using quantitative models that combine this (technical) knowledge with life cycle cost data we can determine the optimal asset life cycle plan for a complete track, balancing time for operations and maintenance.

Teaching

Modules

  • Wind and Solar Energy Systems - ENG7015-B
  • Reliability and Safety Engineering - ENB6009-B
  • Advanced Sustainable Energy - ENG7014-B
  • Sustainable Energy - ENG6005-B

Professional activities

Committees (1)

  • Bradford Energy Network Project Committee, (1 January 2024)

Journal reviews (1)

  • Sustainability - EDITOR

Other activities (1)

  • External Examiner: External examiner for MSc courses at Kingston University, UK (1 January 2025)

Publications

Book chapter (1)

Conference publication (13)

Peer reviewed journal (14)