Facilities
Wave - Tow Tank
The Wave/Tow Tank has been in operation since the building opened in September of 1994. The tank, approximately 120' long, 12' wide and 8' deep, offers a 90' test length in which test bodies can be towed, subjected to wave action or both. The Tow Tank has been used for a variety of ocean engineering research projects as well as commercial science.Data Acquisition
One unique aspect of the tank is its communication between a device under test, and the control station. For this task, a wireless LAN network allows for communication between instrumentation and data acquisition systems over a 2500 ft. range.
Wave Maker
Wave creation is possible using a hydraulic flapper style wavemaker which can produce 2 to 5 second waves of maximum amplitude 0.5m. The wave destruction or ‘beach’ is a saw tooth style geo-textile construction which has an average 92% efficiency in the frequency range specified.
The wave maker software allows tank users to develop regular or random seas using a variety of spectra such as Bretsneider, JONSWAP, and Berskon-Moskowitz. The 32-bit user interface is written in LabView and resides on the main control station PC.