The complex supports marine energy, ship hydrodynamics and the occasional offshore structure that looked fine in a render.
Industrial days are common. Bring a model that can get wet and a person who can stay dry.
The tank's function in a device programme is to be cheaper than the sea. A failure discovered here costs model time and some pride; the same failure discovered at an open-water berth costs a vessel mobilisation, a recovery operation and frequently a funding round. Developers who have been through both are notably keen on tanks.
Campaigns work best when scoped to answer particular questions with pass criteria agreed beforehand. An open-ended campaign produces data that will be interpreted charitably by whoever commissioned it, which is the opposite of the point.
Specification
- Towing and wave tanks
- 6-DoF motion measurement
- Model-scale device testing
- Programmable wave generation including irregular seas
- Load and mooring tension instrumentation
- Underwater and above-water optical measurement
What it is the right answer to
Jobs this facility genuinely suits.
- Power capture and performance measurement for marine energy devices
- Mooring and station-keeping behaviour under irregular waves
- Motion response of floating structures and platforms
- Installation and recovery method rehearsal at model scale
- Validation data for numerical hydrodynamic models
What to bring
Turning up without these costs facility hours rather than bench hours.
- A model built to survive repeated handling and immersion
- Site metocean data, so the wave conditions tested mean something
- Agreed pass criteria for each question the campaign is meant to answer
- An engineer who can adjust the model between runs without redesigning it
What you leave with
- Time-series motion, load and power data across the tested sea states
- Performance curves referenced to the conditions you specified
- Video and optical measurement records
- A test report stating what was and was not demonstrated
Limitations
Worth knowing before you write the proposal.
- Scale effects mean some full-scale behaviour cannot be reproduced honestly
- Model fabrication is often the longest lead item and is frequently underestimated
- Tank testing establishes hydrodynamics, not survivability in a storm