Combined Wind, Wave and Current (WWC) Tank
The combined Wind, Wave and Current facility is unique, although there are a few others of different design but with a combined capability, often focussing on two of the three components. The Newcastle facility was designed for use with any, or all, of the components with equal emphasis. The facility was designed with small scale model testing for renewable energy devices in mind. However, it is also suitable for standard resistance, sea keeping and wind loading tests experiments as well
Specification:
Flume length - 11m Instrumentation - Vectrino 3D ultrasonic water sensor, Pitot tube
Width - 1.8m - Water velocity - Qualisys IR tracking system
Water depth - 1m - Motion
Air clearance -1m - Wave capability
Central measurement section - 3m - Period range - 0.8-4sec
Water velocity - 1m/s - Wave height - 0.02-0.2m (period dependent)
Wind velocity - 20m/s - Spectra - Pierson-Moskowitz,
JONSWAP,
Bretschneider,
Neumann
Testing Capabilities:
• Wind loading on wet and dry structures.
• Resistance measurements.
• Seakeeping tests.
• Combined wnid/wave/current interaction.
• Flow visualisation experiments.
Recent Projects:
• Evopod – A series of tests to investigate the turbine drag, seakeeping capabilities, turbine performance and mooring system performance. Tests conducted for Overberg Marine Consultancy.
• Weston-Super-Mare Sea Wall – A series of wave overtopping and wind transportation of spray tests to investigate the effectiveness of the current sea defence and proposed new defences. Test conducted for Royal Haskoning and North Somerset Council.
• Colt – A set of test to measure the reduction in wind drag force when using a special shrouding.
Evopod model being tested for Overberg Marine Consultancy
The Evopod tidal energy converter, designed and developed by OceanFlowerEnergy (http://www.oceanflowenergy.com/) being tested in the combined wind/wave/current flume (1:40 scale) at Newcastle and the Strangford Lough (1:10 scale).
Please click on the image to play the video.
For further information contact:
