Maritime laboratory - Wave flume (2D)
Dimensions: 35.0 m x 1.0 m (height 1.30 m).
The flume is equipped with a fixed hydraulic wavemaker (with paddle 1.0 m x 1.4 m) with serve-valve and position transducer connected to personal computer, allowing to generate regular and irregular wave attacks of assigned spectral characteristics. Random wave sequences may be repeated.
The wave paddle can oscillate differently and act as a piston (horizontal translation) or can be hinged at the bottom. In most cases the wave generator will be operated in “piston mode”, i.e. with horizontal translations.
The flume was completely rebuilt in 2002, changing the old concrete structure with a steel one, made by U-shape steel beams (without any superstructure) at the top of which a couple of rails were placed, allowing for a cart to run on them (on the cart the wave gauges or the automatic bottom profile can be mounted). Both the sides of the flume have been completely made by glass, perfectly placed along the flume to avoid different friction along the two sides. The flume was also equipped with a new pumping system allowing for recirculation from one side of the flume to the other. Actual pump gives limited discharge (50-100 m3/h). A separate pump was used in some cases, with a discharge in the range 100-300 m3/h. The flume was equipped with an “active absorption” device in 2005; this upgrade is necessary to avoid that the waves reflected by the structure or by the beach under investigation can affect the wave generation itself.
The typical tests that can be effectuated in the wave flume are:
- Wave hydrodynamics
- Floating structures (breakwaters, buoys, wave energy devices)
- Wave beach structure interaction: scouring, fluxes through and above the structure, etc.
- Structural stability analyses
