Maritime Research Centre Ostend
On May, 15. 2019, a new maritime research centre in the port area of Ostend was inaugurated, with a new towing tank and a wave basin. The construction took 2 years and was led by the Maritime Access division and Flanders Hydraulics Research of the Department of Mobility and Public Works.
Towing tank II
The new towing tank has a total length of 174 m (of which 136 m useful length for testing), a width of 20 m and a maximum water depth of 1 m. In addition to this water level, waves with an amplitude up to 20 cm can be generated. The ship model designed for use in this towing tank has an overall maximum length of 8 m and a width of 1.5 m.
In contrast to the older towing tank used by Flanders Hydraulics Research at their location near Antwerp, the new towing tank has observation windows and an observation tunnel to easily visualise the flow next to and beneath the ship model.
Coastal & Ocean Basin (COB)
The COB is a cooperation between the Universities of Ghent and Leuven and Flanders Hydraulics Research. In this 30 x 30 m² wave basin, scale models may be subjected to waves as well as currents and wind. Various wave paddles allow a multi-directional wave climate to be created in combination with maximum currents of 0.4 m/s. Wind loads up to a maximum speed of 70 km/h can also be applied. The basin can be utilised in a wide range of fields and markets such as wave and tidal power, offshore engineering, coastal engineering or wave/current-vegetation interactions.