Marine Towing Tank

The Towing Tank at our marine technology facility at Haslar, near Portsmouth in the UK, offers our global customers a service to deliver constrained hydrodynamic model tests of surface ships, submarines, offshore structures, and renewable energy devices.

The largest of its type in the UK, it is also one of the most capable in the world. Services include: hydrodynamic consultancy, including Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); model and test rig design and manufacture; diving, including test rig assembly underwater; photography (including underwater and high speed photography).

Benefits

A significant data library associated with a long history
As the home of hydrodynamics, our Halsar heritage enables us to offer unique advice on experiment design
The size of the Towing Tank requires a smaller leap from model to full scale, providing higher reliability of results
Capable of undertaking (small) full-scale experiments of wavemaker/ carriage combination – not all ship tanks have a wavemaker
Ability to undertake cost-effective, constrained model sea-keeping tests without the additional expense of going to free running model tests

Unique selling points

Most tests conducted in the Towing Tank employ constrained models attached to the carriage structure through a variety of bespoke rigs, each chosen to suit the application, with the carriage capable of acceleration at up to 1.1m/s2.

The facility is equipped with a test preparation area, a large dry dock and a 2-tonne crane. The carriage features specialist seating and an experimenters’ console from which customers can observe performance during test programmes.

Benefits

270m (L) x 12.2m (W) x 5.4m (D)
Speeds of up to 12.25m/s and drag loads up to 5kN
Regular waves up to 0.37m in height
Long-crested irregular waves with significant wave height up to 0.18m