A new wave flume facility at University of NSW’s Water Research Laboratory in northern Sydney has opened, allowing researchers to model coastal and inland water behaviour.
The flume, essential for engineers to model coastal and inland water behaviour, was opened by NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes at the Water Research Laboratory (WRL) in Manly Vale, northern Sydney, at what is the largest coastal hydraulics research complex in Australia.
The UNSW lab, considered the birthplace of coastal engineering in the country, has four instrument-laden laboratories across four hectares downstream from Manly Dam, where large-scale physical models of coastal and inland waterways are recreated for research.
“In many ways, the WRL is a model for the kind of engagement we aim for in academia: doing research work of high excellence while also solving real-world problems for industry and government,” said Professor Mark Hoffman, Dean of UNSW Engineering.
The flume – a wave channel for the physical modelling of waves to study their properties and effects – is 44m long, 0.9m wide, and 1.4m deep, making it the largest such facility in Australia. “Flumes are essential in fluid dynamics research, allowing engineers to understand coastal and offshore structures, sediment transport and other water transport phenomena,” said Professor Ian Turner, the WRL’s newly-appointed director of the WRL.
It will expand the WRL’s coastal research programs that seek to improve fundamental understanding of the forces that are shaping coastlines now and in the future. Importantly, the facility will improve WRL’s ability to deliver practical advice and better inform ‘best practice’ design and planning of future development around the NSW and Australian coastlines.
Turner said that even with the enormous computing power available today, no computer models can match the richness of data extracted from large-scale experimental laboratory facilities.
“A computer model is only as good as the physics the modeller understands,” said Turner. “When you are working at the edge of existing knowledge, or in unique physical environments, your understanding of the physical processes will be incomplete. Hence, to be at the forefront of hydraulic research, it remains fundamentally important to put real water in real tanks and pipes – while still making extensive use of computer modelling.”
A good example of this is the new wave flume, which is being use to examine – for the first time anywhere in the world – the interaction of coastal engineering structures as coastlines evolve (and most likely erode) in response to rising sea-levels, he added.
The flume was officially opened by NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes in July and named in the memory of Douglas Neil Foster (1930-2001), widely known by engineers and researchers in the field as ‘the father of coastal engineering in Australia’. A foundation staff member of WRL, he became its second director in 1973 and led it for 14 years.
In recognition of Foster's contribution to coastal engineering, Engineers Australia created the Doug N. Foster Memorial Fellowship Fund in 2001 to encourage engineering students to take up careers in coastal or ocean engineering.
“This is an area of policy development that has vexed governments for many, many years,” Stokes told the assembled crowd of engineers, industrial and municipal users of the site. His hope was that the research at WRL would, he said, “provide some confidence to decision-makers and communities along the coast about how to plan for the future of their communities in light of existing coastal hazards, and the likelihood that those hazards will be amplified in the future as a result of future sea-level rise.”
The new Doug Foster flume’s walls are made of brick, with a concrete base on which site-specific 2D (two dimensional) bathymetric profiles are constructed; a glass-panelled section along its side allows the effect of waves on the models to be observed, and vast amounts of data collected by sensors along the length of the flume.
Its wave generator is a paddle type, controlled by advanced hydraulics software controls and powered by a 30kW hydraulic piston capable of generating both monochromatic and irregular wave spectrums, as well as recreating user defined pre-recorded wave sequences.
The flume is also capable of being operated as a wind tunnel, allowing analysis of wind/wave interactions. The wind field within the flume is generated by a 9kW (1,750 RPM) fan, which is capable of producing winds up to a speed of approximately 10m/sec.
Photo: From Left to right: Ian Turner, Stephen Foster (son of Doug Foster), Rob Stokes and Mark Hoffman examining the new Doug Foster Flume.
This article has been posted by Engineers Australia Sydney Division. For enquiries please email EA Sydney.