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University of Iowa wave basin helps develop safer, stealthier ships
State-of-the-art facility develops models used around the world
CORALVILLE — It may look like a toy boat in a swimming pool, but the 3-meter-long black boat is a scale model of nearly 150-meter container ship — the kind that carries most of the world’s manufactured goods.
University of Iowa researchers test the model in a state-of-the-art wave basin to see how the waves affect the ship’s hull, rudder and propellers. Data collected at the wave basin is used by the U.S. Navy to build safer, stealthier ships and by private companies to design things like underwater platforms to support offshore wind farms.
“Our role is sort of proof-of-concept for the Navy,” said Fred Stern, a mechanical and industrial engineering professor. “We prove what can be done.”
The wave basin, built in 2010 at the UI’s Oakdale campus at a cost of about $10 million, was one of several facilities open for tours Friday as part of the 100-year anniversary of IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering.
About 20 people lined the edges of the basin to watch Yugo Sanada, an associate research scientist, start mild waves across the 40-meter-long, 3-meter deep pool. A bright yellow carriage spanning the 20-meter-wide basin glides down the length of the pool with the boat mounted underneath.
The waves lap at the sides of the boat, changing in pattern as Sanada makes a U-turn and comes back to the “beach,” a platform that absorbs energy from the waves. The free-moving models — including a destroyer and catamaran — can move straight ahead, zigzag, make full circles, and capsize.
The wave basin can simulate any size of waves — even monsters that would happen in a storm, Sanada said. One way the UI facility is unique is researchers can replay the trajectory of a past sea disaster and figure out how to avoid it in the future, he said.
“Nobody can imagine what we are doing in landlocked Iowa,” Sanada said.
The numerical models developed at the UI are shared with European and Asian allies, he said.
U.S. Defense Department contracts
The UI has brought in about $16.5 million in external funding for research at the wave basin since 2010 and has about $3.5 million in active grants and contracts, said Troy Lyons, associate director of IIHR (Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research). About $3 million of that is from five contracts with the U.S. Defense Department and $500,000 is from two private companies.
A new concept being used by wave basin researchers is digital design, which allows them to use experiment results, big data and other information and apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to come up with new, more accurate models, Stern said.
He is working to apply digital design to the question of how to reduce wake for small, high-speed autonomous watercraft. Less of a wake means less of a way for enemies to detect the vessels.
Larry Weber, a longtime engineering professor named to lead IIHR last summer, said weather volatility has prompted continued research in the wave basin.
“As our climate changes and storms become more intense, making sure ships stay stable is more important,” he said. The Navy, focused on rapid deployment, is looking for ships that can cross safely through heavy storms rather than waiting for the storm to pass, Weber said.
Flood Center, water sensors and more
Sometimes Iowans think IIHR is just about monitoring water quality — controversial in Iowa because of the toll of agricultural runoff.
The Iowa Legislature this year passed a bill that resulted in an $80,000 budget cut to the UI’s network of nitrate sensors on rivers and streams across the state. Weber said in May the university would work to identify private funding to replace the money.
IIHR also is home to the Iowa Flood Center and the Iowa Geological Survey.
“A lot of people don’t know the breadth and depth of what goes on at IIHR,” Weber said.
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