Facilities

Texas A&M Ocean Engineering has facilities in two locations: College Station and Galveston.

College Station

Ocean Engineering has build space for student boat competitions (electric boat, human powered submarine, etc.), class builds (ROVs during their Soph., Junior, and Senior classes), and research. It consists of benchtop space, tools, and storage. There are 3D printing stations, weight, ballast, and measurement equipment, soldering and electronic stations, and a large construction zone.

The Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (EFDL) is designed for coastal and ocean engineering and environmental fluid dynamics teaching and research. The lab includes tanks, wave making, and testing equipment for the study of fluid dynamics problems. The laboratory has a wind-wave-current flume. The flume is 28 m long, 0.8 m wide, and 1.0 m height with a 25 m long, 0.8 m deep working section. The maximum wind speed is 20 m/s and the maximum current flow rate is 200 l/s. A piston-type wavemaker of ±0.3 m stroke and a 1:5 sloping beach covered with horsehair are at each end of the flume. The shallow water flume is 16 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 1 foot deep.

The Marine Dynamics Laboratory investigates the various problems and issues associated with the nonlinear and stochastic dynamics of ships and floating offshore platforms. The primary focus has been the development of an integrated design environment to simulate the large amplitude motions and stability of both ships and floating offshore platforms.

The TAMU Ocean Engineering building houses several facilities that are accessible to students. The ABS Mixed-Reality(MR) ABS Lab employs a motion camera system, headsets with live feeds and is focused on hardware testing and hazard perception testing. The Research Water Tank holds 4700 gallons and is 22’ long x 7’ wide x 4.5’ deep.

Description — Research Water Tank in Ocean Engineering Facility

Equipment-wise is a Water Linked SONAR 3D-15, 3D multibeam imaging sonar, a Water Linked Dopper Velocity Log (DVL), a Navigation system for ROVs, and an Underwater GPS G2 and is suitable for a variety of boat, scale model, and ROV tests.

The Structural Lab includes a Charpy impact tester, a universal testing machine, hardness tester, a microscope, a cantilever beam set-ups, load cells, extensometers, etc.

The Water and Wind Tank, used for coastal sediment-wind-wave tests, is 22’ long, and approximately 10” wide. The circular current tank, for coastal sediment test, is driven by a spinning doughnut at 7m/s and includes a 360° camera and a Particle Image Velocimetry system.

Our Geotech lab is a great asset for classes and research and ties into soil-structure interactions as well as OE’s expertise in dredging.

Link to dredging website

Our circular tank is 9.2′ OD, ~10″ wide water x 32″ tall. It is a circular, current driven tank for coastal sediment-current tests. A PIV system enables the study of cyclic currents over sand bars and engineering structures.

The wind-wave tank is 22′ long and ~10″ wide. It is used for coastal sediment-wind-wave tests and, especially, beach and beach erosion testing.

The OE Sediment Flow Loop is a great demonstration of sediment flow in pipelines. It is most relevant to pipe flow calculations, slurry studies, and dredging. It fits in perfectly with our dredging work and our on-going work on our Dredging Simulator and augmented reality sandbox.

The Offshore Technology Research Center (OTRC) at TAMU features a unique experimental facility with a model offshore wave basin measuring 150 ft long, 100 ft wide, and 19 ft deep, with a central pit depth of 55 ft. Equipped with 48 individually controlled paddles, the wavemaker generates diverse wave conditions, including unidirectional and multidirectional waves.

Galveston

The Recirculating Water Tunnel (RWT) has a test section that is located above the working platform on the second floor has clear acrylic or polycarbonate walls. Its interior dimensions are 100 cm long by 30 cm wide (by 30 cm high. The mean flow speed in the test section is continuously adjustable from 0.80 m/s to 10.00 m/s, which for full test-section height yields a channel-height-based Reynolds number (Re) up to 3× 10 6 . The test section can be pressurized or evacuated to test cavitations in the flow. This facility is used for various model tests, including the cavitation of underwater vehicles, bio-inspired fish robots, and turbines. It is also capable of measuring turbulent boundary layers and multi-phase flows around a model, The water tunnel is an ideal facility to test tidal turbine blades. Equipped with Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), it can measure detailed flow fields around the blades. The facility can measure the drag and lift forces acting on the turbine. The facility can match the Reynolds numbers encountered by actual tidal turbines, particularly for areas with high tidal velocities such as the Gulf of Maine.

The Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system consists of a high-speed camera (Phantom, VEO 410L), a double pulsed high energy 532 nm Nd: YAG laser (Litron, NANO L 135-15PIV), and DaVis software. The system can measure high-speed flow filed with high accuracy. It is an ideal method in measuring flow filed around tidal turbine models within the water tunnel.

Texas A&M University at Galveston serves as the marine and maritime branch campus of Texas A&M University. Situated in Galveston, Texas, this campus enjoys a strategic location on the Gulf Coast, surrounded by key industries, diverse environmental settings, and programs that are crucial for its ocean-focused mission. The branch campus is equipped with various vessels dedicated to research and educational purposes, including the R/V Trident. This vessel, an all- aluminum 65-foot catamaran, is versatile and can be utilized for a multitude of purposes. For example, the vessel has been used to test current and wave forces on a cylinder at various speeds (see the figure), in the Graduate course (OCEN 615) offered in the Department of Ocean Engineering at TAMU.