Wave basins

HR Wallingford’s seven wave basins range in size from 25 x 32 m to 75 x 32 m and include a 55 x 27 m wave-current basin. Our largest wave basin has a floor area of 2400 m² and is one of the largest unobstructed hydraulic test tanks in the world. The size of our basins allows major port and harbour developments to be tested without risk of significant scale effects. 

Our basins are equipped with state of the art instrumentation including multi-element random wavemakers with active wave absorption, laser scanners, video capture and infrared tracking systems (for monitoring the movement of moored vessels).

We have 100 m of mobile multi-element wavemakers, equipped with active wave absorption to remove reflected wave energy within the basins and flumes, and a further 50 m of long crested random wave paddles. The multi-element paddles are capable of generating a full range of long crested and multidirectional seastates including:

• JONSWAP (defined by wind speed and fetch)
• Pierson Moskowitz
• International Ship Structure Congress (ISSC)
• International Towing Tank Congress (ITTC)
• BTTP
• Neumann
• Bretschneider

For short crested seas, the spreading function can be defined in a number of different ways. These include cos2θ, cos6θ, cosnθ, Mitsuyasu and exponential functions.

In the wave basin models significant wave heights (Hs) of up to 0.25 m can be generated in water depths of up to 0.8 m. In addition, our wave-current basin can generate uni-or bidirectional current discharges of up to 1.2 m³/s.