The New Coast Laboratory at Plymouth University: A World-Class Facility for Marine Energy

During the development of coastal, ocean engineering and marine renewables technology, physical modelling must be undertaken. The new COAST laboratory at Plymouth University comprises two wave basins and two wave flumes that can all produce waves and currents together. Initial commissioning experiments of the facilities show that the design specifications were met in the majority of cases or exceeded. Despite the newness of the laboratory, experiments to investigate the motion response of a wave energy converter and to investigate wave impacts on moored structures have been undertaken in collaboration with both universities and commercial clients.

Physical modelling plays a crucial role in the development and understanding of coastal and ocean engineering solutions and is also important to the development of marine renewable energy technology. It is in this context that Plymouth University, long renowned for marine science and engineering, has built its COAST (Coastal, Ocean and Sediment Transport) laboratory housed in the Marine Building, which was opened in October 2012 (www.plymouth.ac.uk/coast).