The modern wave laboratory of Institute of Hydroengineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences was construced in 1998-1999. As the environmental research unit for univeristies and intsitutes, it allows to perform both scientific and educational activity. It creates also possibilities of research conected with maritime industry. The laboratory building is 70 m long, 5,5 m wide and 5,6 m high. The most important element of the laboratory is the wave flume. The geometry of the flume is very precise (the tolerance during construction stage was 0,5 mm). The flume is 64,1 m long, 0,6 m wide, and 1,4 m high.

The waves are generated by piston-type wavemaker driven by hydraulic system. The generation of regular and irregular waves is possible, by a special program creating time series that can be executed by wavemaker hydraulic system. The accuracy of the wavemaker is controlled during research. There is a possibility of creating waves up to 0,6 m high. The length of wave (L) is related to period (T), which shouldn’t be smaller than 0,5 s. The wavemaker has separate foundation to avoid the vibrations of the flume.

There is a very precise equipment in the laboratory for performing a number of different measurments. It is possible to measure wave profiles, pressure, velocity and accelerations. The modern data receiving card can work at frequency of sampling up to 300 000 Hz.

The Measurement Software

• Data analysis
• Wave generator software (pl)
• Offline analysis (pl)

Software helpfull in generating waves and analysing measured data is called Winfi32. You can download the Winfi32Setup.exe or the winfi32_20060623.zip The newest version is dated on 06/23/2006. Compiled version was build using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition.