Coastal Harbors Modeling Facility

The Coastal Harbors Modeling Facility is used to aid in the planning of harbor development and in the design and layout of breakwaters, absorbers, etc.. The goal is to optimize harbor protection and verify acceptable project performance. Design of small-craft harbors is very difficult due to the complexity of wave interaction with the complicated geometry of most harbors. Additional complications caused by nearby or adjacent rivers, and/or harbor oscillation problems caused by long-period wave energy make analytical methods inadequate for final design. Many small-boat harbor projects can be examined in a thorough and efficient manner using the dedicated small-scale boat harbor physical model.