Introduction

The Cantabria Coastal and Ocean Basin will provide different possibilities connected with the research of coastal hydrodynamics; the design of coastal and port protection infrastructure; coastal erosion; dredging; new maritime construction technologies; problems concerning foundations built in the sea; the analysis of new submarine technologies; the design of offshore structures; the design of anchoring systems; floating structures; platforms; reliability studies and designs in connection with ROVs, AUVs, buoys; marine energy systems (waves, currents); the design of offshore bases; offshore windfarms and, in general, any activity connected with maritime engineering (offshore and coastal) that requires physical and/or numerical modelling.

Use

An overall conceptual design, unique in the world of maritime engineering, which integrates three systems: an experimental management system, a physical modelling system and a numerical modelling system.

The physical modelling system will initially comprise an ocean-coastal tank and a channel where waves and tsunamis can be generated, although, the addition of further tanks or channels in the future is still a possibility. The dimensioning of the tank and channel will cover a wide range of conditions and enable the analysis of coastal and offshore engineering problems from the swash zone to depths of 1000 metres at a scale of 1/100.

The numerical modelling system will comprise a number of numerical models that will simulate virtual channels and tanks as if they were "mirrors" of physical modelling channel and tank systems.

Finally, the main mission of the experimental system is the integrated handling of a number of processes:

• the planning and design of physical and numerical experiments
• execution of experiments, including observation
• quality control and data analysis
• transmission of results

What makes this system so unique is that it includes a "virtual control room", an environment that can be accessed online to provide partial control over physical modelling and full control over numerical modelling; the monitoring of physical tests via web by means of cameras; the automatic transfer of information and the execution of analysis software and online control of data quality. Furthermore, the system allows numerical experiments by accessing distributed computer systems or highly contrasted experimental data bases to obtain semi-empirical formulae; build expert and calibration systems, and validate numerical models.

The integration of the three systems will provide an experimental potential unknown to date in maritime engineering.

A number of parties are taking part in the CCOB project, such as the Ministry of Education and Science, the Autonomous Region of Cantabria and the Fundación Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental (Environmental Hydraulics Institute Foundation). The Government of Cantabria, the Ministry of the Environment and the University of Cantabria are partners in this Foundation.