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  • rbalaji@iitb.ac.in

Test facility

A physical wave tank, of 50m long, 1m wide and 1m deep, is established at the Department of Civil Engineering, during early 2013, thanks largely to Department and Institute research funds. One end of the wave tank is installed with an electrical-motor-driven, computer controlled wave paddle that can generate wide range of wave characteristics of desired periods and heights. A sloping beach was provided at the other end of the wave tank for wave absorption. At the centre of the wave tank, a 5m wide glass wall was fitted to observe the physical phenomenon. The system consists of an in-built active wave absorption facility to nullify the re-reflected waves.


The wave maker is a piston-type of paddle arrangement, capable to generating;
  • Regular/monochromatic waves
  • Random waves (pre-defined uni & bi-modal spectrum)
  • Shallow water waves (cnoidal & solitary)
  • Breaking waves
  • Group waves
  • User defined (scaled field measurements)


Laboratory instruments

Over the years, various laboratory instruments, required for the measurement of various engineering parameters, have been procured through different research funding. Majority of research studies, involving physical modelling, utilise this range of instruments.

  • Wave gauges
  • Underwater dynamic-pressure transducers
  • Bed profiler
  • 3D Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter
  • 1D Laser Doppler Velocimeter
  • Non-contact displacement sensors
  • Non-contact 6DOF motion capturing infra-red cameras
  • Force sensors
  • Customize proxy metric sensor
















Typical experiments
  • Wave-Structure interaction
  • Wave-Porous structure interaction
  • Stability of Rubble mounted structure
  • Floating body dynamics
  • Nonlinear wave-structure interaction


Upcoming New Test Facility

Another wave tank, 30m long, 1m wide and 1.2m deep, is in its advanced stage of development, which is proposed to be a wave-current tank facility. The upcoming test facility is proposed to be equipped with state-of-art indigenously developed wave-making system.