Labs

Students conduct a lab experiment to measure the response of a model ship due to incident waves. They will analyze the response in heave and pitch motions of a 100:1 scale USS Arleigh Burke class DDG (destroyer, guided missile) model in both monochromatic and multi-frequency wave trains. The students will work in four teams, each team collecting data for a subset of the total experimental range.

Lab Description: Wave Spectra and Ship Response in Waves (PDF)

MATLAB® Processing Code for Lab Data (ZIP) (The ZIP file contains: 5 .m files.)

Calibration of Heave and Pitch Sensors (XLS)

Lab Data

The following ZIP archive contains the student data for both stationary and forward-moving components of the lab. Each team collects data for their set of frequencies, as outlined in the Lab Description. Also included are each team's calibration and Bretschneider spectrum files. Data is presented in two formats, .asc and .i32. The .asc files can be imported into a spreadsheet program. The .i32 files can be imported into MATLAB® using the "MATLAB® processing code for Lab Data" .m files in the above ZIP archive. (Team 3 only supplied data in .asc format).

Lab Data for Teams 1-4 (ZIP) (The ZIP file contains: 63 .asc files, and 44 .i32 files.)

Lab Report Requirements

Lab Reports should be written up in clear and concise scientific writing. All figures should show the axes as non-dimensional units if possible. The reports should be written similar in style to a journal article. You can use a journal such as Journal of Fluid Dynamics or Journal of Ship Research as a guideline.

The report should include a brief abstract (~500 words) with a summary of the lab and the major conclusions. The next section should be a clear introduction of the subject. There should be a section describing the experimental set-up (a drawing might be useful here), any calibrations, and any sources of error -- quantify this error if possible. You can choose to have separate results and discussion sections or to combine them. Integrate your figures into the text and number all equations. Also include any references cited in the report at the end. You may choose to include your calculations or your MATLAB® code in an appendix. This is not required.