Progress has gone well since the hand over of the new fluids laboratory building from the main contractors in early March. The passive beach at the east end has been installed along with the active side beaches on the south wall. The components of the main carriage started arriving this morning and should be assembled over the next two weeks.
1st June is scheduled for the start of tank fill with a cautious process with 3000 tonnes of water required. This gives a week for us to prepare demonstrations using the wavemakers for the university open day on the 3rd and 4th July. We are looking forward to showing visitors around as well as making a start on a number of research projects.
We are delighted to announce that our Towing tank manager, Bertrand Malas has now started work and will be delighted to discuss future use of the facility as progressively more of its capabilities become available.

Prof Stephen Turnock and Dr Jon Downes from the Maritime Robotics Lab attended the kick off meeting of the EUH2020 projects BRIDGES in Paris recently. This 4 year, 8Meuro project aims to develop two deep water gliders.
Autonomous underwater gliders use a device, similar to a fish’s swim bladder to alter their buoyancy and  glide on wings either upwards or downward depending on whether they are lighter or heavier than water.  They are very energy efficient and can carry out tasks that last for months and can travel large distances.
A video gives an overview of the project by one of the 19 project partners Armines. The University of Southampton’s work will concentrate on the hydrodynamic design of the external shape of the hull and an auxiliary hybrid propeller for seabed survey at depth. This builds on our expertise in CFD and testing of AUVs such as Delphin2 using wind tunnels and towing tanks.