Testing models of ships in the conditions of the basin, where the real conditions of the stormy ocean, the rapid flow of a river or calm into the sea are simulated, reveal the weak points of the vessel at the design stage. In the United States, a testing pool was built in 1962 based on the Naval Surface Warfare Center located in Washington, DC. Over the past six years, the imitation of the ocean has been modernized. For example, a huge installation, generating waves in the sea, was replaced by 216 compact devices, allowing you to recreate absolutely any weather at sea.
US Navy is proud of the capabilities of the pool. Modern technologies allow to recreate the sea elements under the roof of the room and at the same time provide designers with accurate data on the behavior of models. The basin of the Surface Weapons Development Center is considered one of the most advanced in the world.
The area of the pool is comparable to the area of a football field: 110 meters long and 73 meters wide. Large models with length up to 10 meters are tested here. In the pool, not only the vessel is tested, but also the anchored platforms.
Modern equipment, equipped with computer control, allows one touch of a key to turn the calm water surface of the pool into huge waves of a stormy ocean. In this way, not only the future ships' seaworthiness is verified. For example, they assess the capabilities of a ship under extreme storm conditions: can it conduct missile firing and take naval aviation on its deck.
Before the appearance of such pools, models were tested directly at sea. They were controlled either remotely, or they were dragged by special boats. We had to spend a huge amount of time to conduct enough tests, because we had to wait for the right weather. In the conditions of the pool, it is possible to carry out a test program that simulates a ship’s long hike in a variety of weather conditions.
It is known that in the basin of the Surface Weapons Development Center, the model of the newest American destroyer DDC 1000 was tested. The Pentagon spent $ 7 billion on its construction. Currently, a prototype of a new submarine is being tested in the pool.
