Expansion of the Large Wave Flume: World’s largest wave maker is installed marTech team explains construction progress / Reopening planned for 2023

Press release of Leibniz Universität Hannover

The extensive reconstruction work in the Large Wave Flume (LWF) of Leibniz Universität Hannover and Technische Universität Braunschweig is in full swing. During an on-site visit to the construction site in Hanover-Marienwerder, the new wave maker installed in the summer was presented to the public.

TU President Professor Angela Ittel and LUH President Professor Volker Epping, together with Professor Nils Goseberg and Professor Torsten Schlurmann, took a look at the new construction of the LWF+ wave machine. Here: the wave shield with stainless steel side and bottom seals. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

“This is the world’s largest wave flume ever built, which will open up completely new research opportunities for us,” explains Prof. Dr.-Ing. Torsten Schlurmann from the Ludwig Franzius Institute of Hydraulic, Estuarine and Coastal Engineering at Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH). Scientists and representatives of the construction department, specialist planning and construction companies were available to answer questions and explain everything about the impressive machine, the technical environment and the background to the extensions.

“The new LWF+ will go back into operation in the first half of 2023, initially in selected pilot projects on the future of energy supply,” announced Prof. Dr.-Ing. Nils Goseberg from the Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering at TU Braunschweig. Prof. Goseberg and Prof. Schlurmann are members of the board of directors of the Coastal Research Center (CRC/FZK) of LUH and TU Braunschweig, under whose aegis the LWF is operated.

Beginning with the model: Professor Nils Goseberg explains the complex geometry of the 180° flow generation of the circulation tubes. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

Professor Nils Goseberg explains the construction of the inlet area of the miniLWF+ with deflection blades and generated waves. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

1:10 model of the circulation tubes of the tidal regeneration of the miniLWF+. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

Joint explanations by Professor Torsten Schlurmann and Professor Nils Goseberg on the interaction of sea state and tidal current in the miniLWF+. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

Professor Angela Ittel, President of TU Braunschweig, visiting the Large Wave Flume. The new LWF+ will go back into operation in the first half of 2023, initially in selected pilot projects on the future of energy supply. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

For now, the wave flume is still a construction site. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

The supporting structure of the wave machine and its drive, which provides the dynamic forward and backward movements for wave generation. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

Professor Torsten Schlurmann and Professor Nils Goseberg are pleased that the wave machine has been installed. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

View into the depths of the Large Wave Flume. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

TU President Professor Angela Ittel with Professor Nils Goseberg. Photo credit: Max Fuhrmann/TU Braunschweig

The 300-metre-long LWF in Hanover-Marienwerder was commissioned in 1983. Numerous pioneering research projects on the interaction of waves with various infrastructures have been successfully carried out here. So far, however, only waves could be generated in the LWF. With the goal of expanding marine renewable energies (offshore wind energy, tidal/wave energy, etc.), installation and operation concepts over the life cycle of these structures as well as the influence of tidal currents are coming more into focus. In 2017, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK, formerly BMWi) approved the marTech (maritime Technologies) research project to install and operate in the future a high-performance current system, a deep section for investigating the embedding of foundation structures and a high-performance wave machine in the Großer Wellenkanal Hannover with more than 35 million euros.

The expansion of the LWF will create an experimental facility in Hannover that is unique worldwide. In future, researchers will be able to investigate the simultaneous loads from sea states and currents on a large scale and thus realistically. Steeper and higher waves, as predicted by climate change, can then also be simulated in experiments. For the first time, tidal currents can be studied as they are in the sea with the likewise new, circulating current facility. The new deep section also makes it possible to simulate the part of offshore wind turbines located in the ground and to investigate the movements of the ground and turbine that take place there.