The Texas Engineering Experiment Station is the recipient of funds from the Academic Research Infrastructure Program for the rehabilitation of the Ocean and Coastal Engineering Laboratory at Texas A&M University. Constructed in 1935, the laboratory has provided opportunities for research and research training in the areas of environmental transport, ocean and coastal engineering, fluid structure interaction, and fluid dynamics. The entire facility includes: a dredge pump and pipeloop test facility, deep glass wall wave tanks, a titling flume, and a deep wave basin. The dredging capability of the laboratory is unique in the United States and is the only one in the world owned and operated by a university. The existing facility is rapidly deteriorating, and the fixed equipment, constructed in the late 1960s, has outgrown the research needs of the department. With research volume steadily increasing in the Ocean Engineering Program, from other areas in Civil Engineering such as Environmental, Water Resources, Geotechnical and Structures, Oceanography, and Chemical Engineering, the laboratory can no longer support research activities of faculty and students. ARI funds will be used replace and relocate space and fixed equipment dedicated to ocean and coastal engineering adjacent to the NSF funded Offshore Technology Research Center. Currently, the facilities are several miles apart and it is difficult for faculty to collaborate and coordinate research efforts. This project will promote synergy and insure that all of ocean and engineering research, faculty, equipment, and shop facilities are located in a centralized area on campus. Beneficiaries will include 10 full time faculty, 50 graduate students, 120 undergraduates, and faculty members in related departments.
