Housed in the Jere A. Chase Ocean Engineering Lab’s High Bay, the Engineering Tank is a freshwater test tank 60′ long by 40′ wide with a nominal depth of 20′. The 380,000 gallons that fill the tank are filtered through a 10-micron sand filter twice per day providing an exceptionally clean body of water in which to work. This is a multi-use facility hosting the UNH Scuba course, many of the Ocean Engineering classes in acoustics and buoy dynamics as well as providing a controlled environment for research projects ranging from AUVs to zebra mussels. Mounted at the corner of the Engineering Tank is a 20' span, wall-cantilevered jib crane. This crane can lift up to two tons with a traveling electric motor controlled from a hand unit at the base of the crane. In 2003, with funding from NSF and NOAA, an acoustic calibration facility was added to the engineering tank. The acoustic test-tank facility is equipped to do standard measurements for hydrophones, projectors, and sonar systems. Common measurements include transducer impedance, free-field voltage sensitivity (receive sensitivity), transmitting voltage response (transmit sensitivity), source-level measurements and beam patterns. The standard mounting platform is capable of a computer-controlled full 360-degree sweep with 0.1 degree resolution. This tank is the largest acoustic calibration facility in the Northeast and is well suited for measurements of high-frequency, large-aperture sonars when far-field measurements are desired.

For more information on the Engineering Tank, please contact Laura Gustafson at laura.gustafson@unh.edu.

Data Acquisition 

Mobile Platform