Physical Modelling
Free Industry Webinar Event:
"Let's Get Physical"
This page provides supplemental resources to accompany the 18 September 2024 free AWS webinar “Let’s Get Physical”, covering the governing principles, challenges, and benefits of applying model-scale hydraulic results to real-world projects. View the webinar recording here.
Additional background on the presenters and links to the presentation slide pdf files are available here:
Virtual Tour of Worldwide Hydraulic Labs
Scroll through the slides below for a virtual tour of worldwide laboratories and models as featured in the webinar. Many of these facilities offer tours for anyone lucky enough to be able to visit in person; click on the images to visit the facility websites for more details.
World's Largest Physical Hydraulic Model!
The webinar featured a guided tour of the Mississippi River Basin Model, the world’s largest physical hydraulic model, led by Sara McEwen, former director of the Friends of the Mississippi River Basin Model, the non-profit organisation responsible for the facility. Click on the links below for more on the model’s history and future plans for restoration and educational resources, or take your own 360-degree tour with Google Maps Street View.
Learn more about the model from Grady Hillhouse of the Practical Engineering channel in the introduction for his “Rivers on Mars” video below, and view Grady’s Australian Water School introduction into physical geomorphology models that are used for educational purposes.
Ocean and Coastal Engineering Lab
Aalborg University, Denmark
The webinar featured physical models developed by the Ocean and Coastal Engineering Laboratory at Aalborg University, Denmark. Following are additional resources related to the presentation materials:
- Ocean and Coastal Engineering Laboratory website
- Floating Power Plant company website
- Floating Power Plant company LinkedIn page
- Floating Power Plant company YouTube channel
Examples showing the testing in the Aalborg wave basin with the WindFlex model:
Morten Kramer explains Froude scaling with MiniFigures
Morten Kramer describes the floating power plant model construction
The Kramer Sphere Cases:
As mentioned in the webinar, the international working group on “Wave Energy Converters Modelling Verification and Validation” welcomes all to join (free to take part)
- Working group website
- Description of the completed heave decay tests, where all the results have been published and can be downloaded for free
The background for the sphere excitation case is described in the EWTEC 2023 conference proceedings “Wave Excitation Tests on a Fixed Sphere: Comparison of Physical Wave Basin Setups”. A preprint of the paper can be downloaded below:
UNSW Water Research Laboratory:
Additional Physical Modelling Resources
View a playlist of stream table videos by Hydrobiology, Water Technology, and Southern Cross University. These videos are used as teaching resources for the Australian Water School’s geomorphology courses.
3D Print your own physical hydraulic model: Free Australian Water School webinar:
Physical models for fish passage applications: Free Australian Water School webinar:
Physical modelling of Olympic whitewater course: Free Australian Water School webinar:
Physical modelling of surf wave parks: Free Australian Water School webinar:
Physical model for groundwater education: Free Australian Water School webinar:
Physical modelling for coastal applications: Free Australian Water School webinar:
Physical model for tailings dam breach: Free Australian Water School webinar:
USACE ERDC Waterways Experimentation Station riprap facility: Free Australian Water School webinar:
Watch Dan Rodger, instructor for the AWS SWAN wave modelling course, explain coastal defences using the world-famous JBA wave tank in this video clip with 10 million+ views:
Thanks to JBA Consulting Engineers and Flow Science, developers of FLOW 3D Hydro software, for providing some of our background 3D CFD animations of computer models used for validating physical model results.
First Principles
The following free Australian Water School webinars cover some of the first principles relevant to scaling physical model results:
Explore the derivation of the Froude Number:
Learn more about Manning’s Equation and roughness coefficients
This webinar addresses 1D vs 2D vs 3D assumptions for numerical models:
This webinar addresses the concepts behind computational fluid dynamic models
For a deeper dive into first principles, the online Hydrology and Hydraulics Essentials course series includes modules on open channel flow, with lectures on physical models and flumes led by the University of Queensland’s Dr. Hubert Chanson (pictured below).
Please contact us with any queries.
