Carriage control systems at the national research council institute for ocean technology

Two of the model test facilities at the Institute for Ocean Technology of the National Research Council are the Ice Tank, 90 m by 12 m, and the Tow Tank, 200 m by 12 m. Each tank has a carriage which travels its long dimension as required for testing of model ships and other marine structures. Instrumentation, data acquisition and computing systems are located on the carriages, each of which weigh in the order of 80 tonnes. The original control systems for the carriages date to the early 1980's and were becoming increasingly difficult to operate and maintain. This paper describes the new system that was designed, installed and tested beginning in the fall of 2001. The work was done by Controls and Equipment Ltd. with Brock Solutions as a major subcontractor.NRC publication: Ye