Noel - Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory

Centro sperimentale delle ricerche, bellissima idea splendida iniziativa, lodevole impresa. Un grazie al suo fondatore, il Prof. Paolo Boccotti.

Laboratorio per la sperimentazione di sistemi per la produzione di energia dal moto ondoso

The Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory N.O.E.L.

The Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory, of the Mediterranea University (UNIRC), has an excellent expertise in ocean/marine engineering, focusing on wave modeling related aspects and wave energy harvesting.

The research group of ocean engineering and marine energy of the NOEL is formed by one Full Professor, one Associate Professor and two Assistant Professors on Ocean engineering, supported by the collaboration of two Post-Doc Fellows, some Ph.D. students and undergraduates. The mission of this group is to utilize the knowledge acquired in the field of marine and civil engineering to develop novel methodologies in the analysis of the wave phenomena and of the wave climate. The group is also involved in the analysis of coastal structures for protection purposes (for instance caisson breakwaters) and in the development of novel coastal structures hosting devices for wave energy harvesting (the REWEC device). The group has gained expertise in the fields of wave mechanics, short-term statistics, long-term statistics, coastal processes and reliability of marine structures. Further, in the last decades the group has performed small-scale field experiments in a natural basin, where sea waves are not generated by artificial wave tanks. Thus, the researchers have gained unique experimental skills necessary for dealing with experiments in a natural environment.

Peculiarity of the NOEL
The Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory (NOEL) of the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy, is the first ocean engineering laboratory working in the field. A peculiarity of the lab is that a local wind from NNW often generates sea states consisting of pure wind waves that represent a small scale model, in Froude similarity, of ocean storms.
Significant wave height ranges between 0.20 m and 0.80 m, with peak periods between 2.0 s and 3.6 s. This local wind is very stable and sometimes stays steady from morning to evening. The tidal amplitude is very small (typically within 0.10m). The physical structure was built after the successful experience of some initial small-scale field experiments directed by Professor Paolo Boccotti since 1989.

Starting from 2009 the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria has the direct management of the laboratory, and Professor Felice Arena was designated as Director of the Lab, and Professor Paolo Boccotti as Scientific Supervisor (they are both full professor of Ocean Engineering). Activities are run with the support of the PhD students of the ocean engineering program, as well as graduate students, which participate to the experiments. In the lab academic activities, as lectures for under graduate students, are also held.