MARHIS (Maritime Aggregated Hydraulic Infrastructures) is a distributed ICTS (Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructure) designed to increase the efficiency and capacity of the Spanish numerical, experimental and field facilities for coastal, port and offshore engineering. It comprises the following facilities::
This facility, operated by the Environmental Hydraulics Institute Foundation, features advanced systems for wave, current and wind generation and is capable of carrying out tests at a depth equivalent to 1000 m on a scale of 1/100.
It has two directional wave tanks with current and wind generation technology, three wave-current channels, one variable slope current channel, one tank for the study of hypersaline effluents, and a river modelling section. The main facility is the Large Maritime Engineering Tank, measuring 44 m in width, 30 m in length and a variable depth (up to 3.4 m), with multidirectional wave, omnidirectional current and wind capacity. Another key facility is the CoCoTsu wave-current-tsunami flume, which is 56 m long, 2 m wide and has a maximum variable height of 2.5 m.
MARHIS has several facilities located along the Barcelona coastline for maritime research and engineering activities. The main facilities are the CIEM large-scale wave flume and the CIEMito small-scale flume.
The Maritime Field Observation Laboratory operates a network for the collection of meteorological and oceanographic data from the Gulf of Roses and the Ebro Delta.
The Pont del Petroli Coastal Observatory is a research pier extending 250 m offshore. It is the first facility in microtidal conditions in the European Union.
Both laboratories are supported by the high-resolution Numerical Modelling Laboratory.
BiMEP is an infrastructure operating in real sea conditions for the research, demonstration and deployment of marine energy harvesting devices. Opened in July 2015, BiMEP is operated by the public company BIMEP S.A. and owned by the Basque Energy Agency (EVE) and the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE).
It is located in a 5.3 km2 restricted navigation area in the open sea with perimeter beaconing provided by seven nautical marker buoys. The devices installed in the test area are connected to the shore by four submarine power cables equipped with fibre optics with a total capacity of 20 MW. The facility also features a 24-hour navigation support system, an oceanographic buoy that has been measuring data since 2008, and technical management offices.
The El Pardo Centre for Hydrodynamic Research is attached to the Subdirectorate General for Naval Systems (SGSN) of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA). Founded in 1928 by the Spanish Navy, it is dedicated to research and experimentation in the field of hydrodynamics, in particular shipbuilding.
It has a calm water flume, a cavitation tunnel and a vessel dynamics laboratory.
The test platform of the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), managed by the PLOCAN Consortium (co-financed in equal parts by the Spanish Administration and the Government of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands), is located in the open sea in the municipality of Telde (northwest of the island of Gran Canaria) in an area of 23 km2 reserved for scientific and technical experimentation.
