Model basin

A model basin is the test facility, also called a towing tank, where a scaled ship model is towed by an instrumented carriage to measure resistance, run self-propulsion and propeller tests, and study wave and motion behavior. A typical resistance tank is a long, narrow, deep channel: David Taylor’s basin and MARIN’s deep-water tank run several hundred meters so the model reaches a steady towing speed within the measured run. The carriage carries the dynamometers, and turbulence stimulators trip the model boundary layer so it is turbulent like the ship’s. Results are scaled to full size by Froude scaling for wave drag and the ITTC-1957 line for friction.