KRISO celerbrated10th anniversary of completion of Large-scale Cavitation Tunnel and Ice Model Basin Facility

- KRISO has led the shipbuilding and marine industry as major research facility to test performance of ship propulsion systems and ships operating in extremely cold conditions -

□ On Monday the 28th of December, the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO led by President Booki Kim) held a ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Large-scale Cavitation Tunnel and the Ice Model Basin Facility at KRISO in Daejeon.

The Large-scale Cavitation Tunnel, celebrated on the day of the event, was built in 2010. Since then, a series of model tests have been conducted on about 458 merchant vessels, surface vessels, and underwater vessels using this tunnel, along with model tests for underwater weapons, including torpedoes and Jangbogo-III Submarine. Likewise, it is the country's main research facility to test the performance of ship propulsion systems.

□ The Large-scale Cavitation Tunnel is the world's largest merchant vessel testing facility with length, width, and height of 60, 6.5, and 22.5 m. This facility is essential for examining cavitation and noise generated from a ship's propulsion system. The completion of this facility was of great significance because, since then, it has enabled domestic merchant vessels and other ships to be studied and examined based solely on domestic research technology without using foreign facilities for testing.

* Cavitation: Refers to the phenomenon where water is turned into steam due to a rapid drop in pressure while the propeller is rotating at high speed underwater. It is closely related to a ship's propulsion efficiency, underwater noise and vibration, and propeller erosion.

□ This year also marked the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Ice Model Basin Facility. It is the country's only test facility to evaluate the performance of ships and offshore structures that operate in extremely cold conditions, such as icebreakers. Ice model basin facilities can be used for commercial purposes and are very rare and thus valuable test facilities because there are only 10 or fewer of them in operation around the world. Ice model basin facilities reproduce the conditions and behavior of sea ice, thereby enabling researchers to evaluate and verify the propulsion performance, turning performance, position keeping performance, and ice load of ships and offshore structures operating in extremely cold conditions.

□ Since 2010, the Ice Model Basin Facility has created 317 sheets of model ice for testing purposes. The facility made significant contributions to developing an integrated system that measures ice impact load in real time for RV Araon, a research icebreaker, and performs ice performance tests for 170K icebreaking LNG carriers.

□ Both Large-scale Cavitation Tunnel and Ice Model Basin Facility have significantly contributed to improving the R&D capacity of the ship propulsion system and sea-ice engineering sectors for the past ten years. These facilities, combined with the obtained research skills and know-how, will help the country's shipbuilding and marine industry to find a new growth engine for the years to come.

□ Booki Kim, the President of KRISO, said, "We will continue to focus more on R&D activities using our Large-scale Cavitation Tunnel and Ice Model Basin Facility to advance the shipbuilding and marine industry and gain a competitive edge in technology. We will make utmost efforts to develop key technologies for propulsion efficiency improvement, underwater radiated noise reduction, and eco-friendly ships operating in extreme conditions so that we can proactively respond to the marine environment protection policies that are increasingly stringent around the world."

□ This ceremony was converted to an online event and performed under COVID-19 guidelines of social distancing.