Second-year master's student Yusuke Uemura and fellow members of a research group headed by Naoya Suzuki, professor of mechanical engineering (environmental fluid engineering, physical oceanography) in the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, have successfully developed an air current/wave hybrid loop method for replicating wind and waves in an experimental tank. They hope to use it to better understand interactions between the atmosphere and the open ocean, which are believed to be a fundamental factor in climate variations and changes.
With the methods employed up until now, the size of waves that could be created have been limited by the size of the wind-wave tanks used. However, with the air current/wave hybrid loop method, the researchers were able to create waves regardless of the size of the tank. It is hoped that in the future, by being able to achieve close-to-true replication of air currents and waves inside a wind-wave tank, researchers will be able to offer more precise climate forecasting for such things as typhoon forecasts.

These research results were presented online during the 67th Lecture Meeting of the Coastal Engineering Committee of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) held on November 13, 2020. The JSCE also published the findings in the Journal of JSCE B2 (Coastal Engineering).