Ocean Engineering
- [The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen, Denmark]
- Overview
Ocean engineering is a combination of mechanical, electrical, civil, acoustical, and chemical engineering, coupled with a basic understanding of how the oceans work.
Ocean engineers design, build, test, and refine instrumentation and equipment that can operate in offshore and/or coastal environments. These instruments must be able to stand up to the wear and tear of frequent use and survive the harsh conditions of the ocean environment (corrosion, waves, currents, severe storms, marine life fouling, etc.)
Innovations in instrumentation and equipment design made by ocean engineers have revolutionized the field of oceanography, enabling researchers to travel farther offshore and deeper into the sea, and to stay there for longer periods of time.
- Research Topics in Ocean Science and Engineering
Operating in the ocean is demanding due to the harsh wave environment, extreme pressure, and limited ability to sustain high data rate communications. The interior of the ocean is undersampled both in time and space, making predictions of the marine environment challenging.
Research includes: acoustics, instrumentation, sensing, marine robotics, and ocean prediction; fluid mechanics; structural mechanics and dynamics; and design, naval construction, and engineering.
[More to come ...]
