Search

The NASA innovation leverages existing ballast fluid of a maritime structure to proactively mitigate undesirable resonant response characteristics of the platform or vessel. Essentially, this innovation couples water ballast as a functional working mass to the dynamic motion of a floating structure in order to provide passive motion management of the primary structure. The system can be implemented pre-design or post manufacture. The systems are simple and are easily manufactured, transported, and implemented onto a primary structure. The NASA technology has been designed (patents applied for) for a range of platform designs and can be further customized depending on the final application requirements. Prototypes have been built and tested in a wind-wave tank test bed at the University of Maine.