General operating guidelines

This page contains info for operating the wave/tow tank systems. Please read this entire page before attempting to operate any of the tank's equipment. For guidelines on planning or designing experiments, see experiment design. Note that approval from an administrator is required before performing an experiment.

Safety

• All personnel on carriage or tank walls must wear personal flotation devices.
• Always check carriage path for obstructions before initiating motion.
• Before towing, check timing belt housing for foreign objects that may have fallen inside.
• Do not step on or leave equipment on top of timing belt guards or cable carrier trough.
• Become acquainted with the locations of the emergency stop buttons, once of which is shown in Figure 1. Note that these only stop the tow, turbine, and YZ traverse axes, not the wavemaker.
• Never put oneself in the carriage path with the motor enabled.

Scheduling

• Users must reserve the tank for their experiments. See scheduling for more details.

Organization

• Leave things organized. This means no equipment, tools, or supplies should be left on the control platform, carriage, tank walls, etc. after an experiment has been completed. Items left behind will be put in the "lost & found", which is located under the control platform.
• Decking: If possible, replace any carriage decking at the end of an experiment. The pieces are numbered—see the carriage decking layout.
• Raise the beach when not in use. This is done to prevent tank fouling. See beach operation for instructions.

Computers

• Store data on the Tow Tank PC's (E:) drive, not the (C:) drive.
• Leave computers on, but lock or log out when not in use.
• Don't put shortcuts on the Desktop. Use the Start Menu's search function instead.

System-specific operation

• Tow system operation
• Wavemaker operation
• DAQ system operation
• Beach operation