The National Oceanographic Instrumentation Center, in NOAA, 

 supports the entire U.S. oceanographic community, private, 

 academic, and government, with technology related to testing, 

 evaluation, calibration, intercalibration, and measurement 

 standards of marine sensing systems. The need for these facilities is 

 demonstrated by the fact that until FY '72 hardly any of the 

 oceanographic instruments tested had acceptable operational 

 lifetimes. 



Ocean engineering research in the National Sea Grant Program 

 involves work on life support systems, sea floor engineering, vehicle 

 and platform research, materials and structures, and related coastal 

 engineering problems. In life support systems, a compact ultrasonic 

 transmitter is being developed that will provide a routine safety 

 system for working divers by permitting the assessment of an 

 untethered diver's physical condition at all times during a dive 

 operation. Sea floor engineers supported by Sea Grant are also 

 developing and testing new equipment to measure gcotechnical 

 properties of deep sea sediments in situ from research submersibles. 

 This data will be used by those needing new anchoring systems or 

 using bottom-resting devices. 



The National Science Foundation's Engineering Research program 

 supports basic and applied research projects that seek to provide 

 data and develop methodology that advance production and 

 construction in the marine environment. For example, studies in 

 sedimentation hydraulics and mechanics include basic research on 

 sediment discharge in the sand bed streams with special reference to 

 stream degradation, the fluid mechanics involved in the sediment 

 transport and delta buildup in reservoirs, the statistical properties 

 of sediment bed forms and sediment transport rates under various 

 uniform and steady flows. 



Pollution dispersal is the result of circulation processes. The 

 dispersion patterns from jets and diffuser pipes are being 

 determined in projects that deal with the behavior of jets adding 

 momentum, buoyancy, and mass and swirl to stratified layers. Both 

 NSF's Engineering Division and NASA fund projects to understand 

 the fluid dynamics of Lake Erie to provide a valid basis for pollution 

 control programs. The relationships among variations in bottom 

 topography, eddy diffusion, and wind are studied as they apply to 

 water currents and movements. 



Water waves impinge on ocean structures. Applied studies of 

 wave action from physical wavetank models include wave dynamics 

 and kinetics, diffusion and dispersion, onshore and offshore 

 sediment transport, and the effects on moored and tethered 

 structures. Tank studies of wave forces on offshore pipelines are 

 funded by NOAA. 



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