About the river, estuary and coastal resilient infrastructure testing flume (REAL)
Critical infrastructure — such as bridges, dams, flood barriers, ports, and offshore wind farms — built in rivers, coastal areas, and marine environments face powerful natural forces. These include water currents, waves, and shifting ground conditions.
Over time, these forces can cause damage or even lead to failure. As climate patterns change and infrastructure is used in new ways, predicting how these systems will respond is becoming more difficult.
Despite their importance, the interactions between water and ground forces are still not fully understood. Our research aims to close this gap, making infrastructure safer, more reliable, and more cost-effective.
Our River, estuary and coastal resilient infrastructure testing flume (REAL) is a cutting-edge experimental facility designed to transform research in submerged infrastructure. It enables testing of multiple interacting phenomena under realistic conditions.
We are currently building this unique facility, which will be up and running early 2026. The facility will include:
- large tilting flume
- water pumping and storage systems
- wave generation and absorption
- sediment feeding and recirculation
- instruments for measuring water velocities in detail
All systems will be fully integrated and automated to simulate real-world conditions with exceptional accuracy. The research enabled by REAL will lead to new approaches in designing infrastructure that is both resilient and cost-effective.
The flume is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It will be the largest facility of its kind in Europe.
REAL will be used primarily for academic research, with access also available to external users.
The facility is part of our hydraulics facilities and will support research in:
- water and environmental engineering
- river and coastal engineering
- marine energy
Please contact us for further information, bookings, research proposals and project partnerships.