Stevens tests new floating ferry terminal for Port Authority
This week, Davidson Laboratory at Stevens Institute of Technology will conduct docking tests for a new kind of floating ferry terminal to replace the current 1980s structure at Battery Park in New York City. The new $37 million facility has been designed by the architectural group of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and M.G. McLaren Consulting Engineers of West Nyack, N.Y., contracting for the Port Authority. A Stevens research assistant professor, Dr. Raju Datla, who is resident at Davidson Lab, is overseeing the testing in the lab's 313- by 12-foot highspeed towing tank. Press are welcome to attend the testing session on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 27, from 1 p.m. through 3:30 p.m. For details and directions, please call the above News Service contact. For an artist's conception of the ferry terminal structure, please visit www.mgmclaren.com/projects.htm.
A 1/20th-scale model of the terminal - fashioned of Styrofoam, epoxy, and plywood - will be floated at a calculated point in the tank. Using a scale model of a ferry hull, test-dockings will proceed in the midst of varying wave intensities, which will be programmed remotely and effected by the tank's hydraulic motor system. The point is to produce a stabilized terminal structure that allows docking to occur even in rough tide situations.
Both the terminal and ferry models are weighted to simulate accurate water displacements. The terminal mock-up floats under a weighted pressure of about 800 pounds.
The current Battery Park Ferry Terminal was originally constructed in 1989 to provide ferry service between Hoboken and Battery Park City. The facility was intended as a temporary structure, consisting of a floating landing terminal and attached features. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recently contracted M.G. McLaren to provide structural and marine engineering services for the design of a permanent facility.
The construction contract will be awarded by the end of this year. When the terminal is completed, it will feature five ferry slips that can accommodate both side- and end-loading ferries. The design will make it possible to segregate arriving and departing passengers and will allow expansion to accommodate additional ferry services. The footprint of the facility, which has been described as "an acre of floating steel in the Hudson River," will be 200- by 160-feet. It will also be a docking point for New York Waterway's future highspeed ferry that will travel between New York City and Monmouth County, N.J. That ferry model was also tested at Davidson Lab's facilities earlier in 2001.
Since 1935, the Davidson Laboratory of Stevens Institute of Technology has been an international leader in the fields of ocean engineering and marine craft design. Over the past 10 years the laboratory has complemented its strong background in physical and computational hydrodynamics with basic and applied research in coastal engineering. The coastal engineering program at Stevens combines physical and computer modeling studies with site-specific field monitoring programs, to investigate nearshore coastal dynamics and shoreline behavior.
In 1993, the New Jersey State Legislature established the Coastal Protection Technical Assistance Service (CPTAS) at the Davidson Laboratory. CPTAS was created to both inform and counsel New Jersey citizens and government officials regarding advances in coastal protection technology. Since its creation, CPTAS has evaluated the effectiveness of nine innovative coastal protection systems. Each of these technologies was analyzed through either the use of reduced-scale movable-bed physical model tests, prototype-scale field tests, or both.
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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