Use of optical tracking system for measurement of dynamic model responses in a wave tank

Physical modeling serves as an important tool in the development of the full scale devices especially in the oil and gas industry. Dynamic responses of the scaled model subjected to the environmental forces are obtained by testing the models in the wave tank. Conventionally accelerometers have been used to determine the dynamic motion responses of the model in the six degrees of freedom. However, the accelerometer has limitation that it can directly measure the translation motions only and rotation motions have to be interpreted from them. Recently developed optical tracking system has proven to be very efficient in measuring all the dynamic responses. Hence, many Laboratories use both the accelerometers and optical tracking system for mutual validation and accuracy of the measurements. In this paper, a new optical tracking system acquired by the Offshore Laboratory of UniversitiTeknologi PETRONAS (UTP), is discussed. The details of the system and the tracking procedures are presented and the paper concludes by presenting very reliable results based on these measurements.