Nuke energy site gets device to predict high waves

With the long coastal area in south prone to cyclones, storm-surges and extreme waves, the Simulating Waves Near Shore (SWAN), an advanced system implemented by BARC, will accurately predict the heights of the waves in the seas and oceans during bad weather conditions.

Sources from BARC toldDT Next that the SWAN was tested by performing simulations in a number of fair weather and stormy events in different seasons.

Accordingly, the time series of simulated significant wave heights are compared with the “Wave Rider Buoy” observation situated near the Puducherry and Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu. Wind generated waves have irregular heights and periods, caused by the erratic nature of climate especially during monsoon. Due to this irregular nature, the sea surface changes continually, which means that a deterministic approach to describe the sea surface is not feasible.

Through SWAN system, users will compute transmission of waves passing over a dam (barrier) with a closed surface. Results of predictions of fair weather and stormy events in all four seasons indicated that the height ofthe waves is more than 15 per cent more than the usual observations.

At present, the first in the series of high resolution wave forecast model for the Indian coasts, SWAN has been set up successfully at Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts.

More than 60 people, five of them staffers, were killed in Madras Atomic Power Station when the tsunami flooded the residential colony in 2004.