Supported by the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB), the “Maneuver Experiment System and Cavitation Tunnel for the Improvement of Hydro-Acoustic Characteristics of Turkish Warships” (KATMANSİS) and carried out by ITU, ITUNOVA, and ARI Teknokent as a Technology Acquisition Obligation Project of ADIK Shipyard and ASELSAN and under the control of Türk Loydu, was opened with a ceremony held at ITU Faculty of Shipbuilding and Marine Sciences.
The ceremony was attended by Istanbul Technical University Rector Prof. Dr. İsmail Koyuncu, President of Defense Industry Prof. Dr. İsmail Demir, faculty members, and students. After the speeches made at the ceremony, İsmail Koyuncu, Rector of Istanbul Technical University, presented a plaque to İsmail Demir, President of Defense Industry. The cavitation tunnel was opened with İsmail Demir and other participants. After the opening of the tunnel, İsmail Demir was informed about the tests to be carried out in the cavitation tunnel.
In the world’s top six
Defense Industry President Prof. Dr. İsmail Demir said, “Currently, we are at the beginning of the cavitation tunnel that we have implemented with the cooperation of our Defense Industry Presidency and our university. What does this tunnel mean? This tunnel provides an important experimental capacity and capability for our shipbuilding projects, torpedo projects, submarine projects, our new designs, and the testing of the designs of our submarines, propellers, and torpedoes, and the production of new technologies. For example, our Orka torpedo, Akya torpedo, various models of our new type of submarine, and our new designs will be tested here. The tests of their propellers at various speeds, their rotations, and the results of the analysis of the performance of these ships at sea will be conducted here, and it will be a very important step for not only our defense industry sector but also our shipping industry to make more advanced designs and produce more performance products. This issue is a step taken towards the acquisition of technology, realized in cooperation with the university and our Defense Industry Presidency. National technology will also constitute an important element of our move. This cavitation tunnel is one of the top six in the world in terms of flow rate. It is also quite advanced in terms of speed. This will make Turkey an important player in the future.”
It was carried out under the control of Türk Loydu.
The Cavitation Tunnel, for which Türk Loydu provides steel structure and aluminum manufacturing and assembly control services, allows detailed hydrodynamic and hydroacoustic tests to be carried out in an environment where the pressure can be changed in a controlled manner with high flow regularity and low turbulence level of all kinds of surface and underwater vessels and propulsion systems.
Cem Melikoğlu, President of Türk Loydu, made a statement at the opening ceremony of the Cavitation Tunnel and Maneuvering Experiment System (KATMANSİS) under the control of Türk Loydu, “As Türk Loydu, we are proud to have contributed. The most important aspect of our cavitation tunnel, which will make important scientific contributions to the design of high-tech propellers, is the high benefits it will provide for the needs of our Navy. Our tunnel, which will enable the performance, noise, and flow imaging tests of critically important platforms in the defense industry such as torpedoes, submarines, warships, unmanned vehicles, and civilian vessels, in particular, is among the top 7 test centers in the world in terms of its technical features.
It will also serve the shipbuilding industry
The large-scale cavitation tunnel established within ITU is an experimental facility that can serve the shipbuilding industry, especially the defense industry, and enable high-level scientific research. This facility is designed to be able to ship with low noise levels, which is important in terms of striking and stopping power performance of surface warships and submarines, both in fast and quiet cruising, sonar dome-hull integration, form optimization to ensure the uniformity of the axial velocity on the propeller disc, and to reduce cavitation special propeller design and will serve for similar purposes.
In the KATMANSİS project, the Tensile Mode Maneuvering Experiment System (PMM) in the Ata Nutku Ship Model Experiment Laboratory test pool and the Tracking Mode Maneuver Experiment System that can be used in the ITU Pond were also developed and produced entirely by ITU researchers. As a new and adequate tool for Ship Maneuvering work, with local possibilities, it offers R&D infrastructure. The Cavitation Tunnel and Maneuver Test System will serve both the defense and civil ship industry at international standards, with a working model jointly created by ITU, SSB, and TRtest.
