USA: Maine gets ocean engineering research lab

The newly built facilities, located on the University of Maine campus, will be used to prototype coastal and offshore structures, including ships, aquaculture facilities, oil and gas structures, and ocean energy devices under extreme wave, wind and current environments.

The total construction, equipping and start-up of the new laboratories over the first three years will cost more than $13.8 million, according to the University of Maine.

Of that, the center had raised more than $9.98 million through four grant competitions, followed by the Harold Alfond Foundation grant announcement of $3.9 million which formally established the Harold Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Laboratory and Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory at the Advanced Structures and Composites Center on campus.

The Alfond Foundation naming gift will help complete the equipping of the facility, hire world-class engineers in 2015-16, and fund graduate and undergraduate students over three years to help start-up the facility, University of Maine’s press release reads.

Habib Dagher, Executive Director of the UMaine Composites Center, said: “The R&D will support the growth of the ocean economies and shipbuilding sectors in Maine and the nation, as well as the growth of digital and additive manufacturing of thermoplastic composite materials.”

Susan Collins, US Senator, said: “I am delighted that after years of hard work, the University of Maine is establishing world-class research capabilities in ocean engineering and advanced composites manufacturing to help Maine and the nation improve our industrial competitiveness in boatbuilding, renewable energy and aquaculture, and to help protect our coastal cities from major storms.”

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Image: University of Maine