FORT COLLINS - A Colorado State University researcher landed $1.7 million to design and build one of the world's largest wave overtopping simulators.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will tap Chris Thornton, director of the Engineering Research Center, for the project. Thornton will design and construct a 28-foot-tall by 7-foot-wide tower and control mechanism at the CSU Foothills Campus. The construct will simulate large waves with the intention of measuring their impact on levees and soil erosion.

The CSU team will work with researchers at the Corps' Coastal Engineering Laboratory in Vicksburg, Miss. They will build a set of trays for use in the CSU model that will simulate conditions in the Gulf Coast region. Testing of the trays is expected to run from the spring to summer 2010.

"A tremendous amount of work has been done across the academic, engineering and manufacturing communities to develop engineered systems that resist the force of flowing water," Thornton explained in a statement announcing the project. "Our job will be to crack the nut of physics and develop a method permitting the effects from forces generated on levees during wave overtopping to be incorporated into current design methodologies. I expect the results of this program to spark innovation and advancement in the erosion control industry."