Initiated in1923, the Silent Valley Reservoir in the Mourne Mountains was the first large scale civil engineering project after political partition of Ireland. Before being completed the project had to overcome several obstacles. Firstly, the Mourne Mountains were claimed by the Sbuth of Ireland and thus subject to the Boundary Commission of the Anglo-Irish peace treaty. Secondly, the combination of fluid subsoil and the failure to locate bedrock at expected depth brought construction to a halt while an engineering, political, and legal solution was sought for the expensive and now publicly controversial project. Air-shafts for excavating under increased atmospheric pressure were designed taking in mind both technical and political difficulties. Today the 3000 million gallon reservoir, first imagined in the late 19th Century, continues to be a major water source for the city of Belfast. This study utilises a technology studies approach which connects social and technical forces, exploring how social relationships are materially present within technology and .similarly how material effects influence social practices. The completion of the Silent Valley Reservoir involved a disparate network of people, knowledge, and materials. Utilizing a technology studies approach, this thesis explores the social and technical forces that enabled this network to come together and looks at how the resultant arrangement of forces differs from the initial arrangement. The thesis then explores how this changing arrangement of forces can be described in political terms. For example, in what ways might the state be said to be a participant? How are social relations such as gender or political identity encoded within 'the technological . solutions?

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The finite element method is used to predict numerically steady state, two dimensional laminar and turbulent flows. The governing equations are solved by the finite element method using Galerkin weighting functions, with velocity and pressure as dependent variables. Laminar separating, recirculating flow over a backward facing step in a two dimensional channel is investigated by solution of the Navier-Stokes and continuity equations. The effect of upwind weighting functions is examined. Turbulent flow is analysed using both one (k-1) and two (k-e) equation models to depict the eddy viscosity. The length scale for a one equation model is specified as an algebraic function of position. Wall functions are utilised to define boundary conditions on the variables at the mesh edge, which is slightly displaced from the flow boundary. Both turbulence models are used to predict recirculating flow over a backward facing step, and also the flow within the central subchannel of a rod bundle of triangular cross section. The analysis is then extended to include temperature and heat transfer predictions in turbulent forced convective flows. Results obtained are compared, when possible, with existing solutions obtained by other numerical techniques and with experimental data.

This study is concerned with the numerical prediction of steady state flows containing zones of recirculation with special reference to depth-averaged flow past a breakwater. An essential feature of the modelling of recirculating flow or closed streamline flow is that of correctly representing the momentum transfer across streamlines from an inducing flow to an eddying zone losing energy to ever smaller eddies and against friction.

Many wave energy convertors are designed to utilise either vertical (heave) or horizontal (surge) movements of waves. But the frequency response of small heaving buoys and oscillating water column devices shows that they are too stiff and so their resonance is at too short a period. A device moving in the horizontal (surge) direction has less restoring spring and so its resonance is at too long a period. It follows that a device that moved at some intermediate slope angle could have an intermediate value of hydrodynamic stiffness and so be resonant at a variable and desirable part of the wave spectrum. There have been two series of model tests in this work. The first used a simple free-floating model with no power take-off apparatus and with constraint achieved by means of a large inertia plate lying in the slope plane. The second used a rig that constrained the slope movement of the buoy head by means of hydrostatic bearings running on a guide rod set to the chosen slope angle. An external power take-off system was used to simulate a linear damper for absorbing the incident wave energy and control the motion of the model. The thesis firstly studies of the potentiality of varying the slope angle as a way of tuning the natural period of the device to suit wave conditions. Secondly, it studies of the experimental and theoretic at power capture ability of models with different slope angles in regular waves in the frequency domain. The hydrodynamic coefficients of the model were determined both experimentally and numerically based on linear hydrodynamic concepts. The power absorptions of the models were calculated using the experimental data of the hydrodynamic coefficients and also measured directly. Some control of power take-off were also investigated. Some irregular wave tests were carried out for the 45 degrees slope angle case.

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