Echtwasserbecken

Real water basin in Scandinavia

A freighter entered the full functioning lock. In the background, you can see a small part of the moveable lift bridge with its four rail tracks.

Trains need rails, cars need streets and vessels need water. However, a bucket of water was not enough to move our vessels - we needed more. The water basin in the Scandinavia section contains a high tech water installation with numerous probes, sensors, pumps and outlets that only a sophisticated PLC system could handle. Humidity, water and room temperature, as well as the filter system need constant monitoring. Also, in order to prevent that people on the floor below get wet feet in case of leakage, we had to make sure that the basin can be pumped out within minutes.

The dimension of the basin is 80 m². It contains 25,000 liters of real water and there is a total of 30,000 liters circulating in the system. The simulation of falling and rising tide and the fully functional lock make Scandinavia's shipping a unique experience. In order to simulate the tides, 2.500 liters of water have to be pumped up and down between the buffer tank on the 3rd floor and the water basin on the 4th floor within only eight minutes. With water being a valuable resource, the grey water from the basin is used for toilet flushing.