Stephen Salter

Stephen Hugh Salter, (7 December 1938 – 23 February 2024) was a South African-born Scottish academic who was Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh and inventor of the eponymous Salter's duck wave energy device. Salter was also a proponent of geoengineering and was responsible for creating the concept of the mechanical enhancement of clouds to achieve cloud reflectivity enhancement.

The wide wave tank at the University of Edinburgh—a novel design and invention by Salter, built in 1977—was the world's first multi-directional wave tank equipped with absorbing wavemakers. Feedback control systems on the wavemaking flaps were used for the absorption of reflected waves, propagating along the water surface of the tank interior towards the 89 flaps. These force-feedback wave paddles were further developed and commercialised by Edinburgh Designs, and are used in many facilities worldwide. Salter argued in 2001 that to properly test wave and tidal energy devices required a circular combined wave and current basin, which ultimately led to the construction of the FloWaveTT facility.

Together with Win Rampen, Salter also played a key role in the development of digital-displacement pump-motors, later manufactured by Artemis Intelligent Power. Salter was a Specialist Advisor at wave energy company Aquamarine Power advising on the development of the Oyster wave energy converter, however the company ceased trading in 2015.

Salter was "one of the leading voices" of the marine cloud brightening movement. Born in Johannesburg on 7 December 1938, he died in Edinburgh on 23 February 2024, at the age of 85. Provided by Wikipedia