New findings from physical modeling campaigns of our nature-inclusive marine mattresses will be presented at the International Conference on Coastal Engineering 2026 in Galveston, Texas. Dr. Maximilian Streicher from Ghent University will share complementary results on hydrodynamic performance and hydraulic stability, providing a solid basis for the further application of this solution under extreme hydrodynamic conditions representative of the North Sea and North Atlantic.
The offshore energy sector is expanding at a pace that is putting new demands on subsea infrastructure. More wind farms, more interconnectors, more energy harvesting devices and with them, more subsea cables that need to stay in place and stay protected. Mattresses are one of the established solutions for cable stabilisation and protection, keeping cables secure against hydrodynamic forces and dropped objects on the seabed. As that demand grows, so does the pressure to demonstrate that the solutions being specified can perform in the conditions they will actually face.
ECOncrete’s nature-inclusive marine mattresses offer something conventional cable protection systems cannot: structural performance and hydraulic stability combined with measurable biodiversity gain. That combination has already earned them a place on several projects on the East Coast of the US, where mattresses protect subsea electrical transmission cable while providing settlement points for native marine life. These deployments reflect a growing recognition in the offshore energy sector that protecting cables and supporting marine ecosystems are not competing objectives.
New research to be presented at ICCE 2026 in Galveston, Texas adds an important chapter to that story. The study, led by Maximilian Streicher and Yuri Pepi of the Coastal and Ocean Basin-Ghent University in collaboration with ECOncrete, tested ECOncrete’s nature-inclusive marine mattress across four geometric configurations, varying the edge tapering of the unit across two physical modelling campaigns. The first was conducted at Ghent University’s wave flume facility and the second at the Coastal and Ocean Basin in Ostend, Belgium. Together, they measured hydrodynamic performance and hydraulic stability under conditions representative of extreme North Sea and North Atlantic environments. The findings establish the hydrodynamic coefficients needed for design, including drag, lift, and inertia, and demonstrate how edge geometry influences mattress performance under combined wave and current loading. informing the continued development of nature-inclusive mattress solutions already in deployment. This evidence base directly informs the continued development of nature-inclusive mattress solutions already deployed across the US and Europe.
Research will continue to build on these findings as ECOncrete’s marine mattress solutions develop alongside the growing demands of offshore energy infrastructure. The full findings are to be presented by Maximilian Streicher at the 39th International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Galveston, Texas, 17–22 May 2026.
Engineers and project teams working on subsea cable protection, interconnectors, and offshore wind infrastructure are encouraged to get in touch with the ECOncrete team to discuss how nature-inclusive mattress solutions can be integrated into their projects.