Fluid Mechanics

• Professor Thorsten Stoesser, Group Leader 
• Dr Eugeny Buldakov
• Dr Liora Malki-Epshtein 
• Professor Richard Simons 
• Dr Tristan Robinson 

• Professor Alan Brampton 
• Professor John Harris
• Dr Tim Pullen
• Professor Richard Whitehouse
• Professor Jorg Imberger

• Dr. Razieh Jalalabi

• Konstantinos Chasapis Tassinis 
• Aristos Christou
• Qianyu Luo
• Javier Murgoitio Esandi 

• Les Ansdell 
• Keith Harvey

• Pat Kemp Fluids Laboratory, Chadwick Building, Gower Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT

• Purpose-built wave-current flume 
• 16m length
• 0.45m width
• 0.7m high
• Water depths in the range 0.2m to 0.5m
• Re-built in 2015 with glass bed and walls along its full length.

Flow is introduced vertically into the flume through profiled inlet sections under the bed. Water is fed from header tanks in the roof, 20m above, and discharged through valves and an overshoot weir to the underfloor sump. Alternatively, flow can be provided directly to the flume from a submersible pump placed in the underfloor sump.
Maximum flow velocity = 0.3 m/s at a water depth of 0.4m

Waves are generated by one of two programmable Edinburgh Design piston-type rotating quadrant wave generators, one installed at each end. These are effective at active absorption of low frequency reflected waves. Higher frequency waves are removed by horizontal perforated plate absorbers acting as a beach. The flume can produce regular or random waves with periods in the range 0.8s to 3.0s and heights up to 0.5m. 

The flume is ideal for the study of wave-current interaction, impacts of focused wave groups on marine structures, and fundamental hydrodynamics and turbulence.
Instrumentation includes:

• 2-d laser Doppler velocimetry system with programmable traverse
• 2-d PIV (horizontal or vertical plane)
• 3-d Vectrino acoustic Doppler velocimetry
• Impeller flow meters
• Resistance-type wave probes. 

• Pat Kemp Fluids Laboratory, Chadwick Building, Gower Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT

• 10m long
• 0.3m wide
• Water depths up to 0.3m
• A false bed at either end can retain a central, 1m long bed of mobile sediment.
• The flume is horizontally symmetrical, making it possible to model tidally reversing currents. Flow can be introduced at either end through carefully profiled fairings to minimise inlet instabilities and turbulence.
• A plunger-type wave maker can be fitted.
• Ideal for the study of scour around cylindrical piles, sediment processes and open channel flows.

• Pat Kemp Fluids Laboratory, Chadwick Building, Gower Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT

• The test section is 6m long, 0.5m wide, and 0.27m deep, with water depths up to 0.2m. 
• Umax=0.4m/s. 
• Walls and bottom are made of clear glass to facilitate PIV, LDV and Hydrogen Bubble measurements.
• The flume is horizontal, with flow introduced to the test section through meshes, marbles and a horizontal and vertical contraction section for turbulence suppression. 
• Water supply is provided by a constant head tank fed by a submersible pump in an underfloor sump. Outflow is via an overshoot weir into a calibrated collection tank and subsequently over a V-notch weir to the sump. 
• A plunger-type wave maker can be fitted at any point along the flume.
• Ideal for the study of fundamental hydrodynamics and boundary layer turbulence.

• Pat Kemp Fluids Laboratory, Chadwick Building, Gower Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT

• Adjustable length (presently 8m long)
• Constructed in modules 1m in length, 1m wide and 0.8m in height
• Maximum velocity (Umax) = 10 m/s
• Bellmouth entry condition with honeycomb flow conditioner
• Block bed elements can be used to simulate urban ground roughness; model trees are used to simulate forests and open country.
• Can facilitate a smoke generator, Pitot-static tubes and pressure measurements.

• Basement Fluids Laboratory, Roberts Building, Malet Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT

• 20m long
• 1.2m wide
• 1.3m high
• Water depths up to 0.6m
• A removable false bed at either end can retain a bed of mobile sediment 0.2m deep in the centre of the flume.
• The flume is horizontally symmetrical, making it possible to simulate tidally reversing currents. 
• The flow is driven by three axial pumps located in return pipes under the flume, and is introduced and removed from the test section through vertical ducts at either end. Wire mesh flow conditioners allow users to define the vertical distribution of flow and simulate boundary layers (logarithmic, near uniform and wind-driven surface shear).
• Maximum flow velocity = 0.8 m/s at a water depth of 0.5m
• Waves are generated by one of two programmable Edinburgh Design piston-type rotating quadrant wave generators, one installed at each end. These are effective at active absorption of low frequency waves.
• The flume can produce regular or random waves with periods in the range 1s to 5s and heights up to 0.7m. 
• Ideal for the study of wave-current interaction, impacts of focused wave groups on marine structures, and fundamental hydrodynamics and turbulence.

• Fluids Laboratory, Roberts Building, Malet Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT

• 20m long
• 2.5m wide
• 1.3m high
• Water depths up to 1m
• Walls are made of clear glass, the bed of smooth concrete.
• Waves are generated by seven independently programmable Edinburgh Design flap-type wave generators with active absorption, installed across one end of the flume. These are capable of absorbing unwanted low frequency reflections. Waves are absorbed at the far end of the flume by a parabolic beach.
• The flume can produce regular, random or focused wave groups, in line or obliquely, with periods in the range 0.8s to 5s and heights up to 0.7m.
• Ideal for the study of marine structures, floating vessels and wave hydrodynamics.

• Pat Kemp Fluids Laboratory, Chadwick Building, Gower Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT.

• For measurements of 2-d velocity vectors across a plane (horizontal or vertical) in the flow to identify spatial distribution of flow patterns.

• Pat Kemp Fluids Laboratory, Chadwick Building, Gower Street, UCL, London WC1E 6BT.

• 2-d fibre-optic Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV).
• For measurements of horizontal and vertical velocities at high-resolution spatially (within fluid volumes <0.5 mm dia) and in time (data acquisition faster than 1 kHz).
• Applied to study of turbulence and fundamental fluid flows in water and air.