Facilities and Instruments

For investigations targeting fluid systems with variable densities (such as the ocean and temperate lakes), the lab has a large-scale stratified flows facility. This Purdue facility is a 0.6m wide, 0.6m tall facility with a 10m test section that was custom fabricated by Armfield, Inc. (UK) for the PI. The facility has glass walls for all of the test section faces, and instrument rails above and below the channel. The facility can be used either as an enclosed tank, as it is for internal wave experiments, or as a re-circulating flume. The pumping capabilities of the flume are nearly 120 liters/sec. The facility is equipped with a set of bottom diffuser ports through which saline fluid can be injected, in order to density-stratify the tank, as well as a selective withdrawal device to allow for repeated experiments with nearly identical stratifications. The facility is housed in a specially-constructed temperature- and light- controlled enclosed room to tightly control the experimental conditions, and de-ionized water is used to fill the facility. To date the facility has been used for experiments on boundary layers, waves, flow around objects, and dispersion.