Experimental environmental hydraulics: entrainment and mixing in turbulent flows

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Turbulent flows are present in both natural and anthropogenic environments. The proposed research in environmental hydraulics will study turbulent flows found in the atmosphere and hydrosphere that are relevant to processes in environmental pollutant dispersion, ocean mixing, fluvial geomorphology, energy and meteorology, and can also be applied to industrial processes such as combustion. My main long term goal is to improve the understanding of turbulent entrainment and turbulent mixing in environmental hydraulics using innovative experiments and related analysis, and complemented by numerical modelling. My four long term objectives are: 1) maintaining a solid program of experimental environmental hydraulics (using techniques such as LIF, PIV, PTV, ADV, anemometry), 2) developing new experimental methods, tools and analysis techniques, 3) extending my research area into new areas, 4) continuing to train students at all levels. My philosophy involves performing rigorous research that i) is fundamental and provides valuable insight into the physics of the processes, and ii) can be applied to improve both engineering processes and predictions of natural phenomena.***To achieve these long-term goals, the present application proposes five complementary research components on: 1) the effect of background turbulence on the hydrodynamics of a turbulent jet, 2) molecular effects in flows involving the mixing of two or more chemical species, 3) the suppression of mixing downstream of the confluence of two shallow rivers, 4) quantifying biogenic oceanic turbulence and mixing, and 5) exploration of emerging topics. This research will provide the training of HQP in a research team of 4 Ph.D. students, 5 M.Eng. students and 5 undergraduate summer research students. ****The impact of the above studies will be to advance our understanding of turbulent flows in environmental hydraulics by answering previously unresolved questions and disseminating the results in high quality publications. The knowledge obtained will benefit Canada by i) answering useful question of immediate relevance to engineering and environmental flows (1-5), ii) being incorporated into (governmental or other) models of environmental pollutant dispersion to improve their accuracy (1-3), iii) improving our understanding of oceanic mixing that will improve climate change predictions, and iv) advancing my long term objectives.**