The laboratory is a part of the Center for Water and the Environment (CWE) at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus. Lab renovations are still progressing, and so this page will be regularly updated as the large-scale facilities come online.
Indoor flume: 75′ long tilting glass flume (78cm width, 45cm high). Top photo shows the original version — the green one in the back, built in 1972 — that we finally finished renovating! The second photo shows it newly painted Kauai green, no longer a lead paint hazard. We replaced everything – to have glass walls and an acrylic floor. You can check out the process on Twitter #JETlab. Original motor is still running strong (but going backwards, as of 2023… ha), knock on wood, and we’re designing a wavemaker and beach for upcoming sediment transport experiments.
Outdoor flume: 130′ long, 5′ wide outdoor rectangular channel with lifting gate.
Turbulence Tanks: The Large turbulence tank has interior dimensions 0.84m x 0.84m x 1.00m. The typical configuration for this tank is to have a 16×16 randomly actuated synthetic jet array (RASJA) suspended in the top of the tank. The RASJA operates on an algorithm programmed in MATLAB/Arduino to run the jets in such a a way that produces homogeneous nearly-isotropic turbulence. This facility is excellent for studying a mean-shear-free boundary layer at an interface. Ongoing projects in this facility consider mixing across a density interface, sediment suspension and bed fluidization, and others.
The small turbulence tank is a cube with interior dimensions 44 cm on a side. This tank houses 20 jets, located in the corners and along the edge midpoints of the cube, all aimed towards the center of the tank to produce homogeneous isotropic turbulence in the center of the tank. This tank has recently come online, with future plans to study phenomena including ice melting and sediment flocculation.
The JETlab:
In addition, Waller Creek is a beautiful natural creek running through the downtown campus and will be utilized for field work and instrumentation testing.
