Location:

Basement of Chapman Hall, Room B02
Google Map

Meeting Times:

• General Lab Meeting: Tuesdays at 4:45 pm
• CMG Group Meeting: Wednesdays at 10:00 am
• Oil Group Meeting: Fridays at 11:00 am
• Trachea Project Group Meeting: Mondays and Fridays at 11:00 am

In May 2007, the fluid dynamics lab was opened for use in the basement of Chapman Hall. At 4,500 square feet, this lab is shared between the Departments of Mathematics (Carolina Center for Interdisciplinary Applied Math) and Marine Science. A smaller math fluids lab/machine shop is also located on the third floor of Phillips Hall. In the summer of 2009, a 120 foot wave tank was added in the lab.

Some highlights of our facilities
Currently, we have four recirculating fluid (air and water) tunnels capable of investigating flows ranging from Reynolds numbers of 10^-3 to 10⁴. This range of Reynolds numbers allows us to observe a wide variety of fluid phenomena including vortex streets, boundary layers, flow separation, surface waves, internal waves, jets, turbulent mixing, Stokes flow, and a variety of Reynolds number transitions. For flow visualization, we utilize gravity feed dye stream injectors, hydrogen bubble and pH indicator methods. For flow measurements, we utilize a hot-film anemometer, along with digital video/still imaging. We are in the process of aquiring capabilities in 2D and 3D stereoscopic particle image velocitimetry (piv) to better quantify spatial and temporal variations in flow speeds. A large wind tunnel with a 3 ft by 3 ft working has now been moved to the Chapman lab and will be used to understand the structural dynamics of plants forced by wind.

A thank you to strong UNC support and additional funding support from the National Science Foundation and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.