Research
The fundamental focus of EFD Lab research is the problem of fluid flow over complex boundaries. This issue is at the root of many engineering and environmental problems ranging from basin scale ocean dynamics to nearshore hydrodynamics to aerodynamics.
Funding for EFD Lab work has included grants from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and NOAA Sea Grant.
Environmental Hydrodynamics and Coastal Ocean Physics
Research in environmental hydrodynamics is focused on coastal and estuarine turbulent mixing processes, their interactions with topographic features and the effects of these processes on coastal morphology. Focus is in particular, on the role of flow structure in mass and momentum transport as well as the generation of this structure by topography. Interactions occur via a variety of mechanisms including boundary layer separation and hydraulic flow response. Work has included study of dynamics of wave and current flow over rough bathymetry as well as on the generation and evolution of large scale structure in flowLow around coastal headlands. The influence of these boundary dynamics on sediment transport and on sediment-water column geochemical exchange processes is also of key interest.
Other areas of interest include effects of offshore forcing on nearshore dynamics, the interaction of flow with biological systems, stratified turbulence and laboratory experimental methods.
Topics:
Turbulence and Drag over Rough Boundaries (Field/Lab/Numerical)
Cross-shore Exchange (Field/Numerical)
Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Methods (Field)
Permeable Sediment Porewater-Seawater Hydrodynamics (Field)
Headland Eddy Formation and Dissipation (Field/Lab)
Nearshore Water Quality (Field)
Benthic Boundary Layer Physics and Geochemistry (Field/Lab)
Turbulence in Stratified Fluids (Field/Lab)
Projects:
Refraction and Reflection of Nonlinear Internal Waves from Steep Topography
Kelp Forest Hydrodynamics: Observations of drag and cross-shore exchange on the inner shelf
Multi-sensor imaging and quantification of near-bottom turbulence in La Jolla Canyon
Physical processes in formation and breakdown of hypoxia in a tropical bay
NASCAR SLOMO: Coastal/Island Processes on a Shallow Plateau
Dynamics of Cross-shore Thermally Driven Exchange
Morphodynamic Change and Hypoxic Events in Coastal Lagoons
Fluid Dynamics
In addition, EFDL research also addresses fundamental fluid dynamics research with implications for general engineering applications.