Two turbulence facilities join European research network
Two unique turbulence facilities from the University of Twente, that are co-financed by FOM, have been selected to be part of a new European research consortium. The large network, the European High-Performance Infrastructures in Turbulence (EuHIT), is set up to make the best research facilities freely available to European researchers from academia and industry.
The two facilities selected to be part of the EuHIT consortium are the Twente Water Tunnel facility and Twente Turbulent Taylor-Couette facility. Dr. Chao Sun and FOM workgroup leader prof.dr. Detlef Lohse are the principal investigators for the Twente group within the EuHIT network.
The EuHIT network aims to support the turbulence research field over the coming years. For the first time in history, the cutting-edge infrastructures in turbulence research will open their gates to all academic and industrial researchers in Europe. Twenty-three research institutions and two industrial partners from ten countries have joined forces to create EuHIT with the support of the European Union. Thirteen experimental facilities – each of which is unique worldwide – form the cornerstones of this endeavour. Over the next few years, the European Commission will support EuHIT with seven million Euros in funding.
"It is our pleasure to join EuHIT, and we look forward to exchanging the knowledge and facilities with other partners within the EU", says dr. Sun. "Such a joint effort will stimulate studies of the underlying fundamental principles of turbulence. This will clearly improve and optimise processes in industrial applications ."
For further information about the two turbulence facilities in Twente, please see below.
Twente Water Tunnel (TWT) Facility
The Twente Water Tunnel, which was partly financed by FOM, is an eight-metre high facility in which strong turbulence can be created. Equipped with state-of-the-art experimental techniques, the TWT is a unique facility for multiphase flow studies, i.e., flow with bubbles or particles. Using the TWT facility, the group has been studying turbulent bubbly flow in collaboration with industrial partners like AzkoNobel, DSM, Shell, Tata steel and others within a FOM Industrial Partnership Programme.
Twente Turbulent Taylor-Couette (T3C) Facility
T3C is the core facility of the new FOM programme on ultimate turbulence. It is the most advanced experimental facility ever constructed in this field and has led to many scientific papers in the top journals. Using the T3C apparatus, the group has studied transport properties in highly turbulent flows in previously unexplored parameter regimes. Furthermore, the T3C facility is an ideal system for investigating bubbly drag reduction. This is especially relevant for naval applications, and the group has been working on this topic in close collaboration with the Delft University of Technology, the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands and other industrial partners.
Contact
Prof.dr. Detlef Lohse, +31 (0)53 489 80 76
Dr. Chao Sun, +31 (0)53 489 56 04
Further information
Homepage Physics of Fluids (UT)
Homepage EuHIT