Environmental Fluid Mechanics Platform
Strengthen the environmental research axis, provide responses to current and future knowledge needs to promote sustainable development and act positively on climate change.
Four laboratories are set up to accommodate hydraulic installations of various sizes and to develop under optimal conditions research on flows and their interactions with the natural environment.
These developments on an area of 1700 m2 have 4 buried reservoirs (300 m3 in direct connection with La Garonne) are in an intermediate range among the equipment available to the European scientific community and allow to consolidate the practices of change of scales of modeling.
Cooperation within the framework of the Environmental Fluid Mechanics Platform are declined in the following domains, on which many original research actions are in progress:
- Rivières : modélisation des crues rapides (coopération SCHAPI), interaction nappe/rivière, interaction écoulement/biofilm (coopération Ecolab), influence des hétérogénéités des fonds transferts de matière dissoute et particulaire (IFREMER, Ecolab), interaction écoulement – habitat piscicole (OFB, U. Michigan)
- Coastal: ( beaches erosion, cliffs erosion, underwater dunes, seaweeds dispersion, sedimentary suspensions in estuaries, vortex dynamics).
- Atmosphere: Relief waves, atmospheric turbulence, dispersion of aircraft wakes (CNRM coll),
- Underground environments: pollution, waste storage, biofilms and biodegradation, salt intrusions, groundwater functioning, karsts
Most of these themes are already the subject of cooperation with laboratories of the Toulouse Living Earth and Space network (TVE), the RTRA Sciences and Technologies of Aeronautics and Space and partner organizations such as OMP, CNRM, CEMAGREF , OFB, Météo France, SHOM, IFREMER.