Welcome to the Environmental turbulence analysis littera Lab!

The Et al. lab focuses on understanding the role of fluid mechanics in environmental processes. We are particularly interested in turbulent transport between buildings, forest, costal vegetation, and particle/droplet laden flows. We employ and further develop experimental techniques to study turbulent flows in these complex geometries.

Et al. stands for Environmental turbulence analysis littera, which means the study of the effects of turbulence on environmental flows with careful and detailed experimentations and analysis to advance our design capabilities in engineering. The abbreviation et al. means and others and is often used to cite collaborative work in scientific journals. (Fun fact: do you know that the most cited “scientist” on Google Scholar is et al.?) The adoption of this name reflects our philosophy that science is a collaborative endeavor and benefits from different perspectives, viewing angles and inclusion.

Physics of Turbulence

Turbulence is the most important unsolved problem of classical physics - Richard Feynman

Experimental Fluid Mechanics

Environmental Fluid Systems

Principal Investigator

Avatar

Chris CK Lai

Assistant Professor

Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Turbulent Mixing and Transport, Turbulence Theory and Modeling

PhD Students

Avatar

Muhammad Ahmad Mustafa

PhD Student (Fall ‘20 - Present); MSc Student, Fulbright Scholar (Spring ‘20)

Avatar

Ishtiaqul Islam

PhD Student (Fall ‘21 - Present)

Avatar

Zachary Byrd

PhD Student (Fall ‘21 - Present); Undergrad Researcher (Spring ‘20)

Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Teaching/Professorship

Avatar

Wei-Cheng Hung

PhD Student (Fall ‘22 - Present)

Master Students

Avatar

Alex Zimmer

MSc Student (Fall ‘22 - Present); Undergrad Researcher (Spring ‘21 - Spring ‘22); PURA awardee (Fall ‘21)

Projects

*

Multibody turbulent flow

Production of turbulence in an array of spheres with relative motions– air-water flows.

Stratified turbulence

Mixing and scale interactions in stratified turbulence– improving turbulence models and estimates of oceanic mixing efficiency.

Turbulent flow in porous media

Turbulent-laminar flow transitions in porous media– solute transport in river and groundwater.

Recent Publications

Beyond Taylor's hypothesis: a novel volumetric reconstruction of velocity and density fields for variable‑density and shear flows

This work presents a novel numerical procedure for reconstructing volumetric density and velocity fields from planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) and stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) data.

Turbulence statistics in a negatively buoyant multiphase plume

In this paper we report an experimental study characterizing the turbulence inside a heavy particle plume descending under gravity within a salt–water solution.

Mean velocity, spreading and entrainment characteristics of weak bubble plumes in unstratified and stationary water

In this paper we present an experimental and theoretical study of weak bubble plumes in unstratified and stationary water. We define a weak bubble plume as one that spreads slower than the linear rate of a classic plume.

The turbulent kinetic energy budget in a bubble plume

We present the turbulent kinetic energy (t.k.e.) budget of a dilute bubble plume in its asymptotic state. The budget is derived from an experimental dataset of bubble plumes formed inside an unstratified water tank.

Budgets of turbulent kinetic energy, Reynolds stresses, and dissipation in a turbulent round jet discharged into a stagnant ambient

This paper presents a set of stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) measurements of a turbulent round water jet (jet exit Reynolds number $Re=2679$ and turbulent Reynolds number $Re_{T}=113$) discharged into an initially stationary ambient.

Teaching

CEE 6261. Environmental Fluid Mechanics. 3 Credit Hours.

Dynamics, mixing, and contaminant transport in surface water bodies, including lakes, rivers, estuaries, and coastal waters. Introduction to numerical models. Prediction of mixing zones.

CEE 4200. Hydraulic Engineering. 3 Credit Hours.

Applications of fluid mechanics to engineering and natural systems including fluid drag, open channel flow, turbomachinery, and environmental hydraulics; laboratory experiments; computational hydraulics.

CEE 6281. Open Channel Hydraulics. 3 Credit Hours.

Flow of liquids with free surfaces in artificial and natural channels. Analysis of flow resistance. Computation of gradually varied flow profiles. Flow through transitions, spillways, bridges, culverts. Analysis of unsteady flow.

Lab News

Awarded USGS 104b grant (FY 2022) on studying the hydraulic transients in water distribution systems

Our project Hydraulic transients in water distribution systems – the role of unsteady friction and groundwater contamination has been awarded a 1-year research grant from U.S. Department of the Interior Water Resources Research Act Program.

Congrats Alex Zimmer for receiving the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher award in the Spring Symposium

Congratulate Alex for winning the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher award in the Spring 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium (UROP Symposium). This is a great accomplishment! Check out the UROP Symposium website to learn more

Awarded NSF grant for studying the melting of glacier ice

Our project Revising Models of the Glacier-ocean Boundary Layer with Novel Laboratory Experiments has been recently awarded a 4-year research grant from NSF Office of Polar Programs (OPP). This is a collaboration with Dr.

Alex Zimmer Awarded President's Undergraduate Research Award for Fall 2021!

Congratulations to Alex for winning the first PURA in Et al. lab to fund his research over this fall.

Upcoming Seminar at Johns Hopkins Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics

Tune in to the virtual seminar https://wse.zoom.us/j/93762992307 this Friday (Feb. 26, 2021) 3 pm EST. Title: “Pseudo-Volumetric Reconstruction of Velocity and Density Fields from 2D Data & Energy Cascade in Multiphase Flows”

 
 
 
 
 

Et al. lab starts

School of Civil and Environmental Enginnering at Georgia Tech

Nov 2019 – Present

Contact

  • chrislck@gatech.edu
  • Mason Building, 790 Atlantic Dr, Atlanta, GA 30332
  • Chris Lai’s office is at Mason 2223