Wim Uijttewaal

My curiosity is triggered by the great consequences of turbulence as we find them in our daily life. Whether it is the ever changing weather patterns, the mixing of olive oil with vinegar in making a salad dressing, or the incredibility shaped plan-forms of natural rivers, all large-scale mixing and transport processes are governed by the complex turbulent motions, that work sometimes in our advantage but can often be a nuisance as in the case of e.g. cycling against the wind.

In hydraulic engineering the effects of turbulence are obvious, but it is often treated in a rather empirical way by parameterizing it as a diffusion process. However in the interaction with boundaries, (sediment, rock), and obstacles (vegetation, bridge piers) local processes dominate the interaction stresses. I consider it therefore important to make an attempt to understand what is going on at small spatial and temporal scales and translate this to large scale of applications. The Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at TUDelft is well equipped for this research and perfectly embedded in our Hydraulic Engineering department in which a wide range of expertise is present.

Specialties:

• Shallow flows: mixing layers, groyne fields, bends, lateral expansions, roughness variations
• Rapidly varying flows: weirs, bed forms, innundated flood planes
• Sediment transport: particle turbulence interaction, river mophodynamics
• Fluid Structure interation: stability of breakwaters, vegetated flows, scour around obstacles
• Experimental techniques: ADV, LDA, PIV