H2O'Lyon Webinar #14 // George Constantinescu

Speaker:
George S. Constantinescu, Professor, University of Iowa. George is hosted at the LMFA laboratory from Mai 2023 to August 2023, and supported by the graduate school H₂O'Lyon.

How advanced three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics can be useful for ecologists?

Many ecological and biological models (e.g., mussel population models, fish behavior models) require data on hydrodynamics (3-D velocity field) and transported variables (e.g., phytoplankton). There is lots of potential for coupling models used by scientists in various disciplines (e.g., river ecology, sustainability of water eco-systems) with data available from 3-D simulations including eddy resolving simulations that resolve the energetically important (unsteady) turbulent structures in the flow. The talk will discuss examples of applying such numerical techniques at both laboratory and field scale to investigate the physics of flows and transport processes in lakes, reservoirs and river environments over a wide range of scales, to develop strategies leading to a sustainable engineering design and to help in river management.

Examples will include predicting:

1. temperature stratification and forecasting fish movement in the vicinity of hydropower dams
2. exchange processes at groyne fields in rivers;
3. thermal-driven exchange flow between open water and floating vegetation mats;
4. phytoplankton transport and mussel stability for open channel flow over a mussel bed;
5. bioconvection in bacteria layers forming in stratified alpine lakes.

Dr. Constantinescu is a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Iowa and a Research Engineer at IIHR-Hydroscience and Engineering. His research program is based on the use of eddy-resolving simulations to understand the physics of several important classes of environmental and geo-physical flows. Dr. Constantinescu’s current research focuses on turbulence and transport in rivers and lakes, stratified flows, shallow flows, eco-hydraulics, numerical modeling of floods and flow in porous media

Learn more about George...

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