Main Research Areas
The main topic of the research carried out at PL-LCH concentrates on the interaction of hydraulic structures and schemes with water, air, underground and environment. Research at LCH has essentially focuses on a better understanding of the physical process in view of practical application in order to answer to actual and future concerns of the civil engineering profession.
The main research areas are:
- Overland flow on macro roughness, precipitation – runoff models, formation and management of floods, forecasting of floods in catchments area influenced by reservoirs
- Determination of design floods and security of hydraulic schemes (dams and hydro power plants)
- Erosion of alpine watersheds by rain and surface flow, sediment transport mechanisms and silting-up of reservoirs (simulation of processes and development of measures to handle density and turbidity currents)
- Numerical modeling of surface flows (two phase and unsteady flows)
- Sediments transport in rivers
- Influence of macro roughness of river protection works on scouring in river bends, influence of a side weir on sediment transport in a channel
- Erosion of fissured media due to high velocity jets; propagation of dynamic pressures within fissures and rock joints, scour downstream of dams, influence of plunge pool geometry
- High velocity flow over macro roughness, overflow dams and fuse plugs
- Influence of the macro roughness of river banks on the traveling velocity of waves in channels due to hydropower peaking operation
- Lake shore protection measures, interaction of structures with waves and sediment transport, behavior and design of floating oil retaining reservoir against oil spills
- Design and analysis of appurtenant structures of hydropower plants and dams
- Design of high pressure tunnels and shafts by taking into account of hydraulic-mechanical interactions (influence of stresses on permeability), drainage of steel linings by valves to prevent buckling
The studies involve both numerical and physical modeling.