Head of Laboratory: prof. Václav Uruba

Problems concerning the transition from laminar shear flow to turbulence and also the structure and development of turbulent flow are studied in the Laboratory of Turbulent Shear Flows. The conditions for the formation and development of “coherent structures” and the issues of the stability of laminar shear flows are analysed. This issue is studied on “complex flows,” which are various cases of simple flow interactions (e.g. a fluid jet and cross stream) or the interaction of a fluid flow and a body (e.g. the circulation around a cylinder or an elastically-fixed airfoil). Recently the laboratory’s work has been oriented on the issue of controlling certain types of flows where the flow is purposefully influenced in order to achieve an optimised structure from the perspective of turbulence or boundary layer detachment. Special experimental methods, based on the use of hot-wire sensors and optical principles (PIV), are also used and developed in the laboratory.