Imaging pressure in flows: New grant to help solve a major engineering challenge

Dr Roeland de Kat and Professor Bharatham Ganapathisubramani are taking part in a three year European Union project with nine partners, NIOPLEX; Southampton's share of the award is €250,250. Within this project, they will develop new methods to accurately measure pressure using imaging methods within turbulent flows of air or liquids.

At present, researchers can use many sensors and/or a lot of measurements to capture information about pressure, but these techniques are limited and do not give an accurate and complete picture of all the forces within turbulent flows. The new methods that is based on imaging the flow will allow them to understand more about these complex processes. This knowledge can be used to make structures such as aircraft wings, cars and even pipelines more efficient.

To tackle this challenge, the Southampton team will use the University's wind tunnels and other facilities to test and perfect this new technique and apply it to turbulent flows to gain better insight into the nature of turbulence.