LHSV - Saint-Venant Hydraulics Laboratory

Research Strategy 

The laboratory conducts R&D activities in the field of fluid mechanics applied to water systems and the environment. The applications of the research relate to river type free surface hydraulics in internal, maritime, and coastal waters, as well as harbors.

Research developments have applications in a number of fields relating to:

► Natural risks: management of aquatic events and protection against the ensuing risks to continental waters (flooding,…) and maritime waters (storms, surges, tsunamis …);

► Planning and environment: engineering structures in interaction with river, estuary, and coastal environments; management of interfaces between water and land environments; morphodynamical changes in waterways and coastal zones;

► Energy: exploitation of water energy, management and improvement in the operation and impact of hydroelectric and marine power structures, in particular offshore wave, water, and wind energy;

► Anticipation of the effects of climate change on the previous three issues.

 

Research positioning

The Laboratory develops knowledge, methods, and tools on waves and flows from the regional scale (ocean, catchment basin) to the local scale for the interactions between water flows and engineering structures. Its scientific project is built around 3 themes:

► Waves and maritime and coastal events,

► Flow modeling and simulation,

► Sedimentary dynamics.

It is based on the implementation of four complementary approaches: knowledge about physical processes, in particular through laboratory testing, mathematical models for the simulation of relevant phenomena, development of numerical simulation tools, and application of numerical or experimental tools to real situations.

A key research axis, because it has numerous applications in the industrial world, is the development of multiscale and multisystem simulation techniques and effective and precise associated numerical tools. The laboratory contributes to the development of the Telemac-Mascaret platform (www.opentelemac.org ) and the GPUSPH code (http:// www.gpusph.org), software applications that are widely disseminated and used in the academic and industrial worlds. LHSV has access to the experimental facilities at the EDF Lab de Chatou site, as well as wave and/or current basins and channels, offering intermediate scale models for testing and assessing research results.

 

Director: Sebastien Boyaval
Oversight: École nationale des ponts et chaussées, EDF R&D, Cerema

 

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