Water Research @ USC AME

In honor of World Water Day, we are highlighting related research in the department on river restoration, understanding coastal hazards, and making engineering systems energy-efficient by taking inspiration from nature.?

Associate Professor Mitul Luhar, PhD is part of the Los Angeles River Integrated Design Lab (LA-RIDL) led by Prof. Alexander Robinson (USC School of Architecture), in collaboration with Prof. Andreas Kratky (USC School of Cinematic Arts) and Prof. Gale Lucas (USC Institute of Creative Technologies), and other researchers. LA-RIDL aims to create a design interface for the LA River that brings together engineers, landscape architects, and community stakeholders to simultaneously revitalize the river and maintain flood capacity in light of climate change and the expected increase in extreme weather events — such as the recent barrage of record-breaking storms hitting Los Angeles.

The lab is developing a scale model for the Taylor Yard section of the river in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles and the US Army Corps of Engineers. Taylor Yard was acquired in 2017 with the aim of developing it into a river park with recreational space and native wetland areas in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics. However, it is also located in a section of the river that is prone to flooding and often viewed as a “choke point”.? As a result, any habitat restoration efforts must continue to provide flood protection.? Dr. Luhar is helping design the scale model to ensure that it adequately reproduces the expected hydraulics and contributing to the development of instrumentation that enables collaborative design and evaluation.? This includes a “pick and place” vegetation system to help evaluate tradeoffs between flood protection and habitat restoration, and instrumentation to measure flow conditions — both in the model and the river itself. These efforts build on Dr. Luhar’s prior research on understanding the impact of vegetation in environmental flows.?

At USC, Dr. Luhar leads the Fluid-Structure Interactions (FSI) Lab, which includes the Blue Water Channel. This is a large-scale fully-instrumented facility that enables research on environmental fluid mechanics and flow control techniques that aim to make large-scale transportation systems (shipping, aviation, pipelines) more energy efficient, as well as bio-inspired engineering.??

Several students conduct research in the Water Channel, including Idan Eizenberg, JP Chu, and Morgan Jones.

Idan Eizenberg is a second year PhD student in Aerospace Engineering. On his project on Drag Reduction Using Permeable Surfaces, Idan said, “I'm passionate about understanding the underlying physics in wall-bounded flows. I believe that development of theoretical models and validation with experiments both contribute to our knowledge of fluid dynamics, so we can improve engineering applications.” Prof. Luhar explained how Idan’s work “on developing surfaces that can control turbulent flows and reduce drag could make large-scale transportation systems such as pipelines for oil / water / gas transport, shipping, and aviation more efficient.”?

JP Chu is a second year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. When asked about his project, JP explained, "I was born in an island country, Taiwan. The beautiful ocean has always been a hidden hazard around us. A deeper understanding of ocean-river interactions can aid in protecting not only my country but places like California from potential disasters. The 2011 East Japan tsunami caused tsunami penetration much farther inland along rivers than through overland inundation. My project aims to understand tsunami intrusion and propagation in rivers so that we can quantify the potential hazard to communities and infrastructure.”

Morgan Jones is a third year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. Reflecting on his project, Morgan said, "I first became interested in the topic of bioinspired fluid dynamics because of my fascination with the ways in which scientists and engineers are looking to nature to inspire new technologies. It's exciting to think about how we can take inspiration from these natural systems to develop new solutions for modern challenges.” His experiment in the Water Channel uses a force-sensor on flapping fins to study motion parameters. “Think underwater robots driven by flapping foils rather than propellers,” Dr. Luhar explained.?

Outside of Dr. Luhar’s work, the water channel has been used by several AME undergraduate student groups as part of their senior design projects. Recent student design projects include the development of a wavemaker for the water channel and the design of a trash boom for the LA river.? We are grateful to have a facility that can support cutting-edge research and student projects that aim to understand environmental flows and design sustainable engineering solutions for critical water-related infrastructure.