SAFL Featured Stories
Using Supercomputers to Visualize Hydraulic Jumps and Air Entrainment
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The University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) recently featured research involving SAFL faculty John Gulliver and Lian Shen as well as SAFL alumnus Adam Witt. Read more about how the research team used supercomputers to create complex visualizations of hydraulic jumps.
Hong awarded McKnight Land-Grant Professorship
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SAFL faculty Jiarong Hong was recently one of eight professors awarded a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship with the University of Minnesota. This two-year position is designed to “advance the careers of the most promising junior faculty members” and includes a stipend to support ongoing research efforts.
Hong receives NSF CAREER award to measure wind turbine wakes using snow
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When he began work as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Jiarong Hong brought with him a fresh perspective on the abundant Minnesota snow: harness it for research breakthroughs.
Modeling the High Seas
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Wind and waves make measuring the surface of the ocean and how it interacts with the atmosphere a daunting task, but the difficulty also creates a perfect opportunity for SAFL researcher Dr. Lian Shen to develop a model exploring these relationships.
Recent SAFL faculty celebrates one year at SAFL
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St. Anthony Falls Laboratory’s newest faculty member, Dr. Filippo Coletti, just celebrated his one-year anniversary at the University of Minnesota. An experimentalist in fluid mechanics, Dr. Coletti explained his interest in his field stems from “the visual beauty of it, and the fact that it's ubiquitous. I was also enthralled by the fact that, although we might know most of the governing equations, we still can't predict or even understand the behavior of many flow phenomena.”
Renovation Complete, SAFL Looks Ahead
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As a unique research facility built directly into the banks of the Mississippi River, the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) is a piece of Twin Cities history. It was also, in 2009, falling apart. The Upper Deck, which allows vehicle access to the building, was structurally unsound and in danger of caving in on the heads of researchers working below in the Sediment Lab. The 1950s-era elevator no longer worked, and the lack of air conditioning or any form of climate control meant that the sensitive equipment in the SAFL atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel was out of commission for the humid months of summer.
A look back at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory
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Around 1908 the University of Minnesota began dreaming about establishing a hydraulic laboratory at the St. Anthony Falls after the City of Minneapolis abandoned a pumping station desirably located on Hennepin Island. The actual lab didn’t materialize until 1936 when President Roosevelt’s New Deal provided funds and workers through the Works Progress Administration.
Improving understanding of river restoration design and techniques
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Rivers and streams are dynamic systems—often reworking their beds and banks as sediment is picked up, carried along and deposited downstream. Annually, billions of dollars are spent on critical stream and river bank stabilization and restoration projects to slow or halt eroding stream banks and protect our nation’s built environment, and transportation and natural resource infrastructure alongside and across these waterways.
SAFL welcomes Mechanical Engineering faculty
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SAFL is pleased to welcome two faculty from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
New project to harness energy of NYC's East River
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University of Minnesota and Verdant Power to lead new effort that advances research, innovation and training