UK hydraulics research: Deep water ahead

Hydraulics of Vascular Water Transport

The science of plant water transport is equal parts of physics and biology. Plants have evolved a complex wick system that harnesses the cohesive hydrogen bond energy of liquid water and suppresses the heterogeneous nucleation of caVitation. Trade-offs between making the wick safe against cavitation and implosion, yet efficient in moving water, result in the process being limiting to plant perf...

Deep drilling moves ahead

Deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could resume within weeks under a policy by the US government, which has come under increasing criticism from the oil industry and politicians in the region over the impact of the drilling halt and worries from scientists that the full impact has not yet been assessed. Oil and gas exploration in the gulf’s deep waters has been stopped since May, when Ob...

Drought resistance of Ailanthus altissima: root hydraulics and water relations.

Drought resistance of Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle is a major factor underlying the impressively wide expansion of this species in Europe and North America. We studied the specific mechanism used by A. altissima to withstand drought by subjecting potted seedlings to four irrigation regimes. At the end of the 13-week treatment period, soil water potential was -0.05 MPa for well-watered co...

Validation of Reactor Physics-thermal Hydraulics Coupled Calculation in Water-cooled Research Reactors with Laminar Flow Regimes

A collaboration between the University of Florida and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) has been formed to develop and validate detailed coupled multiphysics models of the zero-power (100 W) CROCUS reactor at EPFL and the 100 kW University of Florida Training Reactor, for the comprehensive analysis of the reactor behavior under transient (neutronic or thermal-hydraulic ...

UK Undergraduate Research Program