Laboratoire d'Hydraulique Environnementale

Mission

The Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (Laboratoire d'Hydraulique Environnementale, LHE) is a laboratory within the Civil Engineering Institute of the School of Natural, Architectural and Constructed Environmental Sciences (Faculté Environnement Naturel, Architectural et Construit) (ENAC).

Scientific activities and applications

The LHE is a laboratory of environmental fluid mechanics whose research strives toward a better understanding of hydraulic processes in the environment, with particular emphasis on the problems encountered in the Alps. The field of research covered within the LHE includes the following topics:

• Dynamics of free-surface flows on steep slopes, with the objective of modeling natural hazards induced by water such as mudflows and avalanches.
• Physics of bed load transport, aiming at better management of sediments in waterways.
• Hydrodynamics of waterways, with the objective of studying free surface flow to better understand dynamic, transport phenomena within rivers (aiming for better management of water resources together).

Our facility to simulate avalanches of fluid.	Measuring velocity profiles using PIV techniques.	Idealized sediment-transport experiments.	Rheometrical measurements
Avalanches at Lanches in March 1995 (Peisey-Nancroix, Savoie, France).	Torrential mitigation system (Schlans, Grisons, Suisse.	Bed structures (Lake Tahoe, Nevada).	Acoustic Doppler Velocity Profiler (ADVP) used in the Venoge river.