Technical Meteorology
The Environmental Wind Tunnel Laboratory features prominently in research and education at the Meteorological Institute. Custom-built boundary layer wind tunnels are used to simulate in detail wind flow and transport phenomena within the lower atmospheric boundary layer. Despite the increasing capabilities of modern computational fluid dynamics, even now the research tool "boundary layer wind tunnel" remains to be a likewise important and valuable source of information for bridging the gap between field data and computational modeling. Wind tunnel modeling helps improving our knowledge about the dynamics of flow and dispersion phenomena in low level atmospheric wind flows.
The EWTL features two conventional boundary layer wind tunnels, a multilayer wind tunnel for simulating stably stratified boundary layers and a Goettingen-type aerodynamic wind tunnel used for research and education.
Research at the EWTL covers topics such as
- dynamics/turbulence of winds within the lower atmospheric boundary layer,
- wind climate, ventilation and air quality in urban areas,
- airborne hazardous material dispersion from accidental releases,
- wind energy research,
- building indoor/outdoor exchange of pollutants and natural ventilation,
- dispersion of biogenic emissions from natural resources etc.
Main objectives of our work are improving knowledge about atmospheric wind flow and transport phenomena close to the ground and the scientific development, improvement and validation of tools and means for solving practical problems in the field of environmental meteorology. Together with the MeMi group, EWTL is representing the research topic "Technical Meteorology", successfully bridging the gap between natural sciences and engineering in a truly interdisciplinary research environment for more than 30 years now.