The
St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) is an administrative unit of the University
of Minnesota Department of Civil Engineering in the Institute of Technology.
SAFL is also affiliated with the Department of Geology and Geophysics and the
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, and is headquarters for the
National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED), an NSF-sponsored Science and
Technology Center.
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SAFL (e)Channel
Fall 2009
Dear Friends of SAFL,
Welcome to the second electronic issue of the SAFL Channel. If you haven't already, we hope that you will join us in our effort to conserve natural resources by subscribing to this new paperless version. Rest assured, whether in an email or through the post, the SAFL Channel will continue to provide the same feature stories, news, and updates as in the past. + Read more from the directorSincerely,
Fotis Sotiropoulos
Professor and Director
St. Anthony Falls Laboratory |
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A Mighty Windfall: DOE Awards Wind Consortium $7.9M
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 The U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) named a U of M-led consortium and two others to share up to $24
million for fostering wind energy development in the United States. Fotis Sotiropoulos,
director of SAFL and principal investigator on the project, along with
a group of faculty from the Institute of Technology, U of M Morris,
Syracuse University, and Dakota County Technical College will work in
close collaboration with a powerhouse consortium of industrial partners
to help reach the DOE's nationwide goal of achieving 20% wind power by
2030.
+ Read more |
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Biodiesel from Algae
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SAFL professors Miki Hondzo and Vaughan Voller
are collaborators on a new Minnesota Futures Grant, funded by the
Office of the Vice President for Research. In conjunction with researchers from plant biology (P.
Lefebvre, C. Silflow), electrical and computer engineering (M.
Jovanovic), and food science and nutrition (D. Mashek), Hondzo and
Voller will investigate the production of lipids by unicellular
green algae to provide a new feedstock for production of
biodiesel. The proposed research at SAFL will integrate fundamental
genetic research with applied engineering research to fully explore
the potential of green algae from micro-liter and multi-liter volumes
in a laboratory to hundred-liter volumes in a bioreactor in the Outdoor
StreamLab. In situ measurements and wireless data transfer will provide
opportunities for interdisciplinary education that will rely heavily on
visualization of microbiological and physical processes, in effect, a
'virtual' laboratory at SAFL.
+ Read more |
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Life and Times of the Six Inch Water Tunnel
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A history of SAFL's six-inch water tunnel, from construction to departure, by Ed Silberman.
+ Read More
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Alumni Spotlight
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Dr. Zal Tarapore, SAFL alum and current director of DHI Water & Environment Pvt Ltd in New Delhi, India, shares his memories of the early days at SAFL.
+ Read the full story
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Honors & Awards
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The University of Minnesota is the recipient of a recent $7.9M grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to foster wind energy development. Professor Fotis Sotiropoulos will lead a consortium of industrial and academic partners on this project.
Professor Roger Arndt has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society "for his seminal contributions to our understanding of cavitation including inception physics, erosion mechanisms, noise and vibration and effects on turbomachinery performance; and for his outstanding contributions to research and education in aeroacoustics, hydroacoustics and hydroturbine technology, " and Professor Fotis Sotiropoulos has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society "for seminal contributions in vortex dynamics, flow-structure interactions, and chaotic dynamics in civil, mechanical and biomedical applications." Election to Fellowship in the APS is limited to no more than one half of one percent of the membership, and is recognition by one's peers of outstanding contributions to physics.
Professor Fotis Sotiropoulos gave the keynote address "Advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling for Real-Life Hydraulic Engineering Flows: Toward the Virtual StreamLab," at the Chilean Congress of Hydraulic Engineering, Vina del Mar, Chile, October 19-22, 2009.
Assistant Professor Kimberly Hill received a 3-year $300k NSF award for Rheology of dense sheared granular mixtures: Computational and experimental studies on the effects of particle size distributions.
Professor John Gulliver, Research Fellow Andy Erickson, and visiting researcher Peter Weiss (Valparaiso University) were awarded a $404,000 research project from the MPCA/U.S.EPA 319 program, Aqueous pollutant capture by enhanced filter media. Their research will develop a design standard for enhancing sand and soil media that can be used in new or renovated sand filters, infiltration systems, rain gardens, and buffer strips to capture significant amounts of dissolved heavy metals, phosphorus, and nitrogen that are typically found in urban and agricultural runoff.
Graduate student Vamsi Ganti received the Institute on the Environment's (IonE) Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship. Working with NCED Director Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Ganti focuses his research on developing a new class of models for environmental transport processes; this work could lead to a greater understanding of the physics behind the processes that shape landscapes and could provide a better predictive capability in integrated watershed management.
SAFL alumnus Doug Barr (MS '49) is a recipient of the University of Minnesota's Outstanding Achievement Award, which recognizes graduates who have attained unusual distinction in their chosen fields or professions, and who have demonstrated outstanding achievement and leadership on a community, state, national, or international level.
Congratulations to Nikki Strong (PhD '06) and Professor Chris Paola, authors of the Journal of Sedimentary Research's 2008 Outstanding Paper Award, and Matt Wolinsky (former postdoc) and Chris Paola, co-authors on the JSR's 2008 Honorable Mention for Outstanding Paper.
NSF awarded Professors Jacques Finlay and Bob Sterner (EEB) $824,760 for their project "Sources and sinks of stoichiometrically imbalanced nitrate in the Laurentian Great Lakes."
Correction to the spring issue: The Freshwater Society's "2009 Outstanding Leadership Award" was given in part to Eric Novotny, not Eric Merten.
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SAFL In the News |
>>The release of SAFL's new Virtual StreamLab computer model made headlines in Discovery News, U News, MN Daily, and others.
>>Two articles on SAFL's stormwater research, and one article on the Outdoor StreamLab, appeared in a "Researching the Future" exclusive in Civil Engineering News online. Read them at www.cenews.com.
>>The recent $7.9M DOE award for a SAFL-led wind consortium made headlines in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, MPR, UNews, North American Windpower, and others.
>>Prof. Heinz Stefan talks to WCCO about the effects of road salt on Minnesota waters. An article about Stefan's research on road salt will also appear in the Jan/Feb issue of
Minnesota Conservation Volunteer.
>>SAFL monitors real-time water quality data, which can help make local lake water safer, reports WCCO. >> Jeff Marr, SAFL's associate director of applied research,
was a guest on WCCO AM's The Don Shelby Show on July 29. His appearance was part of Shelby's weekly "E-Day" show on energy and the environment.
>>Stormwater pollutant tracking at SAFL makes the news: Star Tribune, Kare11 and UNews. | |
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