Previous work on rigid splitter plates in the wake of a bluff body has shown that the primary vortex shedding can be suppressed for sufficiently long splitter plates. In the present work, we study the problem of a flexible splitter plate in the wake of a circular cylinder. In this case, the splitter plate can deform due to the fluid forces acting on it, and hence the communication between the two sides of the wake is not totally disrupted like in the rigid splitter plate case. In particular, we study two kinds of flexible splitter plates. In the first case, the splitter plate is rigid but is flexibly mounted (hinged) to the cylinder, while in the second case, the entire splitter plate is flexible. We are interested in both the dynamics of the splitter plate, if they do vibrate at all, and in the wake dynamics downstream of the flexible splitter plates. The main parameters in the problem are the splitter plate length (L) to cylinder diameter (D) ratio, the relative mass of the plate, the Reynolds number, and the stiffness and internal damping associated with the flexible plate. In our study, we investigate this problem in the limit where the stiffness and internal damping of the plate are negligible and hence are not parameters of interest. For the hinged-rigid splitter plate case, experiments show that the splitter plate oscillations increase with Reynolds numbers at low values of Re, and are found to reach a saturation amplitude level at higher Re. This type of saturation amplitude level that appears to continue indefinitely with Re, appears to be related to the fact that there is no structural restoring force in this case, and has been seen previously for elastically-mounted cylinders with no restoring force. In the present case, the saturation tip amplitude level can be up to 0.45D,where D is the cylinder diameter. For this hinged-rigid splitter plate case, it is found that the splitter plate length to cylinder diameter (L/D) ratio is crucial in determining the character and magnitude of the oscillations. For small splitter plate lengths (L/D ≤ 3.0), the oscillations appear to be nearly periodic with tip amplitudes of about 0.45D nearly independent of L/D. The non-dimensional oscillation frequencies (fD/U ) on the other hand are found to continuously vary with L/D from fD/U ≈ 0.2at L/D =1 to fD/U ≈ 0.1 at L/D = 3. As the splitter plate length is further increased beyond L/D ≥ 4.0, the character of the splitter plate oscillations suddenly changes. The oscillations become aperiodic with much smaller amplitudes. In this long splitter plate regime, the spectra of the oscillations become broadband, and are reminiscent of the change in character of the wake oscillations seen in the earlier fixed-rigid splitter plate case for L/D ≥ 5.0. It appears that the vortex shedding is nearly inhibited for L/D ≥ 4.0 in the present case. This is also supported by measurements of the wake vorticity field from Particle-Image Velocimetry (PIV). The phase-averaged PIV vorticity fields show that the strength of the shed vortices decreases rapidly as the splitter plate length increases. For longer splitter plates, L/D ≥ 4.0, the plate oscillations are no longer periodic, and hence it appears that the wake vortices are not synchronized with the splitter plate motions. For the entirely-flexible splitter plate case, the splitter plate deformations appear to be in the form of a travelling wave. In this case, the tip amplitudes are significantly larger of the order of 1.1D, and the non-dimensional oscillation frequency (fD/U )is close to 0.2, approximately the same as the Strouhal number for the bare cylinder. In sharp contrast to the hinged-rigid splitter plate case, the non-dimensional amplitude and frequency appear to be nearly independent of the normalized splitter plate length (L/D)even up to L/D =7.0. PIV measurements of the wake vorticity field indicates that there appears to be a nearly continuous sheet of vorticity on both sides of the flexible splitter plate, and the vortex sheet sheds and forms distinct vortices only at the trailing edge of the plate. The strength of these shed vortices appears to be close to that of the bare cylinder at similar Re. The results appear to suggest that in this entirely-flexible case, the vortices form at the same frequency and are of the same strength as in the bare cylinder case, but their formation is just pushed further downstream. This would suggest that in this case, the base suction and drag could be lower than the bare cylinder. Further, the formation of vortices further downstream of the body could imply that this type of flexible splitter plate could be useful to suppress vortex-induced vibrations (VIV).

Unconfined multiple interacting confluent round jets are interesting from a purely scientific point of view, as interaction between neighboring jets brings additional complexity to the flow field. Unconfined confluent round jets also exist in various engineering applications, such as ventilation supply devices, sewage disposal systems, combustion burners, chemical mixing or chimney stacks. Even so, little scientific attention has been paid to unconfined confluent round jets. The present work uses both advanced measurement techniques and computational models to provide deeper understanding of the turbulent flow field development of unconfined confluent round jets. Both Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) have been used to measure mean velocity and turbulence properties within two setups, consisting of a single row of 1×6 jets and a square array of 6×6 confluent jets. Simulations using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of the 6×6 setup were conducted using three different Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models: the standard k-ε, the RNG k-ε and the Reynolds Stress model (RSM). The results from the CFD simulations were compared with experimental data. The employed RANS turbulence models were all capable of accurately predicting mean velocities and turbulent properties in the investigated confluent jet array. In general the RSM and k-ε std. models provided smaller deviations between numerical and experimental results than the RNG k-ε model. In terms of mean velocity the second-order closure model (RSM) was not found to be superior to the less complex standard k-ε model. The validated CFD model was employed in a parametrical investigation, including five independent variables: inlet velocity, nozzle diameter, nozzle edge-to-edge spacing, nozzle height and the number of jets in the array. The parametrical investigations made use of statistical methods in the form of response surface methodology. The derived response surface models provided information on the principal influence and relative importance of the investigated parameters within the investigated design space. The positions of the jets within the array strongly influence both mean velocity and turbulence. In all investigated setups the jets experience merging and combining. Square arrays also include considerable jet convergence, which was not present in the 1×6 jet array. Due to the jet convergence in square arrays the turbulent flow field, especially for jets far away from the array center, is affected by mean flow curvature. Jets located along the sides of square jet arrays experience strong jet-to-jet interactions that result in considerable jet deformation, shorter potential core, higher turbulent kinetic energy and faster velocity decay compared to other jets. Jets located at the corners of the array do not interact as strongly with neighboring jets as do the jets along the sides. The locations of merging and combined points differ considerably between different jets and different jet configurations. As the jets combine a zone with uniform stream-wise velocity and low turbulence intensity forms in the center of square jet arrays. This zone has been called Confluent Core Zone (CCZ) due to its similarities with the potential core zone of a single jet. Within the CCZ the appropriate scaling length changes from nozzle diameter to the effective source diameter. The parametrical investigation showed that nozzle diameter and edge-to-edge nozzle spacing were the most important of the investigated parameters, reflecting a strong dependence on dimensionless jet spacing, S/d0. Higher S/d0 delays both merging and combining of the jets and leads to a CCZ with lower velocity and longer downstream extension. Increasing the array size leads to a reduced combined point distance, a stronger inwards displacement of jets in the outer part of the array, and reduced entrainment near the nozzles. A higher inlet velocity was found to increase the jet convergence in the investigated square confluent jet arrays. Nozzle height generally has minor impact on the investigated response variables.

No description available.

To quench a thermal runaway reaction in a chemical rector, an efficient approach is the introduction of a small quantity of a liquid inhibiting agent, named a “killer”, into the mixing vessel. In this thesis, an experimental approach has been coupled tightly with numerical modelling using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The first part of this thesis is devoted to a study of the hydrodynamics of partially-baffled mixing vessels, including the free-surface deformation caused by the central vortex. The use of an inhomogeneous, multiphase approach allowed simulation of the free-surface deformation. The capability of this novel method was demonstrated by very good agreement between the numerical predictions and experimental data. In the second part, liquid jet injection at the free-surface was coupled with the vessel hydrodynamics. Numerical results, obtained using an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, have again shown good agreement with experimental data. These results allowed the jet trajectory to be modelled and its penetration into the agitated vessel was quantified. New mixing criteria were introduced that are specific to this application. Finally, the numerical methods validated at the pilot scale were applied at the industrial scale and allowed the proposal of practical improvements to the safety of the synthesis reactors studied

Natural turbulent convection studies encompass a wide range of flows occurring in nature, for example, atmospheric and oceanic flows, con-vection in the Earth’s mantle, convection in the stars and also in many engineering applications. Rayleigh-Benard convection (RBC), i.e. con-vection in a horizontal fluid layer confined between two plates with a temperature differential maintained across them, has been a proto-type problem in the studies of turbulent natural convection. Many small scale and global features of the flow in the turbulent regime of RBC are known, yet the flow dynamics is not fully understood, es-pecially at high Rayleigh numbers (Ra). Present work comprises of experimental investigations of a different type of flow, high Rayleigh number turbulent convection in a long vertical tube (abbreviated as tube convection or TC). The tube of aspect ratio (length to diameter) of about 10, open at both the ends interconnects two large tanks. The flow driven by an unstable density difference created between the two tanks, has some unique features, different from RBC. The net flow at any tube cross-section is zero and the time averages of the velocities, the Reynolds shear stress and the mean shear are also zero. Turbu-lent energy production is therefore solely due to buoyancy. The flow is axially homogeneous and axisymmetric. In the homogeneous region, the mean density gradient is linear. Rayleigh number in TC is conve-niently defined based on the mean (linear) density gradient (denoted by Rag). Two sets of experiments are carried out. In one set of experiments, the density difference is created using brine and fresh water and in another set, it is created using heat. The ranges of Rag achieved are 3 × 108 < Rag < 8 × 109 in the experiments using salt (Schmidt number, Sc ≈ 600) and 5 × 104 < Rag < 5 × 106 in the experiments using heat (Prandtl number, P r ≈ 6). From the measured salt and heat fluxes in both the sets of experiments, the non dimensional flux 1 1 scaling above a certain value of Rag is obtained as N ug ∼ Rag2 P r 2 and from the velocity measurements in the experiments using salt, the 1 Reynolds number scaling is obtained as Re ∼ Rag2 P r− 12 . Both these are as per the predicted scalings by the mixing length model proposed by Arakeri et al. (2000) for high Rag convection in the vertical tube. The flux scaling N u ∼ (RaP r)2 , also known as the ‘ultimate regime’ of convection, expected at very high Ra but not yet observed in the experiments in classical RBC, is easily achieved in TC at relatively lower values of Ra. The fluxes and Reynolds numbers in TC are orders of magnitude higher as compared to those obtained in RBC for similar values of Ra and P r. In the lower range of Rag values for P r ≈ 6, a transition to a new flux scaling, N u ∼ (RaP r)0.29 is found. Similar transitions are also found to be present in the results of Tovar (2002) for Sc ≈ 600 and in the DNS results of Schmidt et al. (2012) for P r = 1, at different values of Rag. Collecting all these data, it is shown that the transition occurs at a fixed Grashof number of 1.6 × 105, independent of P r. Velocity measurements are carried out using particle image velocime-try (PIV) in the salt experiments. Kinetic energy spectra computed from the velocity fields are presented for the locations from the tube axis to the wall, for the lowest and the highest values of Rag achieved in the experiments. The spatial energy spectrum of lateral velocity at the tube axis follows Kolmogorov-Obukhov (KO) scaling (−5/3 scaling exponent) while the spatial spectrum of longitudinal velocity shows a scaling slightly higher than −5/3 but lower than −11/5 (the Bolgiano-Obukhov (BO) scaling). The scalar spectra is computed from the concentration fields obtained from planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) in the experiments using salt, and also from the temperature measurements from the experiments using heat. Both the concentra-tion and temperature fluctuations spectra show some evidence of dual scaling - BO scaling (−7/5 scaling exponent) in the inertial subrange followed by Obukhov-Corrsin (OC) scaling (−5/3 scaling exponent) over a narrow range of scales. Light propagation through the buoyancy driven turbulent flow in TC has also been experimentally investigated. Light propagation through convective turbulence is encountered in many situations. In some cases e.g. in observational astronomy it is undesirable, while in some other cases it is useful, e.g. in remote sensing of meteorological parameters. In the present study, light intensity and angle of arrival fluctuations in a parallel beam of light are measured. Laser shadowgraphy is used in the intensity measurements while the angle of arrival is obtained by measuring deflections of narrow laser beams, created by passing collimated laser light through a mask having equispaced grid of holes. Background oriented schlieren (BOS) measurements have also been carried out to obtain the displacements, which are proportional to the angle of arrivals. The equations for frequency spectrum of intensity and angle of arrival from the literature, developed for isotropic, ho-mogeneous turbulent media, are modified for the flow in the present case and the asymptotic scalings for high and low frequency ranges are obtained. The scalings in the frequency spectra computed from the measurements of intensity and angle of arrival fluctuations are com-pared with the obtained asymptotic scalings. The results from the present work are also compared with results from studies in the atmo-sphere and lab experiments.

The initial slow viscous growth of the Tollmein-Schlichting wave in a canonical boundary layer transition is absent in bypass and wake-induced transitions. Although there have been a great deal of studies pertaining to bypass transition in boundary layers, the underlying breakdown mechanism is not clearly understood and it continues to be a subject of interest. Similarly, a wake-induced transition caused by Karman wake in the freestream remains poorly understood. The breakdown in this case is caused by anisotropic disturbances containing large scale unsteadiness in the freestream. Differing view points among workers on the transition process have also added to the complexities. In this thesis, bypass and wake-induced boundary layer transitions studied experimentally towards understanding various flow breakdown features are reported. The measurements were made on a flat plate boundary layer in a low-speed wind tunnel. The particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique was extensively used. Various grids were used to generate nearly isotropic freestream turbulence. A circular cylinder was placed at different heights from the plate leading edge to generate Karman wake in the freestream. Two cylinders of different diameters were used to vary the Reynolds number(based on the cylinder diameter). The PIV measurements being simultaneous over a large spatial domain enabled to assess various spatial transitional flow structures. In the case of bypass transition, the streamwise velocity fluctuation, u, is found to exhibit some organized negative and positive fluctuations that dominate the flow during transition, and confirm the simulation results reported in the literature. These positive and negative u fluctuations are found to be associated with the streak unsteadiness. By conditional sampling of these positive and negative u fluctuations, we find that urms (root-mean-squaredof u)can be expressed as a linear combination of urms,f and urms,b,i.e. urms = a(urms,f + urms,b); ais constant, and the subscripts fand bdenote the positive and nega-tive ufluctuations, respectively. Both urms,f and urms,b arefoundto follow the non-modal growth distribution. The wall-normal results clearly show that an inclined shear layer is often associated with an organized structure of negative ufluctuations and an inflectional in-stantaneous velocity profile. These inclined shear layers appear to be similar to those in ribbon-induced transition. The turbulent spot precursor appears to be the vortex shedding from an oscillating in-clined shear layer. Interestingly, the normalized vortex shedding fre-quency is found to be Reynolds number invariant, as in the case of ribbon-induced transition. The present study also confirms the sim-ulated turbulent spot features, including a thin log-law at the break-down stage. The spanwise plane PIV results reveal the signature of streak secondary instability in the flow in terms of symmetric and anti-symmetric streaks oscillations. The initial growth of streak amplitude is followed by a slow decay. The maximum streak amplitude is well above30% of the freestream velocity. These two aspects provide support to the streak instability analysis reported in the literature. While the present wake-induced transition study provides some sup-port to the available numerical simulation and experimental results, some new results have also emerged. The measured sharp rise in the disturbance energy during transition is found to be closer to the simulated result, compared to the difference reported in the literature. The spanwise vortices in the early stage, as also seen in other experimental studies, deform leading to the formation of lambda structures, the signature of which is found by the linear stochastic analysis. With increased Reynolds number and decreased cylinder height from the plate, the physical size of the lambda structure is found to decrease. These lambda structures are often found to appear in a staggered manner in the spanwise plane, as in the case of sub-harmonic boundary layer transition. Although a sub-harmonic peak in the frequency spectra is reported in the literature, as also in the present study, the clear staggered pattern went unnoticed. Streamwise streaks are subsequently generated due to the mean shear stretching of these lambda vortices. The spanwise spacing of these streamwise streaks is found to be comparable with the recent simulation results. Also, these streaks are found to undergo somewhat sinuous-like oscillations, compared to the only varicose type oscillations reported in the literature. The streak amplitude is found to saturate at about 35% of the freestream speed. Here again an inclined shear layer in the wall-normal plane is associated with organized negative u fluctuations and an inflectional instantaneous velocity profile. The movement of the peak urms towards the wall is found to be due to the positive u fluctuation, which follows a hairpin-like structure. The inclined shear layers herein are associated with the lambda or a hairpin-like structure. As in a by-pass transition, an inclined shear layer, vortex shedding from it, the imprint of which is also found in the linear stochastic analysis are present. The normalized high frequency shed vortices is found to be Reynolds number invariant in the present wake-induced transition, as in ribbon-induced and bypass transitions. Compared to the re-cent suggestion that the parent-offspring mechanism is the governing self-sustaining mechanism in the boundary layer, the present study suggests that streak-instability mechanism is also present. The proper orthogonal decomposition(POD) analysis of the experimental data was carried out with an emphasis on the bypass transition case studied. The first few energetic POD modes are found to capture the dominant flow structures, i.e. the organized positive and negative u fluctuations. In the case of bypass transition, the first two energetic POD modes are self-similar, i.e. independent of the freestream turbulent intensity and the Reynolds number. An attempt is also made to construct a low-dimensional model with the POD eigenfunction modes to predict the qualitative dynamics of bypass transition. This has revealed the existence of a traveling disturbance in the bypass transition. On the whole, the present study shows some similar breakdown features in bypass and wake-induced transitions, although more studies in this regard are essential.

Experiments are done using a smooth solid rigid homogeneous acrylic sphere rolling on an inclined plane which is submerged in water. The motivation for these experiments comes from a need to understand a class of solid-fluid interaction problems that include sediment transport, movement of gravel on ocean floor and river bed due to water currents. Experiments are performed in a glass water tank 15 cm wide by 14 cm deep by 61 cm long which can be tilted to desired angle. The sphere is released from rest on the inclined false bottom of the tank in quiescent water. Our experimental study has twofold aim: (1)to study the boundary layer separation, the three-dimensional eddying motion in the wake and the near-wake structure and(2) to establish hydrodynamic force coefficients by analyzing kinematical data of the sphere motion from start to till it attains terminal velocity. Experiments are carried out at moderate Reynolds number Rearound1500. Previous studies on the first problem exist in the literature for Reup to 350. Previous studies on the second problem do not clearly define the added-mass coefficient and the influence of the water tank side-walls on the drag coefficient. In the first study, the characterization of the wake is done using flow visualization methods (fluoresce in dye visualization and particle streak visualization) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). Laser light sheet obtained from an argon ion continuous laser beam is taken in different orientations to illuminate the fluoresce in dye or 14 m silver-coated hollow glass spheres. These experiments show that the wake behind the rolling sphere up to 1.6 diameters (or 1.6D) downstream is confined within height 1.2Dand width1.2D. At about 1.8Ddownstream, the wake sways alternately on either side of the equatorial plane, moving in lateral-vertical direction and moving out of the confining region; this gives zigzag appearance to the wake. Also in these experiments, we observe that the flow separations from the surface of the rolling sphere show three separation zones. The eddies shed from the primary separation surface on the upper hemisphere are symmetrical about the equatorial plane with Strouhal number St=1.0. The primary separation is affected by the symmetrical secondary separations on the rear surface in the piggyback region — it is the region near the upper rear surface of the sphere behind the transverse equatorial plane and below the primary separation surface. The lower eddies below the primary separation zone are shed alternately on either side of the equatorial plane with shedding frequency St=0.5. Our experiments show that there is a viscous blockage of width 0.4Dat the crevice near the point of contact. On either side of the viscous blockage at the crevice, we see weak symmetric eddies. Based on our experimental observations, we proceed to build a simple physical model of the separated flow on the surface of the rolling sphere. In the second study, the motion of the sphere is photographed and paired data of the displacement and time is obtained for the sphere motion from the start of motion till terminal velocity is reached at about 4.5 sphere diameters from the point of release of the sphere. Equation of motion of the sphere is solved numerically treating added-mass coefficient Ca and drag coefficient Cd as parameters. Experimental data is fitted on these solutions and the best fit gives the values of the force coefficients. Theoretical value of Ca equal to 0.621 is confirmed experimentally. Value of Cd is found to be 1.23 at Re=990 and it is 1.06 at Re= 1900. Side-wall effects become important for ratio of diameter of sphere to width of tank greaterthan0.20.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain one of the leading causes of deaths worldwide. The formation and presence of aneurysm is a very important question in the study of this CVDs. An aneurysm is a balloon-like bulge on a blood vessel which forms over time. An aneurysm is usually considered to be a result of weakening of the blood vessel walls, this definition has stood over many years without being conclusively proven. Eventually, the aneurysm could clot or burst due to degradation of the aneurysm wall and accumulation of blood. The latter would lead to internal bleeding and result in a stroke. Local hemodynamics have been found to be very important in the study of the evolution of an aneurysm. In this study, a steady flow experimental investigation was conducted using planar Particle Image Velocimetery (PIV) on a rigid flow phantom of an idealised geometry consisting of a curve parent artery and a spherical aneurysm located on the outer convex side of the curvature. The flow phantom was fabricated directly using a commercially available desktop Stereolithography (STL) 3D printer instead of the more conventional investment casting method using a core. Although 3D printing technologies have been around for many years, the fabrication of flow phantoms by direct printing is still largely under-explored. This thesis details the results of investigation into the optimal printing and post-printing procedures required to produce a flow phantom of suitable clarity and transparency. Other important areas of concern such as the geometric accuracy, surface topography and refractive index of the final model are also investigated. A planar PIV is conducted to study the impact of flow rates on the local flow field in and around the aneurysm and their impact on the wall shear stress. It was found that direct 3D printing is appropriate for the fabrication of flow phantoms suitable for PIV or other flow visualisation techniques. It reduces the complexities and time needed compared to the conventional investment casting methods. It was observed that the optical properties of the printed material such as the high refractive index (RI) and the transmittivity of light could cause a problem in large models. From the PIV measurements it was found that flow rates affect the flow field in both the parent artery and the aneurysm. First, high velocities were observed on the outer curvature of the parent artery. Secondly the centre of rotation in the aneurysm is not at the geometric centre but is displaced slightly in the direction of the flow. Finally, the flow rate affects the angle in which flow enters the aneurysm from the parent vessel. This change in the flow angle affects the flow within the aneurysm. A higher flow rate in the parent artery increases the incident angle which brings the centre of rotation closer to the geometric centre of the aneurysm, this changes the location and magnitude of high velocities and hence the local wall shear stress (WSS) on the wall of the aneurysm. This may have implications in the evolution of aneurysms. / Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Currently environmental concerns are driving internal combustion engine manufacturers to seek greater fuel efficiency, more refinement and lower emissions. Cyclic variation is a known obstacle to achieving the greatest potential against these goals and therefore an understanding of how to reduce these is sought. It is widely accepted that cyclic variation in in-cylinder flow motions is a key contributor to overall cyclic variation and therefore the characterisation of factors affecting these is an important step in the process of achieving a better understanding and ultimately control of cyclic variation. This thesis reports the development of a novel optical engine research facility in which high speed digital particle image velocimetry (HSDPIV) has been applied to the study of flow field behaviour within a direct injection spark ignition (DISI) engine. This study investigates the spatial and temporal development of flow structures over and within many engine cycles. Flow field PIV measurements have been captured with a high spatial resolution and temporal frequencies up to 5 kHz from a number of measurement locations at a large range of crank angles. The major contributions from this work have included the use of the novel measurement technique to investigate spatial and temporal flow field development in the intake runner, valve jet, in-cylinder tumble and swirl planes and the pent roof. The gathered data have been used to investigate cycle by cycle variations in both high and low frequency flow structures. Major findings of this work have included the observation of highly varying flow fields throughout the engine cycle. Frequency analysis of these flows has allowed the low frequency bulk motions and higher frequency turbulent components to be studied. The low frequency flow field components are shown to create varying flow field interactions within the cylinder that also affect the manner in which the flow develops over the course of the cycle. The intensity of the turbulence fluctuations, u , has been calculated based upon the high frequency components within the flow and variations within this are shown to correlate with pressure related combustion parameters.

This thesis focuses on generating real world turbulence levels in a water tunnel rotor test using fractal grids and characterizing the effect of the fractal grid generated-turbulence on the performance of hydrokinetic turbines. The research of this thesis is divided into three studies: one field study and two laboratory studies. The field study was conducted at the Canadian Hydro Kinetic Turbine Test Centre (CHTTC) on the Winnipeg River. An Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) was used in the field study to collect flow measurements in the river. The laboratory studies were conducted at the University of Victoria (UVic) fluids research lab and the Sustainable Systems Design Lab (SSDL). In addition, the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique was used in the experiential studies to obtain quantitative information about the vector flow field along the test section, both upstream and downstream of the rotor’s plane. The first study is a field study aiming to provide real flow characteristics and turbulence properties at different depths from the free-surface to boundary layer region of a fast river current by conducting a field study in the Winnipeg River using ADV. A novel technique to deploy and control an ADV from free-surface to boundary layer in a fast-current channel is introduced in this work. Flow characteristics in the river, including mean flow velocities and turbulence intensity profiles are analyzed. The obtained results indicate that the maximum mean velocity occurs below the free-surface, suggesting that the mean velocity is independent of the channel depth. From the free-surface to half depth, it was found that changes in both the mean velocity and turbulence intensity are gradual. From mid-depth to the river bed, the mean velocity drops rapidly while the turbulence intensity increases at a fast rate. The turbulent intensity varied from 9% at the free-surface to around 17.5% near the river bed. The results of this study were used in the second lab study to help designing a fractal grid for a recirculating water flume tank. The goal was to modify the turbulence intensity in the water tunnel such that the generated turbulence was similar to that in the river at a location typical of a hydrokinetic device. The properties of fractal-generated turbulence were experimentally investigated by means of 2D Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The streamwise turbulent intensity profiles for different grids along the channel are presented. Additionally, visualization of the average and fluctuating flow fields are also presented. The results are in good agreement with results in literature. The third and final study investigated the power coefficient of a scale hydrokinetic turbine rotor in controlled turbulent flow (7.4 % TI), as well as in the low-turbulence smooth flow (0.5% TI) typical of lab scale testing. PIV was employed for capturing the velocity field. The results show that using realistic TI levels in the water tunnel significantly decrease the turbine’s power coefficient compared to smooth flow, highlighting the importance of considering this effect in future experimental campaigns. / Graduate