Fotograf: Mikal Schlosser

Millions in funding for development of new turbulence theory

A DTU researcher has received DKK 12.9 million in funding from the Poul Due Jensen Foundation to build a laboratory that will contribute to the development of a new turbulence theory.

The young researcher Clara Marika Velte from DTU Mechanical Engineering has just received a grant from the Poul Due Jensen Foundation. The grant will fund the building of a new laboratory where advanced experiments, along with robust mathematical analyses, will form the basis of the development of a new turbulence theory.

“We’re proud to be able to support the turbulence research at DTU. New knowledge in this area will have a great impact on the product optimization of the many companies that work with turbulence either in air or liquid. Part of the grant is therefore also intended to ensure international dissemination of the research results,” says Kim Nøhr Skibsted, Executive Director of the Poul Due Jensen Foundation.

Businesses benefit from detailed knowledge

The basic principles of liquid and gas flows are easy to describe and have been known for a few hundred years. Yet turbulence is very difficult to understand in detail, because of how the equations are structured.

Therefore, when today’s companies work with turbulence in, e.g., wind turbines and pumps, their work is based on assumptions and estimates derived from a widely used model from 1941. However, new research—conducted among others by Clara Marika Velte—indicates that the basis for these assumptions is incorrect.

Last year, Clara Marika Velte received one of the prestigious grants from the EU, an ERC Starting Grant, to help her test and document the limitations of the old model.

“With the new grant, I will be able to take a step further and begin the development of a new turbulence theory that will hopefully make it easier for both researchers and companies to work with turbulence in the future. I already suspect that our point of focus should be the so-called shear layers in turbulence,” says Clara Marika Velte.

The aim of the grant is to create an internationally leading turbulence research environment at DTU. In addition, the project focuses on disseminating the results for the benefit of Danish and international industries, and from 2021, scientific courses and workshops open to participants from all over the world will be held.

Photo: DTU