Research
ResearchResearch activities at the Unit of Hydraulic Engineering are allocated to the research programs "Alpine Infrastructure Engineering" and "Computational Engineering".
Hydro-engineering themes are an important part of the "Alpine Infrastructure Engineering" research program. Flood protection in urban areas is of the utmost importance to this research department; determining and evaluating the potential dangers of flooding requires an integral view of river catchment areas, which is why such a research program is required. Other research topics have to do with the investigation of dams and retention basins with special regard to the efficiency of flood control options. Moreover, the survey of slope instabilities or the research of the flow behavior of mudflows, avalanches or mountain torrents are among the main focus topics of the unit`s research in this program.
Research Program "Alpine Infrastructure Engineering"
The research program "Computational Engineering" includes all subject areas were the integration of hardware and software resources in research activities is essential for the research process.
Aside from conventional approaches to hydro-engineering problems, such as physical scale model tests, the Unit of Hydraulic Engineering aspires to implement numerical methods. Due to advances in calculating capacities, simulations based on numerical algorithms and methods, like computational fluid dynamics, become more and more important. One of the primary goals of the Unit of Hydraulic Engineering is to do research in hybrid modeling, wherein results and cognitions of numerical simulations are integrated into the physical scale model. Furthermore methods of numerical modeling are applied to sediment-bearing rivers, mudflows and avalanches.