Saturday, March 24, 2012

From Micro-fluidics to Monster-fluidics

On Friday our department took a break from micro-fluidics to tour Oregon State's world-class Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory. We were given the deluxe tour by the acting director, Professor Solomon Yim.


The facility receives significant funding from the National Science Foundation and collaborate with institutions around the world to conduct research projects which can take a half year or more to complete. They had an experiment in progress in the 2D wave channel, and we got to talk to the principle investigator and see the instrumentation setup.



In the tsunami basin, they simulated a couple of different wave types for us. Here is a link to a video where they simulated a tsunami striking Seaside, Oregon.


Afterwords, the boss bought us lunch and then we returned to our warm office, ready to delve back in to the nice, safe world of micro-fluidics.