Water Engineering Group

Research topics

Our research builds upon a culture of nurturing and addressing industry needs in collaboration with a range of stakeholders to provide innovative solutions to challenging problems. Our activities span a range of fundamental, experimental and applied research, including many aspects of understanding and modelling hydraulics and hydrological processes, hydrogeology, drainage and flood risk management, potable water distribution infrastructure, environmental fluid mechanics, surface mixing processes and sediment transport.

Environmental Fluid Mechanics

Our research covers coastal and river hydrodynamics- impacts of vegetation on flow and mixing processes/pollutant transport in natural and engineered contexts; and numerical modelling.

Core members:

Ian Guymer, Georges Kesserwani, Alma Schellart, James Shucksmith,  Virginia Stovin and Simon Tait

Groundwater Protection and Restoration

Our research involves laboratory, field and modelling applications on: groundwater hydrology; contaminant hydrogeology; fate transport and remediation of subsurface pollutants; site characterization and risk assessment.

Group members:

Domenico Bau and Steve Thornton

SuDS (Sustainable drainage systems) and Urban Drainage

Our work areas include hydrological performance model development for vegetated SuDS (including green roofs); rainfall and uncertainty analysis; urban flooding as well as use of field and laboratory observations and CFD models to understand hydrodynamics and pollutant transport processes in drainage systems.

Group members:

Joby Boxall, Ian Guymer, Georges Kesserwani, Andy Nichols, Alma Schellart, James Shucksmith, Virginia Stovin and Simon Tait

Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure

Our research covers application of advanced modelling tools; laboratory and field work to hydraulic and water quality interactions in piped networks; including leakage; discoloration and pressure transients.

Group members:

Joby Boxall, Richard Collins, Isabel Douterelo, Ian Guymer, Stewart Husband and Vanessa Speight

Catchments and River Engineering

Our research involves flooding; hydrodynamic modelling; water quality processes and modelling; pollutant dynamics and transport; urban/rural interactions; eco hydraulics.

Group members:
Ian Guymer, Georges Kesserwani, Charles Rouge & James Shucksmith

Flooding

Improving our resilience to flooding is a key societal priority and engineering challenge.  

Aided by access to unique facilities, expertise and close links with industrial partners, our flooding research covers a range of topics including numerical and physical modelling, urban stormwater management, sensor development and testing, drainage infrastructure control and management as well as risk and hazard evaluation.

Core members:

Dr George Kesserwani, Dr James Shucksmith, Dr Andy Nichols, Dr Lis Bowman, Prof Virginia Stovin

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Research projects

Our research builds upon a culture of nurturing and addressing industry needs in collaboration with a range of stakeholders to provide innovative solutions to challenging problems.

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Facilities and capabilities

Our water engineering activities make use of a variety of innovative facilities and resources, and provide us with the capability to undertake world leading research studies and commercial testing.

National Distributed Water Infrastructure Facility @ ICAIR

The facility is based within the Integrated Civil and Infrastructure Research (ICAIR) building providing ≈600m² of specialist laboratory space. A large test cell (1350 m3) simulates a real-world urban water environment. It includes pipes, chambers, and natural elements like soil. Instruments measure how these elements interact with the water infrastructure and the cell's design allows for accurate water flow studies and accommodates realistic burial depths for pipes. Researchers can control water flow, add chemicals, and monitor the performance of the water infrastructure system within this controlled environment.

The facility can generate in-pipe and surface flows of up to 200 l/s and subject pipes to pressure transient shocks of up to 10 bar to create conditions for hydraulic capacity exceedance, pipe bursting and contaminant ingress. Complex cyclic loads of up to 10kN/m2 will can be imposed on the contained soil and pipes, via controlled actuators to simulate physical surface and axial loading so the test cell has the ability to examine the role of various repeated and sustained loading types that cause the failure of a wide range of urban water assets.

iCAIR capabilities

Pipe systems

The vast majority of the world's most precious and widely used resources are transported in pressurised pipe systems. The facilities at the University of Sheffield, focussed on transportation of water, allow us to study the hydraulics of these systems, the interaction between the hydraulics, the pipes and other infrastructure, and the microbiological environment that these pipes present. 

• Temperature controlled potable water system for biofilm growth/examination 3 x 200 m of 90 mm pipe that can be run independently or as a combined system to explore how hydraulics interacts and influences water quality in distribution systems.

• Transient Dynamics: Copper pipe loop. 150 m of 10 mm diameter copper pipe that is used to explore the transient propagation in long pipelines.  This system is scaled to represent a large scale pipeline and was originally designed to explore leak detection approaches in large trunk mains.
   
• Contaminant Ingress test rig 120 m x 90 mm pipe. Designed to allow for the exploration of hydraulic transients in water pipes and the potential for intruding contaminants in distribution systems, this facility has allows for research into all aspects of the dynamics of pipe flow and its interaction with the pipe infrastructure.

• Pipeloops in the National Distributed Water Infrastructure Facility @ ICAIR. There is the capability of undertaking research on full scale buried pressurised pipelines at the ICAIR facility. Research can focus on all aspects of buried pipes from the hydraulics to the interaction between the pipes and soil loadings

For more information contact Dr Richard Collins

Open channel flumes

Open Channel Flumes allow us to study fluids driven by gravity travelling in open channels, whether man made gullies and pipes or natural rivers and streams.  Flow in open channels make up the majority of flows that occur around the world and understanding both the hydraulics and water quality effects are vital.

• 1.2 m wide, 0.6 m deep, 15 m long fibre glass panelled flume
   
• Annular flume in temperature controlled laboratory
   
• 300 mm x 450 mm x 12 m glass flume
   
• 500 mm x 500 mm x 16 m glass panelled flume with pump and flow control

For more information contact Professor Ian Guymer

Model aquifer facility

• 40 m long x 6 m wide x 5 m deep model sandy aquifer with flow control systems for experimental research
• See ICAIR

For more information contact Professor Steve Thornton

Urban drainage

With increasing urbanisation it is increasingly important to understand the flows of water in and around our built environments.  There is an increased awareness of the challenges of dealing with the interaction of the capture and control of rainflow with containing and treating sewerage. 

• Surface/Sewer flows interaction facility, 8 m x 4 m surface linked to a 75 mm drainage pipe work by a 240 mm ‘manhole’
• Hydrological Performance Test Beds
• 300 mm dia x 20 m clear acrylic pipe test rig with pump and flow control
• Real Time Control Test facility, 35 m of 200 mm pipe with 4, 1 m diameter manholes. Featuring automated gate and depth sensors.

For more information contact Dr James Shucksmith

Green Infrastructure

• 12 off green roof test rigs with flow monitoring and moisture data collection system
• 2 x 300 mm diameter infiltration columns for unsaturated hydraulic conductivity measurements. The systems include: controlled inflow/rainfall; moisture content sensors and tensiometers within the sample; and drainage/runoff measurement below the columns.

For more information contact Professor Virginia Stovin

Settling Column

• 300 mm dia x 6 m tall settling column with Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) sensor

For more information contact Dr Andy Nichols 

Water quality testing

It is vital to understand the chemical and biological processes that are involved in water systems.  Facilities in the Water Engineering Group are available for sophisticated testing to determine the:

• Class II laboratory for Microbial Physiology, Molecular Ecology and testing of Microorganisms and Pathogens
• Chemical Composition of Water and Other Aqueous Samples
• Chemical Analysis of Organic, Inorganic and Gaseous Constituents in Water, Wastewater and Effluents

More on Groundwater Protection & Restoration Group

For more information contact Professor Steve Thornton

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People

Our dedicated staff that make this research possible.

Academics

Name	Research Discipline	Title
Bau, Dr Domenico	Groundwater Protection and Restoration	Senior Lecturer
Boxall, Prof. Joby	Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure	Professor of Water Infrastructure Engineering EPSRC Challenging Engineer
Collins, Dr Richard	Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure	Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering
Douterelo Soler, Dr Isabel	Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure	Lecturer in Water Engineering
Guymer, Prof. Ian	Environmental Fluid Mechanics SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) and Urban Drainage	Professor of Civil Engineering
Kesserwani, Dr Georges	Environmental Fluid Mechanics SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) and Urban Drainage	Senior Lecturer in Catchment Science
Nichols, Dr Andy	SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) and Urban Drainage	Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering
Rougé, Dr Charles	Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure	Senior Lecturer in Water Resilience
Schellart, Dr Alma	Environmental Fluid Mechanics SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) and Urban Drainage	Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering
Shucksmith, Dr James	Environmental Fluid Mechanics SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) and Urban Drainage	Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering
Stovin, Prof. Virginia	Environmental Fluid Mechanics SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) and Urban Drainage	Professor of Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Management
Tait, Prof. Simon	Environmental Fluid Mechanics SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) and Urban Drainage	Professor of Water Engineering
Thornton, Prof. Steve	Groundwater Protection and Restoration	Professor in Environmental Engineering Science
Speight, Prof Vanessa	Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure	Professor of Integrated Water Systems
Husband, Dr Stewart	Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure	Research Fellow of Drinking Water Quality
Fish, Dr Katherine	Water Distribution Systems and Infrastructure	Research Fellow in Water Systems Microbiology