Hydraulic and Hydrologic Engineering
Hydraulic and Hydrologic engineers work to prevent floods, to supply water for cities, industry and irrigation, to treat wastewater, to protect beaches, and to manage and redirect rivers. In the hydraulics and hydrology profession you will be using scientific study of the properties, distribution, and circulation of water on the surface of the land, in the soil and underlying rocks, and in the atmosphere.
In Civil Engineering's Hydraulic and Hydrologic Engineering specialty group, also sometimes termed Water Resources Engineering, you will deal with problems and issues involving the flow and storage of water. Specific applications have traditionally arisen in urban drainage, measures for mitigating the effects of floods and droughts, water supply, water treatment, and coastal protection. More recently, the flow implications for water quality have become of greater concern, and the transport of sediment, nutrients, and pollutants in natural or engineered
watercourses has received greater attention. The Hydraulic and Hydrologic Faculty members are particularly interested in applying the latest software and hardware technologies to investigate, understand, and model fundamental flow and transport processes with the widest range of applications. Research opportunities may be found in projects dealing with turbulent flows, watershed hydrology, environmental hydraulics, and contaminant transport. The Hydromechanics and Burke Research Laboratories give undergraduate and graduate students hands-on learning opportunities to expand their experience here at Purdue.
Spotlights
July 5, 2018
Professor Venkatesh Merwade received the 2018 Indiana Water Resources Association (IWRA) Outstanding Achievement Award in academic sector at its annual symposium in Bloomington, Indiana on June 27, 2018. The IWRA award recognizes individuals who have made significant contribution to the Indiana Water Resources Community through research and technical advances, information dissemination and education.
August 16, 2017
Adnan Rajib, a member in Dr. Venkatesh Merwade's research team in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, is the recipient of the Spring 2017 Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
October 11, 2016
Richa Ojha, Meenu Ramadas and Rao S. Govindaraju (Bowen Engineering Head and Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Professor of Civil Engineering) were the 2016 recipients of the ASCE State-of-the-Art of Civil Engineering Award. The annual award is for scholarly review, evaluation, and documentation of the scientific and technical information needed by the profession.
September 29, 2016
The Purdue Lyles School of Civil Engineering is committed to providing our students, faculty, and staff with the best tools available to aid them in their research and study. One of the latest additions to our school is the tilting flume, located in the Christopher and Susan Burke Hydraulics and Hydrologic Lab in Hampton Hall.
September 2, 2016
Our oceanographic buoy near Michigan City in Lake Michigan was interviewed by the Big Ten Network! Yes, that's right... the buoy itself was interviewed! Those interested in meeting our now-famous buoy only have to wait a few more weeks before it returns to Purdue Civil Engineering to rest for the winter.
June 24, 2016
Adnan Rajib, a PhD Candidate working with Dr. Venkatesh Merwade in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, has won the 1st Prize in the 2016 Annual ASFPM Student Paper Competition.
May 6, 2016
First built in the 1960s, the tow tank in the basement of Hampton Hall will be renovated by the end of 2016. According to Cary Troy, associate professor of civil engineering, the facility, owned by civil engineering's hydraulic and hydrologic engineering department, was built along with the building itself. It is designed to tow objects through a tank of water using a carriage at the top, which would allow researchers to measure, for example, the drag force from the fluid to the object.
March 7, 2016
Adnan Rajib, a PhD Candidate working with Dr. Venkatesh Merwade in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, has been named as recipient of the 2016 Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship Award.
September 17, 2015
Students and researchers interested in the mechanics of water flow don't need to leave Indiana to test their theories; they only need to walk to the north side of campus.
April 7, 2015
Civil Engineering Master's student Jessica Holberg (advised by Dr. Venkatesh Merwade) was named a recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship for the 2015 award year. This award provides a yearly stipend and the cost of tuition for a period of three years.
February 20, 2015
CE graduate student Siddharth Saksena has been selected as the 1st place winner of the Graduate Division of the ASCE Environmental Water Resource Institute's 2015 Student Technical Paper Contest.
September 5, 2014
Ph.D. student Richa Ojha has been named the recipient of the Fall 2014 CE Best Dissertation Award.
March 25, 2014
Assistant Professor Cary Troy has been named the recipient of Purdue's new Exceptional Early Career Award. The award was created by the Office of the Provost and the Murphy Award selection committee to recognize outstanding undergraduate teaching among Purdue's early career, tenure-track faculty.
July 11, 2013
Researchers from Purdue University are spending a week aboard a scientific vessel in Lake Michigan, tracking a fluorescent plume of dyed water to study how currents transport contaminants and aquatic life.
September 18, 2012
Boaters and beach-goers visiting the Indiana shoreline of Lake Michigan now can learn current conditions such as water temperature, wind speeds and other information provided by a new environmental sensing buoy.
June 4, 2012
Dr. A. Ramachandra Rao, Professor Emeritus of Hydraulic and Hydrologic Engineering, received the Ven Te Chow Award from the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
June 3, 2011
Congratulations to Prof. Venkatesh Merwade, co-recipient of the 2011 Quentin Martin Best Practice Paper Award.
June 3, 2011
Congratulations to Prof. Emeritus Jack Delleur, honored with an EWRI 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award.
April 22, 2011
Congratulations to Sanjiv Kumar, a Ph.D. student in hydraulics and hydrology, for winning the Outstanding Student Paper Award at the American Geophysical Union's 2010 Fall Meeting.
February 4, 2011
Prof. Cary Troy is working with ITaP data visualization specialists to help provide some illuminating 3-D animations of environmental fluid mechanics processes affecting the Great Lakes.
