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Fluid Control Lab
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The lab studies the flow inside pumps and water turbines, and the phenomenon of bubble formation.
AboutAbout the lab
What happens inside fluid machinery.
The Fluid Control Lab mainly studies the various phenomena in the internal flow of fluid machinery and its components.
Fluid machinery is the general term for machines that exchange energy with a flowing fluid such as water or air.
Machines that give energy to a fluid include pumps, fans, and compressors, while machines that receive energy from a fluid include turbines, wind turbines, and water turbines.
Through improving the efficiency of these machines, clarifying the related phenomena, and making effective use of low-energy resources such as low-head water, the lab aims to contribute to society.
Key terms
- Cavitation
- A phenomenon in which bubbles form and collapse in a liquid. It affects the performance and durability of fluid machinery
- Inducer
- A small helical impeller placed upstream of a pump impeller. It improves performance on the suction side
- CFD
- Computational fluid dynamics. A method of solving the equations that describe flow on a computer to calculate how a fluid moves
NewsLab news
An undergraduate student received the Excellent Student Presentation Award at the 57th Student Member Undergraduate Thesis Presentation Meeting of the Kyushu Branch of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
An undergraduate student received the Excellent Student Presentation Award at the 56th Student Member Undergraduate Thesis Presentation Meeting of the Kyushu Branch of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
A master's student received the Young Researcher Excellent Presentation Award at the 90th General Meeting and Lecture Conference of the Turbomachinery Society of Japan
The lab received the 2023 Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers Award (Paper)
ResearchResearch themes
The lab studies the various phenomena that appear in the internal flow of fluid machinery and its components. From macro to micro viewpoints, it works toward higher efficiency and reliability of fluid machinery and a better understanding of cavitation, which becomes a problem in this context.
*Illustrative imageSmall water turbines driven by small-scale hydropower
Aiming at the use of micro and nano hydropower of 100 kW or less in energy terms, the lab studies Darrieus-type and Savonius-type vertical-axis water turbines, assuming they are installed in an open channel.
*Illustrative imageFlow inside multistage centrifugal pumps
A multistage centrifugal pump, which obtains a high discharge pressure by arranging impellers in series, has high internal pressure and complex flow. The lab measures the fluid forces acting on the shaft system and the pressures at various parts, and, together with CFD analysis, aims to clarify the mechanisms by which these fluid forces arise.
*Illustrative imageInstabilities in inducers
Countermeasures against cavitation are essential for making turbopumps smaller and faster. Targeting general-purpose inducers that operate over a wide range of flow rates, the lab aims to clarify how instabilities arise in the low flow-rate range and to establish methods to suppress them.
*Illustrative imageCavitation around hydrofoils
In the flow around blades such as turbopump blades and hydrofoils, cavitation occurs on the blade surface and at the blade tip. Using a single hydrofoil, the lab experimentally investigates cavitation inception, development, and unsteady phenomena, and is also improving the accuracy of CFD predictions.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Fluid Control Lab are faculty, technical staff, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- ProfessorSatoshi Watanabe
- Associate ProfessorShinichi Tsuda
- Assistant ProfessorTaiki Takamine
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Naruto whirlpools” Suicasmo / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Small water turbines driven by small-scale hydropower: “Water wheel - Zell am Harmersbach 01” H. Zell / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Flow inside multistage centrifugal pumps: “Multistage centrifugal pump” Z22 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Instabilities in inducers: “Usure par cavitation d'un impulseur de pompe centrifuge 01” Jean-Jacques MILAN 19:25, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Cavitation around hydrofoils: “Close up to underwater bubbles” Ahmed elkastawy / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (熱物理工学研究室): “Thermal Conductivity Measurement, Modified Transient Plane Source Technique” JimRocket / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (反応性ガス力学研究室): “Flame from the burner of a gas stove” BogTar201213 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (流体設計研究室): “Zantingh CO2 2004 Achterkant” Hoogvlieth / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (先進水素システム研究室): “Giant prominence on the sun erupted” NASA/SDO/AIA/Goddard Space Flight Center / Public domain (cropped)
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