Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory

Facilities: Chicago River Model

This physical hydraulic model of the Chicago River was built to analyze the occurrence of density currents in the Chicago River. The physical model has a horizontal scale of 1 to 250 and a vertical scale of 1:20. This distortion is needed to have measurable flow depths in the laboratory. Scaling of flow and density gradients are achieved by maintaining the same densimetric Froude number in the model and prototype. The lab has done applied research using this model studying Chicago River density currents.

Hydraulic model of the Chicago River.

Google Earth image corresponding to the hydraulic model.