CESEP Wind Tunnel-Porous Media Evaporation Experiments

The Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes (CESEP) operates and conducts research at a large scale coupled wind tunnel-porous media test facility located at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. The facility consists of a closed-circuit, climate-controlled (i.e., relative humidity 5 to 95%, air temperature -2 to 45 deg. C, soil temperature -4 to 35 deg. C, grow lights), low wind speed (<10 m/s) wind tunnel that is interfaced along the centerline of it's test-section with a large soil tank (inner dimensions l x w x d = 7.15 x 0.11 x 1.1 m). Climate conditions are manually set and automatically maintained using a variety of climate controls. The soil tank and test section are outfitted with a variety of sensors for the continuous measurement of key atmospheric and subsurface state variables. This resource contains the raw data from a series of bare-soil evaporation experiments conducted under varying subsurface and surface conditions by the shown research team. The test-facility is described in detail and these experimental results are analyzed in a manuscript entitled "Experimental testing scale considerations for the investigation of bare-soil evaporation dynamics in the presence of sustained above-ground airflow" published in Water Resources Research. For questions regarding the test-facility or possible collaboration involving the facility, interested parties are referred to the CESEP website (www.cesep.mines.edu) and CESEP director, Dr. Tissa Illangasekare.