About Us
Colorado State University’s Hydraulics Laboratory is part of CSU’s Engineering Research Center at the Foothills Research Campus located in beautiful Northern Colorado. The facility is unique with its proximity and water supply from Horsetooth Reservoir, allowing for large sustained flow rates. CSU has long been a leader in hydraulic modeling and overtopping performance testing with world renown faculty calling CSU home.
If you are looking into modeling facilities to accompany an upcoming project, please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss the project or request a quote. A list of previous projects we have completed is located under the hydraulic services tab for reference.
Indoor Laboratory
The indoor laboratory covers 45,000 square feet and allows for year round experimentation. The lab contains a multitude of test flumes capable of a wide range of flow rates, widths, lengths, and slopes from 8 inches to 20 feet wide, 0 to 100 cfs, and 0 to 50% slope. 15,000 square feet of space is available for larger models requiring custom extents or specialty circumstances. The space can be transformed for a multitude of different applications. All indoor facilities utilize recirculating pumps or water from Horsetooth reservoir.
Each flume is equipped with data carts capable of utilizing CSU’s wide range of the latest laboratory instruments for measuring pressure, velocity, bed and water surface elevation, etc. CSU has made the investment into some of today’s best instrumentation to ensure accurate and efficient experimentation.
These facilities allow for a wide range of physical models to be constructed and tested in a controlled environment. Oftentimes erosion control product performance testing is also conducted inside at a smaller scale before moving to CSU’s outdoor facilities which as larger and offer much larger flow rates.
Outdoor Laboratory
The outdoor laboratory covers nearly 30 acres immediately adjacent to the indoor facilities. CSU’s pipe network from Horsetooth reservoir allows sustained flow rates up to 200 cfs in large prototype scale flumes.
The lab’s flumes include a 20 ft-wide X 180 ft-long X 8 ft-deep (0% slope), 4 ft-wide x 120 ft-long (50% slope), and wave-overtopping-simulator flume. These flumes allow CSU to test at large scales and high values of shear stress or velocity.
In addition, 10,000 sq ft of greenhouse space is available to establish and test products or projects with vegetation from anywhere in the world. This application is accompanied by CSU’s planter box technology allowing samples to be grown in our controlled greenhouse conditions and then trucked and lifted into our test facilities.
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