CICLoPE

The Centre for International Cooperation in Long Pipe Experiments (CICLoPE) is a research laboratory which allows the worldwide best space and time resolved measurements in turbulent pipe flows. The main objective of CICLoPE, and in particular of the Long pipe, the large-scale tunnel installed, is to study high Reynolds numbers turbulent flows. This topic plays a crucial role not only in fundamental research, but also in many engineering applications. Many questions in this field are still open: CICLoPE was born to find answers, allowing to reach high Reynolds numbers and perform high resolution measurements, not achievable in any other facility. This can be obtained thanks to the large size of the main feature of the lab: the Long pipe.

The laboratory is operated with the idea of gathering world-leading scientists in the field of turbulence research to make decisive breakthroughs in the fundamental issues of high Reynolds number turbulence. Since the beginning, the cooperation between universities and research groups from all over the world, was at the heart of the centre. It was in fact funded, and it is currently led by a heterogeneous group of researchers: the University of Bologna, the International Centre of Theoretical Physics in Trieste, the Royal Institute of Technology, Illinois Institute of Technology and école Polytechnique Fédéale de Lausanne, the University of Rome La Sapienza and the Princeton University.

The laboratory is located in Predappio, beside the old factory of the Caproni Industry, which is basically a tunnel complex excavated. In 2006 the tunnels were given by the Air Force to the University of Bologna specifically for turbulence studies. The facility comprises two 130 m long tunnels with a diameter of about 9 m each. The stability of the ambient conditions, viz. temperature, humidity and the complete absence of any background noise are the characteristics making Predappio an ideal site for this laboratory.