Annular flumes

The Physical Laboratory houses eight annular (ring-shaped) flumes which are currently being used to investigate organic carbon oxidation and silicate weathering in river systems. The flumes are also well suited for fluvial sediment transport and abrasion studies and are available to use for interested scientists. The flumes were designed and built directly at GFZ.

Abrasion Mills

Similar to annular flumes, abrasion mills are used to study fluvial sediment transport. However, the main focus of this design is the interaction between the transported material and the stream bed, and therefore abrasion mills are more suitable to measure the erodibility of bedrock. The abrasion mills were designed and built directly at GFZ.

Shear Force Gauge for determining soil strength

A shearing apparatus was designed and built to test the breaking strength of soil material. The test device can pull apart a test sample with a very precisely adjustable force via a pneumatic cylinder and thus measure its breaking strength. A system of sealable cups is currently available as test containers, into which two parallel stainless steel wire grids are previously inserted in a holder. The cups were specially developed to analyse the influence of fungal mycelium on soil strength. Loose substrate can be filled in, sterilised and inoculated with the desired mycelium. After the fungus has grown through the mycelium, the two superimposed stainless steel wire grids are sheared against each other during the measurement and the breaking force of the substrate is determined.

Stream tables

To investigate the interaction of water flow and sediment transport, we design, build, and operate tailor-made stream tables. We have investigated, for example, how bed roughness contributes to the lateral deflection of moving sediment particles, and thus to the erosion of channel walls by impacts.