Bharath Lab
An experimental fluid mechanics group at the University of Southampton, led by Prof. Bharathram Ganapathisubramani.
News
Sep 2026
Morgan Taylor wins Best Presentation Prize at UK Fluids 2026
Morgan Taylor, a PhD student in the group, won the Best Presentation Prize at the UK Fluids Conference 2026 in Leeds for the talk “Frequency prediction of deep-cavity resonance”.
Image: Morgan Taylor
Sep 2026
Bharath named Management Board Chair of the UK NWTF
Bharath takes over as Management Board Chair of the UK National Wind Tunnel Facility, succeeding Professor Jonathan Morrison.
Sep 2026
PIVtools paper published in SoftwareX
A comprehensive open-source, unified particle image velocimetry processing package, now published in SoftwareX.
Research
What We’re Working On
Our work spans carefully controlled laboratory experiments to models, always anchored in fundamental physics and validated against independent measurement.
Wall-Bounded Turbulence
Investigating turbulent boundary layers and channel flows at high Reynolds numbers under equilibrium conditions: pressure gradient, roughness and heat transfer flows.
Unsteady & Vortex Flows
Flow control for aerodynamics and aeroacoustics in unsteady, vortex-dominated flows, such as propellers in turbulent inflow, flapping foils for thrust and energy harvesting, and self-excited cavity oscillations.
Data-Driven Modeling
Data assimilation and machine learning for aerodynamic prediction, fusing sparse measurements with governing equations to reconstruct flow fields.
Publications
Recent Work
2026
- To stall-cell or not to stall-cell: Variational data assimilation of 3D mean flow past a stalled airfoil
International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, Vol. 121, Art. 110627
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2026.110627 - PIVtools: A comprehensive open source software for particle image velocimetry
SoftwareX, Vol. 35, Art. 102967
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2026.102967 - Boundary-layer flow dynamics of propulsive flapping foils with increasing Reynolds numbers
Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 1041, Art. A32
https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2026.11951
Facilities & Tools
Facilities & Open Tools
CEFM
Experimental Facilities
We are a part of the Centre for Experimental Fluid Mechanics. Check out the facilities.
southampton.ac.uk
Rough Wall Database
Public dataset
Public dataset featuring high Re number heterogenous and homogenous rough-wall flows with multiple roughness types from multiple universities and research groups. We welcome contributions!
roughnessdatabase.org
PIVtools
Open-source PIV software
Open-sourced PIV platform, with a range of tools for planar, stereoscopic and ensemble processing. Try it today!
piv.tools