[The Coriolis Platform]

Site description

The Coriolis platform is the largest rotating table in the world. It belongs to the Laboratoire Des Ecoulements Geophysiques et Industriels (LEGI) at Grenoble, France. The main activity is the experimental modeling of geophysical flows, taking into account Earth rotation, with or without density stratification or topography.

The Coriolis II project

The story Since December 2007 we know that the Coriolis rotating platform is now set for demolition in order to allow future development of the Rue des Martyrs, which is based on 2 main projects: the extension of Line B of the tramway and the urbanism program GIANT . Since then, we are (...)

The most recent articles

Samuel Teinturier, Alexandre Stegner, Henri Didelle, Samuel Viboud

Small-scale instabilities of an island wake flow in a rotating shallow-water layer

Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans 49 (2010) 1-24

Monday 8 March 2010 by Louis Gostiaux

Unlike the standard two-dimensional Kármán street, the oceanic vortex streets which may occur behind isolated islands are affected by the earth’s rotation and the vertical stratification of the thermocline. These effects induce a selective destabilisation of anticyclonic vorticity regions. Several (...) > continue

T. Peacock , M. J. Mercier , H. Didelle , S. Viboud , T. Dauxois,

A laboratory study of low-mode internal tide scattering by supercritical topography

Physics of Fluids 21, 121702 (2009)

Tuesday 8 December 2009 by Louis Gostiaux

We present the first laboratory experimental results concerning the scattering of a low-mode internal tide by finite-amplitude Gaussian topography. Experiments performed at the Coriolis Platform in Grenoble used a recently conceived internal wave generator as a means of producing a high-quality (...) > continue

Boyer D.L., Sous D., Sommeria J.

Laboratory experiments on along slope flows in homogeneous and stratified rotating fluids

Dyn. Atmos. Oceans 46,19-35. (2009)

Thursday 8 January 2009 by Louis Gostiaux

Laboratory experiments have been carried out for the flow along isobaths of simulated shelf-continental slope geometry. Cases of both homogeneous and linearly stratified fluids are considered and the background flows are sufficiently strong to have the flow near the bottom boundary range from (...) > continue

Saturn’s secrets

Wednesday 30 July 2008 by Louis Gostiaux

In 1997 the Cassini Spacecraft was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to start its seven year journey to Saturn, ’the jewel of the Solar Systwem’. Having crossed two billion miles of space by using the gravitational pull of Earth and Venus like a sling shot, and precariously skated through (...) > continue

Sommeria J.

On the role of physical modelling in atmospheric and oceanic forecast

Environmental Fluid Mechanics, special issue: ’Environmental Hydraulics’, 485-493 (2008)

Saturday 8 March 2008 by Louis Gostiaux

We discuss how physical modelling can be used to reproduce atmospheric or oceanic flows in the laboratory. The similarity conditions for the effects of density stratification and Earth rotation are first presented. Then examples of results obtained on the large Coriolis platform inGrenoble are (...) > continue