Research Institutions and laboratories
State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering(Tsinghua University)

Located in Tsinghua University, State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering was established on July 26th 2006 with approval of the Ministry of Science and Technology of P.R. China, gathering together various elites of hydroscience and engineering research field of the Tsinghua University. It is an experimental laboratory operated under mechanism of “Open, Mobile, United and Competitive”. On June 26th 2008, the laboratory was inspected and accepted by the Ministry of Science and Technology and honored as the “Best Laboratory” in the National Lab Assessment in 2008 and 2013. Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering Mr. Chen Zuyu serves as the director of the Lab’s Academic Committee and Prof. Li Qingbin serves as the director of the Lab respectively.

Due to the global water deficit, severe water contamination and continuous floods, focus of the international research has shifted to the mechanism of multi-scale water cycle and watershed movement, multipurpose water utilization and watershed management. Therefore, it is of great necessity to carry out the following four strategic programs: river and lake management (mainly Yangtze River and Yellow River); development of the western regions; West-to-East Power Transmission and South-to-North Water Transfer. Importance should also be attached to the ecological effects of large water control projects, design of shockproof water control system with high-dam and big-reservoir, king-size and economical hydro generators with good perance and stability.

With the basis of the traditional subject advantages, the laboratory has set up five research fields, with focus on the international subject frontier and the state demands, including: (1) Hydrology and water resources science. Since the distribution and demand of water conservancy of China are irregular, scientists have carried out researches on water cycle, eco-environment, complex dynamical system, technologies of the water conservancy; prevent of flood and droughts. (2) Water, sediment and environment sciences. Based on researches involving the movement of watershed and the transport process of the pollutants or nutrientsthe scientists have been focusing on modeling the hydrodynamics of river and lakes, landseco-environment response mechanism, calamity ation. (3) Geomechanics and geotechnical engineering. Studies concerning construction and application of large control projects have been developed considering the structures of the dam foundation, deep slopes and underground group caverns. Moreover, researches have been focusing on nonlinear models for the dynamics of the materials, structural design theories, rock and soil structure, progressive failure of the materials, security evaluation of the structure and reinforcement technologies. (4) Hydro-junction and intelligent management. Research has been developed on the dam structure, static and dynamic properties of the materials under complex loadings, long and short deation process of the high dam and security evaluation methods, materials and structure design theories applied to high dam construction, digital hydro-junction project and smart hydro-junction theory research. (5) Hydrodynamics and hydraulic machinery. Focusing on efficient, stable and economical hydraulic turbine, advanced researches have been evolving the interior flow mechanism of hydraulic machineries, shape optimization technologies, dynamics of mechanical systems and security control technologies.

Based on the five research fields, the laboratory has achieved fruitful results, and invented a series of distinct and innovative equipment for scientific research. (1) With researches on hydrology, water resources and management methods, new evaporation model has been put forward and has explained the evaporation paradox in the international hydrology and water conservancy. Besides, centralized water regulation model system has been constructed and applied to projects of Yellow River and Tarimu River. (2) Based on the water, sediment and environment science, model systems of vegetation-erosion dynamics and water and sediment dynamics have been developed. Based on these systems, delayed response model of progressive change of Yellow River could be quantified and aiming solutions for many key technological problems that were related to decision making during the Three Gorge Project and South-to-North Water Transmission Project. (3) Geomechanics and geotechnical engineering. The multi-scale and nonlinear thermodynamics under the non-equilibrium state of quasi-brittle materials, together with the deation and reinforcement theory of high dams, has successfully solved the problems related with high slope reinforcement. (4) New dam structure. Construction technologies of rock filled concrete dam, new structure of RCC dam and smart concrete have been widely applied to engineering practice. (5) Hydraulic machinery dynamics engineers. The laboratory has independently designed the new interflow pumps that are applied to the South-to-North Water Transmission Project and the hydro-generator of Jiangxia tentative tidal power station project. Both of them have achieved the international advanced level standard.

The research team consists of a number of senior scientists represented by reputed academicians like Zhang Chuhan, middle-aged and young academic leader represented by Professor Wang Guangqian, and young reserved talents who are innovative and represent the majority of the staff, which makes up of an innovative and cooperative team with reasonable age structures. There are 58 employees including 2 academicians, 40 professors, 9 winners of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, 6 Yangtze River scholars, 2 doctors and 1 middle-aged and young expert awarded by the State of Council for their excellent achievements, and also one innovative research group national natural science foundation of China.

Leveraging its plat resources and policy support from the Tsinghua University, the laboratory has actively developed national and international researches and academic exchange. Since its foundation in 2006, from 20%-30% of the approved open research topics are derived from foreign countries, and there are around 10 international cooperated projects annually. In addition, about 5 renowned oversea scholars are usually invited annually to the laboratory for exploration of new courses.

Centering on the national strategic goals, strengthen the international influence, and dedicated to the innovation of outstanding application basis, innovation of important engineering technologies, and innovation of independent property rights, the lab provides technological support and trains excellent talents for related sectors as water resource utilization, river and lake control, hydropower exploitation and watershed protection in China.

Add.: No. 1 Tsinghua Garden, Haidian District, Beijing 100084

Supervisory Unit: Tsinghua University

Tel: 010-62797481

Fax: 010-62773576

E-mailsklhse@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

Website: http://sklhse.tsinghua.edu.cn

Contact Persons: Zhan Xiuling, He Guojian
Institute of Project Management and Construction Technology

Institute of Project Management and Construction Technology is originated from the Construction and Management Group of the Department of Hydraulic and Hydropower Engineering(Founded in 1952). Currently, the institute has six academic staff with the majors in “Management Science and Engineering” and “Hydraulic Engineering”. The Institute offers master degree and doctoral degree as well as post-doc positions in the twomajors. The institute has attracted internationalpostgraduates from Canada, Netherland, Greece, Australia, South Korea, Iraq, New Zealand, India and Thailand.

The courses provided by the institute include “Engineering project management”, “Case studies on project management”, “Engineering economics”, “Project delivery” “Construction technology”,“Advanced project management”, “IT technology in construction”, “Tendering and bidding” and “Engineering and management practice”. The research areas of the academic staff include Organizational behavior in construction, Sustainable project development, Partnering theory, Cooperative risk management, Hydropower development at river basin scale, Reservoir migration, Real time construction management, International project delivery, EPC project management, International project standards, and Project investment.

The research projects of the institute have obtained supports from both domestic and international funders such as National Natural Science Foundation of China, Project Management Institute (PMI), China Three Gorges Corporation and Power China (Top 11 in ENR rankings). The results on engineering management research have been successfully applied to the major hydropower development firms and top international contractors of China for improving their project management perance. The institute is also engaged in development and application of construction technology, with a series of patents being obtained. The technologies include: Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) for construction of dam, continual concrete construction system and new static mixing equipment, which were successfully applied tomany hydropower projects. SCC technologies have now become industry standards.

The outcomes of the above research projects have been published in top international journals such as Energy, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management-ASCE,Journal of Management in Engineering-ASCE, International Journal of Project Management, Project Management Journal, Natural Hazards, Water Policy, Ecological Indicators, Automation in Construction, and Cement and Concrete Composites. The institute has also published books of Engineering Project Management Case Studies, International EPC Hydropower Project Management Theory and Practices, and Self Compacting Concrete Standards.In 2016, Wenzhe Tang group’s work entitled “Holistic Hydropower Scheme for China” has been published in Nature, presenting solutions to sustainable hydropower development for China on different governance levels.

Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources

The Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources (IHWR), erly named the Engineering Hydrology and Hydropower Utilization Research Group, was established together with the Department of Hydraulic Engineering (DHE) in 1952. In 1973, the Agricultural Water Resource Engineering Research Group was set up in the DHE. In 1993, these two research groups were combined into a Hydrology and Water Resources Teaching and Research Section. In 1999, it was reorganized as the IHWR.

The IHWR has 17 faculty and staff members, including 6 full Professors (1 recipientof the National Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars and the Changjiang Scholar Professor of the Ministry of Education, 1 Thousand Talents Program Professor),6 Associate Professors, 1 Senior Engineer, 4 Assistant Professors, and 14 Postdoctoral fellows. The IHWR currently opens 10 undergraduatecourses, and 7 graduate courses, of which the course “Principles and Applications of Hydrology” was recognized as one of excellent courses at the national level .

The major research areasof the IHWR include hydrology, eco-hydrology, water resources, irrigation and drainage, international transboundary rivers, flood control and disaster mitigation, remote sensing, and digital river basins. Focusing on frontiers of global research in water areas and aiming to satisfytremendous demands for national economy and industries, the IHWR is promoting interdisciplinary research at the confluence ofthe atmosphere, economics, ecology, environment, ination technology, and public policy.

The IHWR has accomplished hundreds of key research projectsfunded by the National Science and Technology Development Program, National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), the Advanced Technology Research and Development Program (863 Program), and other programs from different sectors of China. TheNetwork in China for Eco-hydrology Experiments(NICEE) was builtby the IHWR for monitoring and experiments on water, energy, and carbon fluxes at the field scale, including 6 sitesin Beijing, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shanxi, and Xinjiang, respectively. The IHWR has received 5 national awards for advances in science and technology (4 second class awards and 1 third class award), and over 20 awards at provincial or ministerial levels(4 first class awards and 9 second class awards).

Institute of Hydraulics Research (IHR)

The predecessor of the Institute of Hydraulics Research (IHR)is the Hydraulics Teaching and Research Section of the Department of Hydraulic Engineering, in which Professor Xia Zhenhuan and Professor Zhang Ren served as director of the Hydraulics Teaching and Research Section, respectively, for quite long time. The Hydraulics Laboratory administrated by the Institute of Hydraulics Research was founded in 1932, and is the first batch of first level laboratoryin Tsinghua University. IHR is responsible for the development of two grade-2 subjects: theHydraulics and River Dynamics, and the Port, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, in whichthe Hydraulics and River Dynamics is the national key discipline. There is 13 faculty members, including one supported by Changjiang Scholars Program of the Ministry of Education, one winner of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholar, one winner of theTeachingand Research Award Program for Outstanding Young Teachers in Higher Education Institutions of MOE, two supported by Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of MOE.

IHR main research interests include engineering hydraulics, hydraulics theory and its application, environmental hydraulics, computational fluid dynamics, bridge hydraulics, ice mechanics, wave theory, coastal dynamics, coastal environment, coastal and offshore structures, ocean energy development, and ecohydraulics etc. The scientific research projects which we are responsible for and participated in includethe National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program), the National Natural Science Foundationof China, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholar, the National Key Technologies Research and Development Program of China.

IHR undertakes the teaching tasks of Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulics for undergraduate students from six institutes in Tsinghua University.The course of Hydraulics was selected as a firstlevel one in 1986, listed as the university core curriculumin 1997, rated Beijing and National excellent courses in 2005, became a massive online course at Tsinghua University in 2015. The textbook ofHydraulics won the first prize of excellent textbook of the State Education Commission in 1988.Since 1999 16 textbooks and Monographs has been published in which one won the first prize of excellent textbook ofthe Ministry of Water Resources, two won the national quality textbooks. IHR won more than twenty national and provincial awards, including 2 first prizes of the natural science award of the Ministry of Education, and 2 first prizes of Science and Technology Progress Award.

River Research Institute

The River Research Institute was founded in 2006. Its history dates back to 1978 when late Prof. NingQian (Ning Chien) and his colleagues established the Sediment Research Laboratory on campus after 7-year arduous workon challenging science and technology problems at the Sanmenxia research base. The Institute commits itself to advancing discipline development of Hydraulics and River Dynamics, one of the national key disciplines in Hydraulic Engineering. The Institute has a research team with 20 faculty and staff members, including 13 professors, 3 associate professors, 1 assistant professor, and 3 engineers. Prof. GuanqianWang is an Academician of CAS. There are 15 post-doctoral research scientists and more than 60 graduate students working and studying here.

The main building of the Institute, the Sediment Research Laboratory, is an important part of the State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience andEngineering. It hasa floor area of 4,750 m2. The centralhall, 120m long and 24m wide, houses one large-scale flume (64m long and 1.2m wide), four medium-scale flumes, and other flow and sediment experimental facilities. More than twenty advanced instruments have been invented by the Institute, among which the large-scale PIV/PTV system is widely applied.

Research interests of the institute focus on sediment transport, river morphology, coastal sedimentation, soil erosion, riverine ecology, environmental hydraulics, watershed management, disaster mitigation, hydro-inatics, and the application of ination techniques. The Institute is dedicated to fundamental research aiming to unveil the underlying physics of flow dynamics and sediment transportprocesses, and at the same time, puts unremitting efforts to resolve major engineering challenges.

The Institute has accomplished a large number of important research projects covering the entire spectrum of the national R&D program. These research endeavors play a key role in major hydraulic projects in China, e.g., flood control in the Yellow River, sedimentation mitigationin the Three Gorges reservoir, and optimal management for the South-to-North water transfer project. More than 1000 papers and dozens of academic books have been published in the past years. The Institute has also won more than twenty national-level awards in science, technology, and academic writing.

Institute of Geotechnical Engineering

The discipline of GeotechnicalEngineering in Tsinghua University has a long history. In 1948, Dr. Liangsheng CHEN joined in Tsinghua University from Harvard University, and set up the first soil mechanics laboratory in North China. In 1952, the Teaching and Research Group for Engineering Geology and Foundation Engineering was established in Tsinghua University. In 1956, Prof. Wenxi HUANG, the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, started working at TsinghuaUniversity. In 1978, the Teaching and Research Group for SoilMechanics and Foundation Engineering was founded. In 1999, the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering was set up.

Currently, there are 16 staff in the Institute, including Prof. C. F. Lee, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Canadian Academy of Engineering, and 6 full professors, 5 associate professors, 1 lecturer, 3 technicians, as well as 50 postgraduate students. The institute is the host organization for Chinese Institution of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering under China Civil Engineering Society (CISMGE-CCES).The professors in the Institute hold the positions such as the president for CISMGE-CCES,the president for Soil dynamics division under Chinese Society for Vibration Engineering, Editor-in-Chief for Earthquake Engineering, Associate Editor for Chinese Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, Chinese Journal of Civil Engineering, as well as Editorial Board member for tens of geotechnical journal worldwide.

The discipline of Geotechnical Engineering is one of the first disciplines approved to award the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in China. The institute pays a great attention to develop testing devices and facilities, and currently has the geotechnical centrifuge as well as shaking table, large scale static-dynamic truetriaxial facility, multi-functional torsional shearing facility, high pressure triaxial shearing facility,weathering device for rockfills, tension device for clay, etc. The major research areas contain constitutive modeling of geo-materials, high earth-rockfill dam engineering, soil dynamics and earthquake engineering, foundation engineering, slope engineering, geo-environmental engineering, ocean geotechnical engineering, geo-synthetics, as well as engineering application.

The institute undertakes the teaching task for undergraduate and postgraduate students, in which Soil Mechanics is the National excellent i-Course, and Advanced Soil Mechanics is University Excellent Course, and obtained several teaching awards.

Institute of Hydraulic Structures Engineering

The Institute of Hydraulic Structures Engineering(IHSE) was officially established in 1999, to which the predecessors were the Hydraulic Structures Division and the Hydropower Station Division of the Department of Hydraulic Engineering. Currently, 25 faculty members and staff serve at the Institute, including, 2academicians (Professor Chuhan Zhang, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Professor Sijing Wang, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering), 11 full professors, 8 associate professors, and 5 postdoctoral researchers. The Institute has 2 awardees of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, 2 distinguished professors of Chang Jiang Scholars Program, 1 winner of National Award for Youth in Science and Technology, and 1 awardees of the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars. There are currently nearly a hundred graduate students enrolled.The Institute is responsible for the construction of two second level disciplines, hydraulic structure engineering, and hydraulic and hydroelectricengineering, of which the hydraulic structure engineering discipline rankstop five through international discipline evaluation.


The Institute of Hydraulic Structures Engineering has carried out a series of researches on the international forefront topics from the hydraulic and hydroelectric engineering practice.TheInstitute has been making significant contributions to the hydraulic and hydroelectric engineering practice nationwide as well as broad research topics, mainly in the fields of seismic resistance of high dams, stability of dam abutment, construction of roller compacted concrete arch dam, rock-fill concrete dam technology, health monitoring and safety assessment of structures, etc. The past outstanding research outputs have brought the Institute a number of awards including the National Natural Science Award, and the National Scientific and Technological Progress Award, and a number of patents. The Institute has ed two leading disciplines and two special research directions in the discipline layout. The two leading disciplines are hydraulic concrete structures and hydraulic and hydroelectric engineering, and rock mechanics and underground engineering. The two special research directionsare hydraulic engineering hydraulics and engineering planning, and geomaterials and earth-rock dam. The discipline layoutnot only emphasizes the key disciplines, but also takes into account the overall development.

The course “hydraulic structure” offered by the Institute was admitted into the first batch of first-class courses in Tsinghua University, and have continuously passed the collegiate appraisal five times which is made once every three years. Moreover, the course was admitted into the "excellent course" series in the University as the exclusive one offered by all the engineering departments, and was awarded as state-class "excellent course". The faculties of the Institute have also won several awards of education, in particular,the Level 1 National Teaching Achievement Award.