Home

Vincent H Chu

Title: 
Professor
Academic title(s): 

P.Eng., Ph.D.

Vincent H Chu
Contact Information
Phone: 
514-398-6863
Email address: 
vincent.chu [at] mcgill.ca
Biography: 

Professor Chu's teaching and research interests have been in the field of fluid mechanics and hydraulics. His research involves modelling and measurements of turbulent flows with a focus on the applications in environmental engineering.

Degree(s): 
  • B.Eng. (Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University)
  • M.A.Sc. (Mechanical Engineering, University of Toronto)
  • Ph.D. (Hydrodynamics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Areas of expertise: 

Fluid mechanics and hydraulics

Courses: 

  • CIVE 327. Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulics.

    Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.

    Credits: 4
    Offered by: Civil Engineering (Faculty of Engineering)
    This course is not offered this catalogue year.

    Description

    Fluid properties; hydrostatics; dimensional analysis and similitude, fluxes of mass, momentum and energy; Bemoulli's equation; method of control volume; streamline curvature; potential flow and boundary layers; pipe flow, hydraulic machinery and introduction to open-channel flow.
    • (4-2-6)
    • Prerequisites: CIVE 206, MATH 264.

    Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.

    Launch Visual Schedule Builder

  • CIVE 572. Computational Hydraulics.

    Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.

    Credits: 3
    Offered by: Civil Engineering (Faculty of Engineering)
    This course is not offered this catalogue year.

    Description

    Computation of unsteady flows in open channels; abrupt waves, flood waves, tidal propagations; method of characteristics; mathematical modelling of river and coastal currents.
    • (3-0-6)
    • Prerequisite: CIVE 327 or equivalent

    Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.

    Launch Visual Schedule Builder

  • CIVE 574. Fluid Mechanics of Water Pollution.

    Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.

    Credits: 3
    Offered by: Civil Engineering (Faculty of Engineering)
    This course is not offered this catalogue year.

    Description

    Mixing, dilution and dispersion of pollutants discharged into lakes, rivers, estuaries and oceans; salinity intrusion in estuaries and its effects on dispersion; biochemical oxygen demand and dissolved oxygen as water quality indicators; thermal pollution; oil pollution.
    • (3-0-6)
    • Prerequisite: CIVE 327 or equivalent.

    Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.

    Launch Visual Schedule Builder
Research areas: 
Hydraulics
Brace Water Centre
Awards, honours, and fellowships: 

Awards

  • THOMAS C. KEEFER MEDAL, awarded to Shooka Karimpour and Vincent H. Chu for their paper entitled “Instability of unbounded transverse mixing layer in shallow waters” Can. J. Civ. Eng. 43: 504–510 (2016) for the best civil engineering paper in hydrotechnical, transportation or environmental engineering, 2017.
Selected publications: 

1994

Chu, V.H. Lagrangian scalings of jets and plumes with dominant eddies, Recent Research Advances in the Fluid Mechanics of Turbulent Jets and Plumes, NATO ASI Series E: Applied Sciences, Vol. 255, Davies P. A. and Valente Neves, M. J. Edited, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 45-72, 1994.

1996

  • Baines, W. D. and Chu, V.H. Jets and Plumes, Environmental Hydraulics, Chapter 2, V. P. Singh and I. Hager Editors, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 7-61, 1996.

2002

  • Chu, V.H. Turbulent Transport Processes across Natural Streams, Environmental Fluid Mechanics — Theories and Applications, Chapter 5, H. Shen, A.D. Cheng, K.H. Wang, M.H. Teng and C.C.K. Liu Editors, American Society Civil Engineers, pp. 127-167, 2002.

2003

  • Lee, J.H.W. and Chu, V. H. Turbulent Jets and Plumes — A Lagrangian Approach, Kluwer Academic Publishers ASCE, 390 pp., 2003 (ISBN 1-4020-7520-0), 2003.

2004

  • Chu, V.H., Liu, F. and Altai, W. (2004) "Friction and confinement effects on a shallow re-circulating flow", Journal Environmental Engineering and Science, Vol. 3, pp. 463-475.
  • Chu, V. H. and Zhang, J.-B. (2004) "Starting jets in a double tank apparatus", Shallow Flows, G.H. Jirka and W.S.J. Uijttewaal Editors, A.A. Balkema Publishers, pp. 71-78.
  • Chu, V. H. (2004) "Depth-averaged RANS and LES models for shallow-flow turbulence", Advance in Hydro-Science and Engineering, Volume VI, ISBN 0-937099-12-0, pp. 442-443 and 12 pp. in CD Rom.

2005

  • Li, X. and Chu, V.H. (2005) "Experimental and numerical study of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities", Science and Technology Review, Vol. 23, No. 11, pp. 30-32.
  • Altai, W., Pinilla, C. and Chu, V.H. (2005) "Shallow re-circulating flow in a cavity', Environmental Hydraulics and Sustainable Water Management, Lee and Lam (eds) Taylor and Francis Group, London (ISBN 04 1536 546 5), pp. 995-1000.
  • Bouhairie, S. and Chu, V.H. (2005) "Surface heat emissions from the back of a circular cylinder in a crossflow", Proceedings of the 20th Canadian Congress of Applied Mechanics (ISBN0-7717-0628-6), Montreal, pp. 228-229.
  • Li, X. and Chu, V.H. (2005) "Q2D turbulence by Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities", Environmental Hydraulics and Sustainable Water Management, Lee and Lam (eds) Taylor and Francis Group, London (ISBN 04 1536 546 5), pp. 263-268.
  • Pinilla, C. and Chu, V.H. (2005) "Turbulence by Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor Instabilities", Proceedings of the 20th Canadian Congress of Applied Mechanics (ISBN0-7717-0628-6), pp. 201-202.
  • Delatolla, R.A., Babarutsi, S., and Chu, V.H. (2005) "Turbulence in shallow re-circulating flows", Environmental Hydraulics and Sustainable Water Management, Lee and Lam (eds) Taylor and Francis Group, London (ISBN 04 1536 546 5), pp. 975-980.

2006

  • Chu, V.H., Pinilla, C.E., and Altai, W. (2006) "Buoyancy effect on turbulence using block", Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, Ghent, Belgium, 6 pp.
  • Li, Xi and Chu, V.H. (2006) "Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities by overturning experiment", Proceedings of the XVth Congress of APD of IAHR, IIT Madras, Chennai, India, Theme IV, Volume 2, ISBN 81-8424-070-8, pp. 1077-1082.
  • Bouhaire, S. and Chu, V.H. (2006) "Heat wake by deferred corrected ULTRA", Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, Ghent, Belgium, 6 pp.

2007

  • Tan, L. W. and Chu, V.H. (2007) "Turbulence and wave simulations using Lagrangian Block Method", Proceedings of the 18<th Engineering Mechanics Division Conference of ASCE, Blacksburg, Virginia, 6 pp.
  • Li, X. and Chu, V.H. (2007) "Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities by overturning experiments in tank", Journal of Hydrodynamics, Ser. B, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 303-308.
  • Bouhairie, S. and Chu, V.H. (2007) "2D simulation of unsteady heat transfer from a circular cylinder in cross flow", J. Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 570, pp. 117-215.
  • Pinilla, C. and Chu, V.H. (2007) "Turbulence and wave interaction in shallow water", Proceedings of the 18th Engineering Mechanics Division Conference of ASCE, Blacksburg, Virginia, 6 pp.

2008

  • Chu, V.H. (2008) "Wave and Turbulence Simulations using the Shallow Water Equations", Keynote Lecture, 2nd International Symposium on Shallow Flow, 12 pp.
  • Pinilla, C. and Chu, V.H. (2008) "Waves and Bed-Friction Effect on Stability of Transverse Sheer Flow in Shallow Waters", Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. S52, ISSN 0749-0208, pp. 207-214.
  • Li, X. and Chu, V.H. (2008) "Turbulence and Mixing across Gravitationally Unstable Interface by Tank-overturn Experiment", Journal of Hydro-environment Research, Vol 1, No. 3-4, pp. 176-186.
  • Chu, V. H. (2008) "Modelling and Simulation in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering", ICE Journal of Engineering and Computational Mechanics, Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 46-47.
  • Tan, L.W., Pinilla, C.E. and Chu, V.H. (2008) "Simulation of Water Advancing over Dry Bed using Lagrangian Blocks on Eulerian Mesh", Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, 6 pp.
  • Pinilla, C.E., Bouhairie, S. and Chu, V.H. (2008) "Frictional and Radiation Dampings on Shear Instability", Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, 6 pp.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2008) "Wave Run-up using Lagrangian Blocks on Eulerian Mesh", 2nd International Symposium on Shallow Flow, 6 pp.
  • Pinilla, C.E. and Chu, V.H. (2008) "Wave and Turbulence Interaction in a Square Basin", 2nd International Symposium on Shallow Flow, 6 pp.
  • Pinilla, C.E., Bouhairie, S., Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2008) "Minimal Intervention to Simulations using the Shallow-Water Equation", 2nd International Symposium on Shallow Flow, 6 pp.

2009

  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2009) "Wave run-up and overtopping simulations using Lagrangian Blocks", ASME 28th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, paper OMAE2009-79395, 8 pp.
  • Pinilla, C.E. and Chu, V.H. (2009), Wave radiation and shear instability in rotating stratified flow, ASME 28th International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, paper OMAE2009-79416, 8 pp.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2009) "Simulation of Wave Fronts on Dry Bed using Lagrangian Blocks", Journal Engineering and Computational Mechanics, Vol. 162, pp. 57-66.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2009) "Lauber and Hager’s dam-break wave data for numerical model validation", Journal Hydraulic Research, Vol 47(4), pp. 524-528.

2010

  • Chu, V.H. (2010) "Shear instability, wave and turbulence simulations using the shallow water equations", Journal of Hydro-environment Research, Vol. 3, Part 4, pp. 173-178.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Wave runup simulations using Lagrangian blocks on Eulerian mesh", Journal of Hydro-environment Research, Vol. 3, Part 4, pp. 193-200.
  • Pinilla, C., Bouhairie, S., Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Minimal intervention to simulations using the shallow-water equation", Journal of Hydro-environment Research, Vol. 3, Part 4, pp. 201-207.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Flood wave dynamics using Lagrangian Block Advection", Proceedings of the 18th Canadian Society of CFD Conference, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Wet-and-dry interface on steep slopes simulations using Lagrangian Blocks", Environmental Hydraulics, CRC Press/Balkema (ISBN 978-0-415-58475-3), Vol. 2, pp. 997-1002.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Dam-break flood simulations using 2D Lagrangian blocks on Eulerian mesh method", Environmental Hydraulics, CRC Press/Balkema (ISBN 978-0-415-58475-3), Vol. 2, pp. 1003-1008.
  • Karimpour Ghannadi, S., Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Super-critical and sub-critical starting jets in shallow waters", Environmental Hydraulics, CRC Press/Balkema (ISBN 978-0-415-58475-3), Vol. 1, pp. 141-146.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Stable simulation of shallow-water waves by Block Adection", Computational Fluid Dynamics, A. Kuzmin ed., Springer, 6 pp.
  • Wang, T., Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Flood-waves simulations by classical method of consistent transport", Computational Fluid Dynamics, A. Kuzmin ed., Springer, 6 pp.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Regular periodic wave simulations by Lagrangian Blocks", Proceedings 2010 Coastal Engineering Conference, 15 pp.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Lagrangian block hydrodynamic of macro resistance in a river-flow model", River Flow 2010, ISBN 978-3-939230-00-7, Vol. 1, pp. 419-426.
  • Wang, T., Karimpour Ghannadi, S. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Retention of dye tracer in side basins exchanging with subcritical and supercritical flows", River Flow, ISBN 978-3-939230-00-7, Vol. 2, pp. 1775-1782.
  • Tan, L.W. and Chu, V.H. (2010) "Lagrangian block hydrodynamics for environmental fluid mechanics simulations", Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Hydrodynamics, Shanghai, 6 pp.

2011

2012

  • Chu, V.H. and Altai, W. (2012) "Advection and Diffusion Simulations using Lagrangian blocks", Computational Thermal Sciences, Vol. 4(4), pp. 351-363.
  • Tan, L.-W. and Chu, V.H. (2012) "Two-dimensional Simulation of Shallow-Water Waves by Lagrangian Block Advection", Computers and Fluids, Vol. 65, pp. 35-43.

2013

  • Chu, V.H. and Gao, C. (2013) "False diffusion produced by flux limiters", Computational Thermal Sciences, Vol. 5(6), pp. 503-520.

2014

  • Chu, V.H. (2014) "Instabilities in non-rotating and rotating shallow shear flows", Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 14 (5), pp. 1085-1103.
  • Karimpour Ghannadi, S. and Chu, V.H. (2014) "Transverse dam-break waves, Journal of Fluid Mechanics", Vol. 758 (R2), doi:10.1017/jfm.2014.562.
  • Tan, L.-W. and Chu, V.H. (2014) "Flood Wave Dynamics Using Lagrangian Block Advection", International Journal of Integrated Engineering, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 8-12.

2015

  • Karimpour Ghannadi, S. and Chu, V. H. (2015) “High-order Interpolation Schemes for Shear Instability Simulations,” International Journal for Numerical Methods for Heat and Fluid Flow, Vol. 25(6), pp. 1340-1360.
  • Chu, V.H. and Altai, W. (2015) “Lagrangian Block Simulation of Buoyancy at Turbulence Interfaces,” Computational Thermal Sciences, Vol. 7(2), pp.181-189.

2016

  • Karimpour, S. and, Chu, V. H. (2016) “Instability of unbounded transverse mixing layer in shallow waters," Canadian J. Civil Engineering, Vol. 43, pp. 504-510.

2018

  • Chu, V.H. and Altai (2018) "A two-dimensional inviscid model of the gravity current head by Lagrangian block simulation," Environmental Fluid Mechanics, 18(1), 267-281.

2019

  • Karimpour, S. and, Chu, V. H. (2019) “The role of waves on mixing in shallow waters," Canadian J. Civil Engineering, Vol. 46(2), pp. 134-147.
  • Xie, P. and Chu, V. H. (2019) The forces of tsunami waves on a vertical wall and on a structure of finite width, Coastal Engineering, vol. 149, 65-80.
Areas of interest: 
  • Computational fluid dynamics
  • Hydrodynamic instability, waves and turbulence
  • Sediment and rock transport in steep open channel
  • Tsunami impact force on coastal structure
  • Earthquake triggered density current impact forces on seafloor infrastructure
  • Measurement and modelling of shallow-flow turbulence
  • Jets and plumes
  • Heat and mass transfer in wall region of turbulent flow
Professional activities: 
  • Member, Brace Centre for Water Resource Management
  • International Scientific Advisory Committee, River Flow 2020 – The tenth International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics, Delft, MO, July 7-10, 2020.
  • International Scientific Advisory Committee, River Flow 2018 – Ninth International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics, Lyon, September, 2018.
  • International Scientific Advisory Committee, The 3rd International Symposium on Outfall Systems: Industrial and municipal discharges: Design, Treatment, Environment. Ottawa, Ontario, May 10-13, 2016.
  • International Scientific Advisory Committee, River Flow 2016 – Eighth International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics, St. Louis, MO, July 10-14, 2016.
  • Chair of Technical Program Committee, 22nd Canadian Hydro-technical Conference, Montreal, April 29 – May 2, 2015.
  • Lecturer, 2014 Gerhard Jirka Summer School, HKUST, Hong Kong, December 13-19, 2014.
  • International Scientific Advisory Committee, 7th International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics, Singapore, January 7-8, 2014.
  • Scientific Advisory Committee, 3rd International Symposium on Shallow Flows, Iowa City, USA, June 2012.
  • Editorial Panel ICE Journal of Engineering and Computational Mechanics 2008-2012.
  • International Scientific Advisory Committee, 6th International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics, Athens, Greece, June 2010.
  • Master of the Master Class on Mass Transport and Dispersion in Rivers, River Flow, International Conference on Fluvial Hydraulics, Braunschweig, Germany, September 2010.
  • Keynote Lecturer and Member of Scientific Advisory Committee, International Symposium on Shallow Flows, Hong Kong, December 2008.
  • International Scientific Advisory Committee, 4th International Symposium on Environmental Hydraulics, December 2004.
  • Scientific Advisiory Committee, International Symposium on Shallow Flows, Delf, The Netherlands, June 2003
Back to top