On 26 June 2024, the launch of a new IRL (International Research Laboratory) of the CNRS and the UBA was celebrated in Argentina. The IFADyFE (Institut Franco-Argentin de Dynamique des Fluides pour l’Environnement) is formed by laboratories in Buenos Aires (Faculty of Engineering and the Physics Department of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the UBA), Entre Ríos (Institute for Research and Development in Bioengineering and Bioinformatics), and San Luis (Institute of Applied Physics, National University of San Luis). Its director is Thomas Séon and co-director María Verónica D’Angelo.

The IRL will investigate vortex dynamics; wave and bio-inspired energy conversion; turbulence in environmental fluids; transport in fractured and porous media; and granular and multiphase media.

There are currently three collaborative activities between IFAECI and IFADyFE on measurements and dynamics of enstrophy, two-dimensional turbulence in soap tunnels and on detection of coherent Lagrangian structures using topological methods.

These collaborations involve a researcher from the National Meteorological Service (M. I. Auliel), a PhD student from FIUBA (C. Zárate), and a trainee from Toulon at the Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (T. Maillard). Denisse Sciamarella and Juan Ruiz from IFAECI, and Guillermo Artana and Alejandro Gronskis from IFADyFE are directing this work.

IFAECI welcomes the prospects for scientific cooperation opened up by this new institute, which will ensure historical continuity and the development of new lines of Franco-Argentine collaboration in geophysics and the environment.