Fluid dynamics of Urban Tall-building clUsters for Resilient built Environments (FUTURE)

Completed

Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Energy Models)
Renewable Energy Sources(Wind Energy)
Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial)
Not Energy Related

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Systems Analysis related to energy R&D (Energy modelling)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy

Prof JF Barlow
Meteorology
University of Reading

Standard

EPSRC

28 June 2021

27 June 2025

48 months

£536,047

Mechanical engineering

South East

NC : Engineering

Prof JF Barlow, Meteorology, University of Reading

Dr O Coceal, University of Reading
Professor CSB Grimmond, Meteorology, University of Reading

The world is witnessing rapid urbanisation, where a large percentage of its population is expected to live within urban environments - circa 70% - by 2050 (1). The main solution to urban immigration has been to construct tall buildings (TBs), which allow for a high-density population (and commercial activities) to reside in the hearts of our cities. However, recent years have witnessed increasing concerns regarding public health and wellbeing in dense urban environments. For instance, it is known that the urban heat island effect, where urban areas are typically some degrees hotter than the surrounding rural areas, can contribute to death rates during heatwaves (2). To exacerbate these issues, as recognised by the London Plan (3), ''some climate change is inevitable..." and this is likely to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, and the consequent urban health risks. The current COVID-19 crisis has also highlighted the importance of predicting pathogen dispersion and of efficient indoor/outdoor ventilation in urban areas (4). It is, therefore, in the public interest to build healthy and sustainable urban environments by ensuring that air quality, transport of pollutant emissions, and the microclimate within cities (e.g. winds, temperatures, pollutant concentrations, and anthropogenic heat) do not reach unsustainable levels from poor urban development planning and lack of strategic directions. Recent initiatives are now promoting research on urban environmental health and sustainability (e.g. Public Health England's project Healthy-Polis). Despite the likely effects of the proliferation of tall structures in exacerbating some of the problems discussed above, current weather and air quality models do not cater for TBs and their long-lasting effects on the winds and temperature fields within urban neighbourhoods. This mostly relates to the dominant small scales of the phenomena under examination, in contrast to the spatial resolution that these models typically achieve (i.e. of the order of hundreds of metres) within the constraints of state-of-the-art computer power, resource availability, and turnaround time. On the other hand, the spatial resolution of computational fluid dynamics methods used in academia is much higher i.e. appropriate to resolve the presence of these urban towers. However, these research simulations often lack much of the physics needed to adequately capture real environmental flows (e.g. atmospheric conditions, heat exchange), and are generally run over much smaller domains. Hence, there is a dual need for more realistic detailed simulations and better parametrisations for larger-scale operational models, with the former informing development of the latter. References (1) Revision of World Urbanization Prospect (2018). DESA, UN. (2) Vardoulakis et al. (2016). Environmental Health 15, S30. (3) The London Plan (2017). Greater London Authority. (4) ECDC Tech. Report (2020). European Centre forDisease Prevention and Control.

10/09/25