Environmental Flow (EnFlo) Laboratory

Established in 1993 with funding from EPSRC, National Power, the Meteorological Office and the University of Surrey, EnFlo is an internationally recognised centre of excellence in atmospheric boundary layer flows and environmental aerodynamics.

Our main objectives

  • Provide world-leading wind-tunnel facilities in support of research in fluid flow and dispersion to both academy and industry
  • Undertake research on flow and pollutant dispersion processes in the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, lakes and rivers
  • Provide training and promote best practice in the use of laboratory modelling techniques in environmental fluid mechanics.

Research projects

Active projects

Start date: June 2021

End date: June 2025

Funding amount: ~£1.8 million

Completed projects

Start date: January 2014

End date: August 2017

Start date: 2009

End date: 2010

Start date: 2006

End date: 2014

Collaborative work

Health Protection Agency and the NHS

A series of projects for the HPA (now Public Health England) has been completed within the Micro- and NanoMaterials and Technologies EngD course. The first two covered health and related aspects of waste management and the third, odour, including an unusual example of long range odour transport (from Germany to the UK).

Other works were with Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital and treated the physics of short range dispersion from short, roof top stacks; the case study being emissions from the cyclotron facility at St Thomas’.

CONCAWE

CONCAWE is based in Brussels and commissions environmental research on behalf of its members (mainly petrol-chemical industries). Projects at EnFlo have focussed on near-field dispersion at process plants and, in particular, the use of line integrated concentration measurements around a plant to estimate emission rates of hydrocarbons from leaks and similar sources.

The overall aim was to understand the uncertainties in the resulting estimates and to develop best practice for carrying out such work.

Student using wind tunnel

Facilities

We have numerous wind tunnels, including the "EnFlo" meteorological wind tunnel, which is a NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) National Facility within the National Centre for Atmospheric Science's (NCAS) AMOF (Atmospheric Measurements & Observation Facility) and part of the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) National Wind Tunnel Facility (NWTF). The EnFlo tunnel allows experiments to be carried out in controlled conditions simulating Earth's atmosphere and is one of few in the world capable of reproducing a wide range of temperature variations for more realistic meteorological conditions.

Who we collaborate with

UK universities

  • University of Bristol
  • University of Cambridge
  • Imperial College London
  • University of Leeds
  • University of Reading
  • University of Southampton

Institutions and organisations

  • APRIL
  • CERC
  • CONCAWE (Brussels)
  • DGA (France)
  • ECL (France)
  • EU (Marie Curie)
  • FFI (Norway)
  • FOI (Sweden)
  • Golder Associates (UK)
  • INERIS (France)
  • Owlstone
  • Sandia National Labs (USA)
  • Selex-Galileo
  • Sellafield, HPA (PHE) and NHS
  • Shell Global Solutions

Meet the team

If you have any queries or would like to get involved with our research then please get in touch.

Key people

Matteo Carpentieri profile image

Dr Matteo Carpentieri

EnFlo PI - Director of Facilities, Associate Professor of Environmental Fluid Mechanics

Academic staff

David Birch profile image

Dr David Birch

Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering; Head of Centre for Aerodynamics & Environmental Flow

Philip Hancock profile image

Dr Philip Hancock

Emeritus Reader in Fluid Mechanics

Giovanni Iacobello profile image

Dr Giovanni Iacobello

Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering Sciences

Marco Placidi (he/him) profile image

Dr Marco Placidi

Senior Lecturer in Experimental Fluid Mechanics

Alan Robins profile image

Professor Alan Robins

Professor of Environmental Fluid Mechanics

Technical staff

Richard Kelly

Experimental Officer

Allan Wells

Mechanical Systems Technician

Research staff

Dr Shanshan Ding

Research Fellow

Dr Abhishek Mishra

Research Fellow

PhD researchers

Rose Foster

Postgraduate research student

Joy Schmeer profile image

Joy Schmeer

Postgraduate research student

Cameron Southgate-Ash profile image

Cam Southgate-Ash

Postgraduate Research Student