Environmental Flow Research Centre
Established in 1993 with funding from EPSRC, National Power, the Meteorological Office and the University of Surrey, our Centre, known as 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
FUTURE: Fluid dynamics of urban tall-building clusters for resilient built environments
Principal investigator: Professor Alan Robins
Start date: June 2021
End date: June 2024
Funding amount: £1.8 million
An investigation into the possible role of air pollution in declining insect populations
Investigations into pollutant dispersion and urban air quality
Low-carbon natural ventilation for buildings
MAGIC: Envisaging a world with greener cities
Principal investigator: Professor Alan Robins
The development of better wind power technologies
Completed projects
Start date: January 2014
End date: August 2017
Start date: 2012
End date: 2015
DAPPLE: Dispersion of air pollution and penetration into the local environment
Principal investigator: Professor Alan Robins
Start date: 2002
End date: 2010
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.
Facilities
We have numerous wind tunnels here in the Centre including our Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) - National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) meteorological wind tunnel and EnFlo tunnel which is one of few in the world which allow experiments to be carried out in controlled conditions simulating the Earth's atmosphere.
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 contacts
Professor Alan Robins
Head of the Centre
Zilla Gardiner
Centre Administrator
Academic staff
Dr David Birch
Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering; Head of Centre for Aerodynamics & Environmental Flow
Dr Matteo Carpentieri
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Fluid Mechanics
Dr Philip Hancock
Emeritus Reader in Fluid Mechanics
Dr Marco Placidi
Senior Lecturer in Experimental Fluid Mechanics
Technical staff
Dr Paul Hayden
Research Fellow
Dr Graham Webb
Experimental Officer
Allan Wells
Mechanical Systems Technician