
Professor Alan Robins
Academic and research departments
School of Mechanical Engineering Sciences, Environmental Flow (EnFlo) Laboratory.About
Biography
I am a Professor here at the University of Surrey.
ResearchResearch interests
Research interests include turbulent flow and dispersion, with applications to environmental aerodynamics and air pollution problems. Work includes experimental and mathematical modelling of turbulent flows, mixing processes and concentration fluctuations, the dispersion of emissions in the atmosphere and their subsequent deposition, wind tunnel methods for simulating atmospheric flow and dispersion, and wind power studies.
Research projects
Tall buildings are a ubiquitous feature of rapid urban growth, with a disruptive impact on the planetary boundary layer, air quality, pedestrian comfort and the local microclimate.
- Start date: 1 June 2021
- End date: 1 June 2024
- Funding: £1.8 million
- Funder: EPSRC.
Research interests
Research interests include turbulent flow and dispersion, with applications to environmental aerodynamics and air pollution problems. Work includes experimental and mathematical modelling of turbulent flows, mixing processes and concentration fluctuations, the dispersion of emissions in the atmosphere and their subsequent deposition, wind tunnel methods for simulating atmospheric flow and dispersion, and wind power studies.
Research projects
Tall buildings are a ubiquitous feature of rapid urban growth, with a disruptive impact on the planetary boundary layer, air quality, pedestrian comfort and the local microclimate.
- Start date: 1 June 2021
- End date: 1 June 2024
- Funding: £1.8 million
- Funder: EPSRC.
Publications
Wind tunnel experiments on regular arrays of buildings were conducted in the environmental wind tunnel in the EnFlo laboratory at the University of Surrey. The model canopy comprised a square array of 14×21 rectangular blocks (1h × 2h) with height h = 70 mm. Preliminary measurements of velocity, turbulence and tracer concentrations were made for 3 wind directions: 0, 45 and 90◦. The results from this first experimental campaign along with numerical simulations have shown that the canopy has obstacles sufficiently long compared with their heights to yield extensive flow channelling along streets. Across the whole of the downwind half of the long street the flow for the present canopy is closely aligned with the obstacle faces, despite the 45◦ flow orientation aloft. This supports the suggestion that the streets are long enough to be representative for street network modelling approaches; shorter streets would probably not be sufficient and it will be interesting to see how well network models can predict concentrations in the present canopy. The extensive array and the small scale of the model posed challenging problems for reaching the desired high accuracy needed to validate the numerical simulations. The improvements in the methodology will be presented and discussed at the conference. The wind tunnel data, along with LES and DNS simulations, are being used to understand the behaviour of flow and dispersion within regular array with a more realistic geometry than the usual cuboids. This integrated methodology will help developing parametrisations for improved street network dispersion models