Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/L026457/1
Title:	Quantification of the influence of geometry on the flow developed over and through fractal and non-fractal groups of obstacles.
Principal Investigator:	Brevis, Dr W
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Civil and Structural Engineering
Organisation:	University of Sheffield
Scheme:	First Grant - Revised 2009
Starts:	15 August 2014	Ends:	14 August 2016	Value (£):	100,466
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Aerodynamics Fluid Dynamics
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Construction Environment
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 29 Apr 2014 Engineering Prioritisation Panel Meeting 29 April 2014 Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
Air quality has a major impact on human health and ecosystems. Thus, the improvement of our understanding and the modelling of how urban geometry can modify the natural ventilation of cities has become a crucial issue for the sustainable development of the United Kingdom (UK). According to DEFRA, the cost from the impacts of air pollution in the UK can be estimated to be between £ 9-19 billion every year, this is comparable to the economic cost of obesity (over £ 10 billion). Cities can be viewed as a complex collection of structures of different scales (buildings of different size, large factories etc.). Research in the field of regional planning has shown that large urban areas have important fractal characteristics and there is evidence that non-fractal, but expanding, cities have also a tendency towards fractality. This project aims to create the foundations for a long-term research approach involving the development of environmental models able to quantify the relation between the fractal geometry of urban forms and their environmental performance. Large amounts of research have contributed towards the modelling and description of the fractal spatial characteristics of cities; however there is no evidence of how the reported fractal geometry can be related to flow characteristics and ventilation rates. This project will experimentally quantify the relationship between a multi-scale group of obstacles, which could be a generic group of buildings, and the flow structure developed within and over a large group of obstacles. It is expected that the results obtained from this project will facilitate innovative approaches to tackling the current scientific and applied challenges involved in the modelling of urban flows, but will also provide results generic enough to trigger the development of similar approaches in the wider context of environmental fluid mechanics.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.shef.ac.uk