Research Fellow in Experimental Fluid Mechanics

Mechanical Engineering Sciences

Location: Guildford
Salary: £35,308 to £40,745 per annum
Fixed Term
Post Type: Full Time
Closing Date: 23.59 hours BST on Sunday 16 April 2023
Reference: 017623

We wish to recruit a full-time, post-doctoral researcher, preferably with experience in wind tunnel modelling of urban flow and dispersion. The position will run for up to 2 years and will contribute to two main research projects: FUTURE and ASSURE.

FUTURE (Fluid dynamics of Urban Tall-building clUsters for Resilient built Environments) is a £1.8M EPSRC grant involving the University of Surrey, Reading and Southampton. The overarching goal is to explore the effect of tall buildings (both in isolation and in clusters) on the planetary boundary layer, air quality, pedestrian comfort and the local microclimate with the aim of developing models that describe the effects of tall buildings on these quantities to help promoting the development of healthier cities.

ASSURE (Across-scale processes in urban environments) is a £2.5M NERC grant involving the Universities of Surrey, Reading, Southampton, Bristol and Imperial College London. The local and global consequences of climate change affect most of the world's urban, population, but only recently have cities been represented, albeit crudely, in weather forecast models. The next generation models need to treat processes that operate on the urban scale and ASSURE addresses the critical issue of which of these need to be parameterised, and which resolved, to capture effects of urban heterogeneity in both space and time. Unlike previous studies of the largest cities, we focus on mid-sized cities as they are in toto large centres of human activity and sources of greenhouse gases. Research will concentrate on Bristol, as its physical geography provides suitably high levels of complexity and allows whole city approaches, but we will aim to be generic at heart.  Our objectives are: (1) to understand how physical setting, city geography and human activities combine to influence the urban atmosphere in space and time; (2) to quantify impacts across a city on flow, temperature, moisture and air quality controlling processes and to determine how these interact; (3) to develop a theoretical framework that captures the key processes and feedbacks with reduced complexity to aid meteorological model parameterisations; (4) to inform the development priorities of current weather and climate models.

The post-holder will contribute to three main areas: wind tunnel studies; result analysis and interpretation, collaboration with field work and CFD studies. The posts form part of the larger FUTURE and ASSURE PDRA teams within the collaborating universities.

The post at Surrey is in the EnFlo Laboratory within the school of Mechanical Engineering Sciences. EnFlo is an Atmospheric Measurement Facility within the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NERC/NCAS), is part of the EPSRC National Wind Tunnel Facility, and a leading international centre for laboratory simulation of atmospheric boundary layer flow and dispersion processes. It is expected that further research opportunities will arise within EnFlo during the period of the appointments.

For detailed particulars of the post, research topics and requirements, please contact Dr Matteo Carpentieri ([email protected] ). 

Please submit your CV and a covering letter with your application.

Further details: Job Description

Please note, it is University Policy to offer a starting salary equivalent to Level 3.6 (£34,314) to successful applicants who have been awarded, but are yet to receive, their PhD certificate. Once the original PhD certificate has been submitted to the local HR Department, the salary will be increased to Level 4.1 (£35,308).