Summary
Meeting the required reductions in greenhouse emissions will require substantial changes to the way we design and operate our cities. Indeed, given that about 3 billion people will either migrate to cities or be born in cities in the next 30 years, cities will be on the frontiers of mitigating climate change. Engineers will play a crucial role in tackling this challenge.
In this seminar I will discuss the role of urban flow on air quality, energy efficiency and resilience of cities. The challenges of predicting urban flows will be highlighted. I will show how relatively simple fluid mechanical models can be used to answer important practical questions about the efficiency of green infrastructure in mitigating the heat island effect. I will discuss how high performance computing can provide fundamental new insights into urban flows and will give examples using our in-house high-resolution large-eddy simulation code.
Speaker
Maarten Van Reeuwijk