NTU Engineering Research Seminar on CFD Advances for Industrial Flows

Time: 12:00 – 13:00 on 26th September 2025 (Friday)

Location: (Hybrid), Teaching and Learning Building Lecture Theatre 2 (CTLLT2), Nottingham Trent University Clifton Campus, Clifton Ln, Clifton, Nottingham NG11 8NS

Speaker: Dr. Joshua Brinkerhoff, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, University of British Columbia—Okanagan, Canada

https://engineering.ok.ubc.ca/about/contact/joshua-brinkerhoff/

Title:Modelling turbulence at extreme Reynolds numbers: advances and applications in wind energy, hydrogen, and health

Abstract: Turbulence is a defining feature of the fluid flows that occur in our energy sector, transportation systems, and in and through our buildings. Most of these applications involve very large Reynolds numbers, where flow inertia massively dwarfs viscous diffusion. As computational power grows, numerical simulations are increasingly able to resolve the minute features of turbulence in these settings. This includes the rich spectrum of energy-containing fluctuations or “eddies” that are responsible for transferring mass, heat, and momentum across the extremely broad ranges of length and time scales found in such flows. So-called “eddy resolving” simulations are shedding new light on how turbulent flows behave and the ways that turbulence affects the performance of critical infrastructure across a broad range of sectors. An example is pictured above—a simulation of the N4 wind farm cluster from the German Bight in a stratified atmospheric boundary layer, illustrating the large cluster wake and gravity waves triggered by the farm. This talk will explore the development and application of eddy resolving numerical simulations of turbulent flows undertaken in the UBC Okanagan CFD Lab. In particular, it will explore how eddy-resolving turbulence simulations are contributing to innovations in wind energy, airborne disease transmission, and hydrogen safety. The talk will aim to describe recent advances in CFD numerical methods, novel applications, and fundamental insights into the physics of turbulent flows.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Joshua Brinkerhoff is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering and leads the UBC-Okanagan Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Lab. Dr. Brinkerhoff’s research is focused on eddy-resolving numerical simulations of turbulent flows, with applications in wind turbine aerodynamics, atmospheric boundary layers, laminar-to-turbulent transition, cavitation and pool boiling in cryogenic liquids, airborne disease transmission, and hydrogen storage, blending, and safety. Since 2014, he has published over 51 refereed journal publications and 60 peer-reviewed conference papers, in addition to receiving over $13.6M in total external funding. From 2021-2025, Dr. Brinkerhoff served the School of Engineering as the Associate Director—Research, and also serves as the Treasurer and Secretary of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Society of Canada.