"Investigation of Complex Shear and Vortex Flows With Application to Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment"

虽然城市人口占世界人口的50%，但城市消耗了超过65%的能源，产生了超过60%的温室气体排放。在气候变化和新的人口结构背景下，可持续城市化是当前和未来的全球挑战之一，需要通过创新的解决方案加以解决。未来的城市社区需要(I)依靠新的能源形式(风能、太阳能等)来维持以及(Ii)对自然灾害(飓风、龙卷风等)的复原力。 风是产生强烈破坏的重要因素之一，同时也可用于生产能源。今年在美国和加拿大发生的龙卷风事件表明了这些风对生命、财产和基础设施的破坏性影响。然而，这些雷暴风系统还不是设计规范的一部分，即使它们对北美内陆的影响上升到总风害的65%以上。需要进行研究以：(I)适当地模拟这些事件，以及(Ii)了解它们对自然和建筑环境的影响。 CanWEA预测，到2025年，加拿大20%的能源可以由风能提供。在风力发电技术日趋成熟的同时，风力发电机组和风电场的效率也需要提高。叶片变得更长了，为了坚固耐用，采用了新的气动形状，但在振动和噪音方面有一些损失。当风力发电场位于复杂的地形中或将风力涡轮机放置在风力发电场阵列中时，流动的不确定性可能会大幅减少功率输出。 这项拟议的研究涉及风对建筑物和结构的破坏影响以及风力涡轮机和风力发电场的空气动力学优化。这项研究将利用最近由西安大略大学资助的新型风力工程能源和环境穹顶，来彻底改变实验室中模拟风力系统的方式。然后，它将调查这些风力系统对建筑物和结构的影响，以及如何改进风力涡轮机和风力发电场的设计。

While encompassing 50% of the world population, cities consume more than 65% of its energy and produce more than 60% of its greenhouse-gas emissions. In the context of climate change and new demographics, Sustainable Urbanization is one of the present and future global challenges that need to be addressed by innovative solutions. The Future Urban Community needs to be (i) sustained by new forms of energy (wind, solar, etc.) and (ii) resilient to natural disasters (hurricanes, tornados, etc.). Wind is one of the important factors that can generate intensive damage while at the same time be used in producing energy. The tornado events in both US and Canada this year demonstrate the damaging effects of these winds to life, property and infrastructure. Nevertheless, these thunderstorm wind systems are not yet part of the design codes even if their impact to interior North America rises to more than 65% of the total wind damage. Research needs to be carried out to: (i) properly simulate these events and (ii) to understand the way they impact the natural and built environment. CanWEA projects that by 2025 20% of the total Canadian energy can be provided by wind. While wind turbine technology is maturing the efficiency of wind turbines and wind farms needs to increase. Blades are becoming longer and new aerodynamic shapes are adopted for robustness but with some penalties in terms of vibrations and noise. When sitting a wind farm in complex topographic terrain or when placing the wind turbines in wind farm arrays, flow uncertainties can drastically reduce the power outputs. The proposed research addresses the damaging effects of wind on buildings and structures and the aerodynamic optimization of wind turbines and wind farms. The research will make use of the novel Wind Engineering Energy and Environment Dome recently funded at the University of Western Ontario to revolutionize the way wind systems are simulated in a laboratory. It will then investigate how these wind systems impact on buildings and structures and how to improve the design of wind turbines and wind farms.