Keynote speakers

Bert Blocken - Heriot-Watt University, UK and  KU Leuven, Belgium

Urban Physics Research to tackle the Grand Societal Challenges

Urban physics is the science and engineering of physical processes in urban areas. It basically refers to the transfer of heat and mass in the outdoor urban environment. Urban physics is a rapidly increasing focus area as it is key to understanding and addressing the grand societal challenges climate change, energy, health, security, transport and aging. Its research methods including numerical simulation with computational fluid dynamics (CFD), field tests and wind tunnel tests. This keynote lecture provides three examples of urban physics research: COVID-19 related aerosol ventilation in semi-outdoor football stadiums, mitigation of heat waves in cities and reduction of outdoor air pollution by particulate matter. It indicates how CFD and field tests can be combined successfully to contribute to tackling some of the grand societal challenges.

Short Bio: Professor Bert Blocken is a Belgian national and a Civil Engineer holding a PhD in Civil Engineering & Building Physics from KU Leuven in Belgium. He is Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Heriot-Watt University in the United Kingdom and part-time Full Professor in Civil Engineering at KU Leuven in Belgium. His main areas of expertise are computational fluid dynamics, wind tunnel testing, urban physics, city and building aerodynamics and sports aerodynamics.

Horia Hangan - Ontario Tech University, Canada

Modeling of non-synoptic winds

The lecture titled “Modeling of Non-synoptic winds” uses superpositions of exact solutions of Navier-Stokes equations to model the mean wind field of Tornado-like Vortices (TLVs) and Downburst-like Flows (DLFs). Modal analysis decompositions, such as Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) are also used for the interpretation and modeling of the large scale fluctuations related to these wind fields.

Short Bio: Professor Horia Hangan is Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Adaptive Aerodynamics, in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Ontario Tech University, Canada. He received his Diplomat Engineering Degree in Aeronautics from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania in 1985, continued his graduate studies at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland between 1991-1992 and obtained his Ph.D. in Wind Engineering at Western University in Canada in 1996. After postdoctoral studies at Universite de Poitiers in France he rejoined Western in 1997 as a faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and as Research Director of the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory. In 2009, Professor Hangan received a Canada Foundation for Innovation grant to design and built the Wind Engineering Energy and Environment (WindEEE) Dome, a unique experimental facility dedicated to the simulation of three-dimensional, non-stationary and non-gaussian flows. He acted as the Founding Director of the WindEEE Research Institute at Western until 2020 when he received a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 in Adaptive Aerodynamics with Ontario Tech University. Professor Hangan research encompasses bluff and profiled body aerodynamics and their control, high intensity winds (downbursts and tornados) and their impacts on buildings, structures and aero-vehicles, wind energy (sitting in complex terrain, wind turbine blade aerodynamics) and harsh weather impacts (rain, snow, icing). He authored more than 200 journal and conference publications, is the Chief Editor of the MDPI journal Wind and member of editorial boards such as Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, Wind Energy Science. He has received several prestigious awards among which Atmospheric Science Librarians International CHOICE Honorable Mention award for Oxford Handbook of Non-Synoptic Windstorms in 2021, Doctor Honoris Causa by the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Romania in 2019, the Best Paper Award by the American Association of Wind Engineering in 2018, the Industry International Award by the International Society of Wind Engineering in 2017 and the ASME Moody Award in 2010. He has been an Invited Professor at Ecole Normale Superieure and Ecole Superieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle de Paris, France in 2003-2004, at Institute de Mecanique des Fluides de Toulouse, France in 2018 and at the University of Genova, Italy in 2018 and 2023.

 Rüdiger Höffer - Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

 New European standard for the calculation of wind-induced, dynamic structural reactions

With the introduction of the second Eurocode generation on wind actions on structures, the models of wind effects and equivalent static loads for the determination of structural responses will be significantly expanded. In addition to the equivalent quasi-static loads for gust excitation in the longitudinal direction, now also for vibration modes with a change of sign, the treatment of gust-induced lateral and torsional excitation is  regulated for the first time in two annexes and a new model for vortex excitation is introduced. The methods are discussed.

Short Bio: Professor Rüdiger Höffer studied civil engineering and obtained his doctorate in 1996 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

  • 1995-1997 visiting scientist at the Danish Maritime Institute in Copenhagen and at the University of Florence as a scholarship holder of the European Research Framework Program,
  • since 1997 senior structural engineer today partner in several specialised engineering
  • companies,
  • since 2003 university professor for Wind Engineering at the Institute for Structural
  • Engineering at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum,
  • since 2009 Design Review Engineer for structural integrity and fire protection,
  • since 2011 member of the European standards committee CEN/TC 250/SC 1 and the national mirror committee at DIN, the German Institute for Standardization,
  • since 2023 vice-chairman of the European Technical Committee CEN/TC 250/SC 1 “Eurocode 1: Actions on structures”
Yukio Tamura - Chongqing University, China

Damping in buildings for wind resistant design 

Physical causes of damping in buildings, the importance of appropriate use of damping evaluation techniques, and points to note for accurate evaluation of damping are first discussed. Next, the Japanese Damping Database collected from 285 buildings is introduced and empirical formulae of natural frequencies and damping ratios are derived. Then, the variation of damping ratio with amplitude is discussed, especially in the amplitude range relevant to wind-resistant design of buildings, i.e. within the elastic limit. A theoretical expression for damping due to stick-slip components is derived and introduced. The general belief is that damping increases with amplitude, but it is emphasized that there is no evidence of increasing damping ratio in the very high amplitude range within the elastic limit of main frames, unless there is damage to secondary members or architectural finishings. The damping ratio decreases with amplitude from a certain tip drift ratio defined as “critical tip drift ratio” after all friction surfaces between primary/structural and secondary/non-structural members have been mobilized.

Short Bio: Yukio Tamura is a Professor and the Advisory Director of the Research Center of Wind Engineering, Environment and Energy, School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing University, China. He is also a Professor Emeritus of Tokyo Polytechnic University (TPU), Japan, and the Honorary Director of the TPU Wind Engineering Research Center. He served as the President of the International Association for Wind Engineering (IAWE) for eight years from 2007 to 2015. He is now serving as Honorary Chairman of the International Thematic Group for Wind-Related Disaster Risk Reduction under the auspices of the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction. He is also serving as an Honorary/Guest/Adjunct Professor of around 20 universities/institutes in China, Korea, Malaysia, Poland and the USA. Due to his internationally recognized outstanding academic achievements, he has received many awards including the ASCE Jack E. Cermak Medal in 2004, the ASCE Robert H. Scanlan Medal in 2016, as well as the IAWE Alan Davenport Medal in 2016. In addition, due to his various professional contributions, he has received other important awards, including the Japan Association for Wind Engineering (JAWE) 2015 Design Award for his contribution to the wind resistant design of the 634m-high Tokyo Sky Tree and the Chinese Government Friendship Award in 2017. Professor Yukio Tamura has been a member of the Engineering Academy of Japan since 2011, a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering since 2013, and a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering since 2017.