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The University of Southampton
Aerospace
Phone:
(023) 8059 3394
Email:
i.castro@soton.ac.uk

Professor Ian P Castro MA, MSc, PhD, CEng, FRAeS

Emeritus Professor of Fluid Dynamics

Professor Ian P Castro's photo

Professor Ian P Castro is Emeritus Professor of Fluid Dynamics within Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Southampton.

Current position

Ian Castro is currently Emeritus Professor of Fluid Dynamics. He maintains his research interests in turbulent flows of industrial and environmental significance. In particular, he studies the nature of rough-wall boundary layers, particularly those features similar to the lower parts of the atmospheric boundary layer over urban regions, bluff body aerodynamics, and the characteristics of strongly stratified wind flows over mountain topography.

Biography

Ian Castro graduated from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge before gaining an MSc and then a PhD at Imperial College while employed as the first Donald Campbell Research Fellow in the Department of Aeronautics. There followed six years as a Research Officer at Marchwood Engineering Laboratories, Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), after which he escaped back to academia, joining the University of Surrey in 1978 as the Academic Advancement Fund Research Fellow. Subsequent posts as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader led to appointment in 1990 as Professor of Fluid Dynamics. Between 1980 and 1996 regular working periods, ranging from 2-6 months, as Visiting Professor were spent at the US Environmental Protection Agency's Fluid Modelling Facility in North Carolina and NC State University, Raleigh. The 1990s saw large stratified flow rigs (a wind tunnel and towing tank - together unique in Europe) moved from the now-privatised CEGB Leatherhead, to the University of Surrey and on its official opening in 1993 he was appointed as (Founder-) Director of the National Power Environmental Flow Research Centre.

He moved to Southampton, taking the new Chair in Fluid Dynamics at the start of the new Millennium, January 2000, and has since served as Head of the Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics Group and as Deputy Head of the School of Engineering Sciences. He is author of over 300 publications and has served on a number of national and international committees.

In March 2012 the Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics group hosted a Symposium "From bent layers to broken waves: studies in engineering and environmental fluid dynamics", in honour of his 65th birthday. The proceedings can be found at From bent layers to broken waves web page .

Having formally retired in September 2010, he returned part-time in the same post for six years, before becoming Emeritus Professor in February 2017. He remains involved in some of the Aerodynamics & Flight Mechanics Research Group’s activities

Research interests

  • fluid dynamics
  • complex turbulent flows of industrial and environmental significance using both experimental and computational approaches
  • measurement techniques
  • application of CFD to wind engineering problems

Research group

Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanic (AFM)

Research project(s)

Modelling wind flow, turbulence and dispersion in urban environments

The character of rough-wall boundary layers

Transition and turbulence in breaking gravity waves

Dispersion of localised releases in a street network (DIPLOS)

Professor Ian P Castro
Southampton Boldrewood Innovation Campus
University of Southampton
Building 176
Burgess Road
Southampton
SO16 7QF

Room Number : 176/2075

Facsimile: (023) 8059 3058

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