Thesis abstract:

In recent years, there has been growing interest in urban heat island, which is an area of higher temperature caused by high absorption of solar radiation and less thermal losses in urban environments. This is contributed by the heat releasing from buildings and streets to contribute thermal plumes when the absorption of solar radiation happens in the daytime. This abstract describes a novel experimental setup where velocity and temperature are simultaneously measured downstream of a block with a heated top, simulating the heat released from an elevated level in the urban environment. The experiments were conducted in the closed-circuit Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel (BLWT) at the University of Sydney.