Professor Chris Baker CEng, FICE, FIHT, FHEA, FRMetS

 

Professor of Environmental Fluid Mechanics
Director of the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education
Convenor of MRes Programme in Railway Systems Engineering and Integration

School of Civil Engineering

Chris Baker

Contact details

Telephone +44 (0) 121 414 5067

Fax +44 (0) 121 414 3675

Email c.j.baker@bham.ac.uk

Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education
Gisbert Kapp Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

About

Chris Baker graduated from his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge, before beginning a Research Fellowship there at St Catharine’s College and the Department of Engineering. In the early 1980s he worked in the Aerodynamics Unit of British Rail Research in Derby, before moving to an academic position in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Nottingham.

He remained there till 1998 where he was a lecturer, reader and professor with research interests in vehicle aerodynamics, wind engineering, environmental fluid mechanics and agricultural aerodynamics. In 1998 he moved to the University of Birmingham as Professor of Environmental Fluid Mechanics in the School of Civil Engineering.

In the early years of the present century he was Director of Teaching in the newly formed School of Engineering and Deputy Head of School. From 2003 to 2008 he was Head of Civil Engineering and in 2008 served for a short time as Acting Head of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. He has been the Director of the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education since 2005.

Qualifications

  • Certificate in Theological and Pastoral Studies, University of Nottingham, 1988
  • PhD, University of Cambridge, 1978
  • MA, University of Cambridge, 1978
  • BA Engineering, 1st Class with distinction, St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, 1975

Teaching

Teaching Programmes – on Civil Engineering programmes

Prof Baker has teaching interests in the general field of fluid mechanics, and has in the past lectured on most aspects of Hydraulic Engineering to undergraduates and postgraduates.

He currently lectures on the first year course on Fluid flow, thermodynamics and heat transfer for Civil, Chemical and Mechanical Engineering students, the third year Civil engineering course on Environmental Risk Management and the fourth year Civil Engineering course on Environmental fluid Mechanics. He also supervises third year design projects and fourth year individual research projects.

Postgraduate supervision

  • N. Perez-Solero “Measurement of train slipstreams using a rotating rail rig”
  • M. Anyala “The effect of climate change on Road design”
  • C. Tomlinson “Modelling of heat island effects”
  • T Gilbert “The aerodynamics of trains in semi-confined situation”
  • Y Cheng “The lodging of oats”
  • D Soper “Freight train aerodynamics”

Research

RESEARCH THEMES

  • Transport and Climate Change 
  • Vehicle Aerodynamics 
  • Wind Engineering 
  • Agricultural Aerodynamics 
  • Environmental Fluid Mechanics

RESEARCH ACTIVITY

  • Review of the effects of climate change on wind loading (2010-2011) NERC (£30k)
  • The modelling of oat lodging (2010-2013) ADAS (£12k)
  • Studies of the Birmingham heat island (2008-2011) Birmingham City Council (£15k)
  • SWERVE - Severe weather and vulnerability estimation (£450k - £30k to Birmingham University), EPSRC Grant (2008-2011)
  • The flight of wind borne debris (£450k), EPSRC grant (2008-2011)
  • AEROTRAIN (£400k to Birmingham University), EU grant with 20 other partners (2009-2012)
  • FUTURENET – Future Resilient Transport Networks. EPSRC grant from Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change programme (£1.5m - £600k to Birmingham University) (2009-2013)
  • The measurement of wind loading on trackside structures. RSSB contract (£60k) (2010-2011)
  • Reduction of railway energy use. Member of consortium led by Southampton University. EPSRC Feasibility Account (approximately £50k to Birmingham) (2010-2011)
  • Resilience through innovation – critical local transport and utility infrastructure. EPSRC Feasibility account (£250k), 2010-2011

Other activities

  • External examiner for PhD theses at a number of UK and overseas universities
  • Governor of King Edward VI School, Lichfield
  • Member of BSI Loading Committee 525
  • Member of the Advisory Group for Research in the Rail Industry (AGRRI)
  • Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of CISIT. International Campus on Safety and Intermodality in Transportation, Valenciennes, France
  • CEN working group on structural codes of practice associated with climate effects
  • IAWE International Group for Wind-Related Disaster Risk Reduction
  • Chair, DfT committee on climate change in the Railway Industry
  • Anglican clergyman, licensed to Christchurch, Lichfield

Prof Baker was awarded the title of Fellow of the Wind Engineering Society in 1996. He has been a Keynote speaker at a number of recent Wind Engineering conferences including:

  • “Wind effects in the urban environment – considerations for human health, comfort and safety”, Keynote lecture, ISWE Tokyo, Japan, (2004)
  • “The overturning of road and rail vehicles in high winds”, Keynote Address Italian Wind Engineering Conference (2004)
  • “Wind Engineering – past, present and future”, Keynote lecture, Proceedings 4th European and African Regional Conference on Wind Engineering, Prague (2005)
  • “The overturning of road and rail vehicles in high winds”, Invited lecture, Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Wind Engineering, Seoul (2005)
  • “The flow field around trains”, Keynote Address, Bluff Body Aerodynamics and its Applications Conference, Milan (2008)
  • “Cross wind effects on road and rail vehicles”, IAVSD Symposium, Stockholm, Sweden, Keynote lecture (2009)
  • “The rail sector”, UNECE-UNCTAD Workshop on Climate Change Impacts on International Transport Networks, Geneva (2010)
  • Keynote lecture, International Conference on Wind Engineering, Amsterdam. Title to be determined (2011)

Publications

C J Baker 2001 "Unsteady wind loading on a wall", Wind and Structures 4, 5, 413-440.

 

C J Baker 2001 "Flow and dispersion in vehicle wakes", Journal of Fluids and Structures 15, 7, 1031-1060.

 

C J Baker, S J Dalley, T Johnson, A Quinn, N G Wright 2001"The slipstream and wake of a high speed train", Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers F Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit, 215, 83-99 (awarded James F Alcock Memorial Prize by Railway Division of the IMechE, 2002).

 
P M Berry, M Sterling, C J Baker, J Spink, D Sparks 2003 “A calibrated model of wheat lodging compared with field measurements”, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 119,167-180.

 
C J Baker (2003) “Some complex applications of the wind loading chain”, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 91, 1791-1811.

 

C J Baker, F Lopez-Calleja, J Jones, J Munday, 2004 “Measurements of the cross wind forces on trains”, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 92,547-563.

 
C J Baker 2007 “Wind Engineering – past, present and future”, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 95, 843-870

C J Baker, 2007 “The debris flight equations”, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 95, 5, 329-353.

 
M. Sterling, C. J. Baker, S. C. Jordan, T. Johnson, 2008 A study of the slipstreams of high speed passenger trains and freight trains, Proceedings of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transport. 222, 177-19 (First two authors contributed equally to the work) (most cited paper in JRRT in 2010).

 

C.J. Baker, L. Chapman, A.D. Quinn, K. Dobney, 2010 “Climate Change and the Railway Industry”. Proc. IMechE, Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science, 224, 519-528.

 
C.J. Baker, 2010 “The flow around high speed trains” Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 98, 277-298. 

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