Professor Ben Hughes

School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering

Professor of Energy Engineering

Ben Hughes
Profile picture of Ben Hughes
ben.hughes@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Professor Ben Hughes
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
Sir Frederick Mappin Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

Professor Hughes has recently completed a 3-year term as the Head of the School of Engineering at the University of Hull responsible for Mechanical, Electrical, Medical and Chemical Engineering Disciplines. During this role he led the School to its highest national league table position and quadrupled the Schools research income, generating a School surplus in excess of £7M per annum. His work is cross-disciplinary and he has held previous academic appointments at Strathclyde, Sheffield, Leeds and Heriot Watt University in both Mechanical and Civil Engineering Schools.

His personal research is both fundamental and applied focussed low carbon heating and cooling in the built environment, current research grants include the ESPRC Decarbonised Heating and Cooling Call 1, EPSRC Supergen Thermal Energy Storage Challenge 2, Innovate UK Energy Catalyst Round 8 and 10, and an Innovate UK Smart Award.

Professor Hughes has served as the Editor-In-Chief of the International Journal of Ventilation (Taylor & Francis) from 2015 - 22, and currently serves as an external examiner in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds, an awards panel member and past president of the Whitworth Society (IMechE). He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a Whitworth Senior Scholar (Wh.S.Sch).

During his career to date he has been awarded the IMechE Visionary Award for Outstanding Leadership, New Civil Engineer Award for Research Team of the Year and a second award for the Best Carbon Reduction Project, WSSET Innovation Award for Low Carbon Technologies and Future Cities.

Publications

Journal articles

Book chapters

  • Calautit JK, Hughes BR & Sofotasiou P (2016) Design and Optimisation of a Novel Passive Cooling Wind Tower In Rodrigues L (Ed.), Sustainable Energy for a Resilient Future (pp. 193-202). University of Nottingham & WSSET. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Sofotasiou P, Calautit JK & Hughes BR (2016) Towards an integrated computational method to optimise design strategies for the built environment In Rodrigues L (Ed.), Sustainable Energy for a Resilient Future (pp. 48-57). Nottingham: University of Nottingham & WSSET. RIS download Bibtex download
  • O'Connor D, Calautit JK & Hughes BR (2015) Commercial wind towers for heating and cooling based on climatic conditions, Natural Ventilation Strategies Health Implications and Impacts on the Environment (pp. 65-116). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Calautit JK, Shahzad SS, Hughes BR, Brennan J & Theodossopoulos D (2015) Thermal comfort and energy efficiency in a naturally ventilated office: CFD, BTM and a field study, Natural Ventilation Strategies Health Implications and Impacts on the Environment (pp. 27-63). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Calautit JK, Hughes BR, Chaudhry HN & Ghani SA (2014) CFD investigation of the ventilation and thermal performance of a wind tower design integrated with heat transfer devices In Al-Baghdadi MA (Ed.), Computational Fluid Dynamics Applications in Green Design (pp. 23-46). International Energy and Environment Foundation RIS download Bibtex download
  • Hughes BR (2011) An engineering design analysis of a wind tower, Ventilation Types Standards and Problems (pp. 173-197). RIS download Bibtex download

Conference proceedings

Theses

  • Calautit JKS, Hughes BR & Ghani SA (2014) Integration and application of passive cooling within a wind tower. RIS download Bibtex download

Preprints

Grants

10105520 INNOVATE UK/Net Zero Places Places ; NIGHTCOOL: Deployment of FREECOOL+ for night cooling strategies in Africa

10031127 INNOVATE UK /Energy Catalyst; FREECOOL+ - Adapting Passive Ventilation and Zero-Energy Cooling for Sub-Saharan Africa

10031127 INNOVATE UK/Smart Grant; FREECOMFORT: Heat Recovery and Passive Cooling to Retrofit in Commercial Buildings

10031127 INNOVATE UK/ FREEHEAT; Revolutionising the viability of natural ventilation through heat recovery EP/T023112/1 EPSRC Heating and Cooling Call 1; Integrating seasonal thermal storage with multiple energy sources to decarbonise thermal energy

EP/T02318X/1A EPSRC Supergen Call; A versatile PCM energy storage system for building applications

Professional activities and memberships

Founder and Managing Director of University Spin-out Free Running Buildings Limited