Dr Amirul Khan

Profile

PhD in Applied Mathematics, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, 2002.

Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, 1998. 

MSc in Theoretical Physics, University of Dhaka,  Bangladesh, 1997.

BSc (Hons) in Physics with Mathematics and Statistics, University of Dhaka,  Bangladesh, 1995.

Responsibilities

• Deputy Director of Water, Public Health and Environmental Engineering Group
• Deputy Director of Post Graduate Research Studies
• Co-Lead, Computational group, Leeds Institute for Fluid Dynamics (LIFD)

Research interests

Computational modelling of turbulent flows for health, environment, and energy systems.

I work on computational modelling of turbulent and multiphase flows, focusing on transport processes in environmental, engineering, and biomedical systems. A major part of my research targets the built environment, particularly healthcare settings, where airflow and ventilation design can reduce airborne infection risk while maintaining comfort and energy efficiency.

My work advances computational fluid dynamics through the development of fast, scalable simulation methods, with a particular focus on GPU‑accelerated Lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM) implemented using CUDA for rapid and, in targeted scenarios, real‑time flow simulation. To complement high‑fidelity modelling, I integrate optimisation, reduced‑order modelling, and data‑assimilation methods with machine learning to deliver fast prediction, short‑term forecasting, and decision support (including rapid scenario testing and control‑oriented modelling).

I apply these tools primarily to indoor environments (operating theatres, hospital wards, classrooms and other occupied spaces), and also to selected problems in urban airflow and pollution, multiphase energy/process systems, and patient‑specific haemodynamics. A common thread is understanding how flow structure governs transport across scales and translating that understanding into practical design and operational guidance.

My research is collaborative and interdisciplinary and has contributed to projects funded by UKRI, EPSRC and Horizon Europe. I supervise PhD students working across these areas.

Research Areas (Selected)

Built environment & healthcare
Airflow, ventilation and infection risk modelling in hospital and indoor environments, including optimisation and sensor-supported predictive control.

Multiscale & high-performance simulation
GPU-accelerated Lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM) for real-time modelling of urban flow, heat and pollutant transport.

Multiphase flow & energy systems
Flow and heat transfer in environmental and energy applications, including geothermal systems and cooling technologies.

Biomedical flows
Patient-specific haemodynamics and tracer transport modelling for medical and surgical applications.

Currently Funded & Completed Research Projects

Human - Centric Indoor Climate (HumanIC, ) for Healthcare Facilities (UK PI), (£2.3M), 2023-27, Horizon Europe, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network, https://human-ic.eu/ https://doi.org/10.3030/101119726,

Modelling the exposure risk tradeoff between public transit and private paratransit for transport decision making in the era of Covid-19, (£200K)(Co-I), 2020-2021, UKRI, GCRF and Newton Fund Agile Response Call to address COVID-19. https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FV043226%2F1

HECOIRA: Healthcare Environment Control, Optimisation and Infection Risk Assessment (£1.2M) (Co-I), 2017-2021, EPSRC Healthcare Impact Partnership in collaboration with two NHS trusts and two industry partners. https://hecoira.leeds.ac.uk/

GEOTECH: Geothermal Technology for Economic Cooling and Heating (CFD-based optimisation,Task Leader), 2015-2019 http://www.geotech-project.eu/

Completed PhD Projects:

Mr Oluwaseun Coker, Learning the Evolution of Time-dependent Partial Differential Equations (under examination)

Mr Jose Ignacio Lopez Florido, Improving the training of Physics Informed Neural Networks via Collocation Point Sampling (under examination)

Dr Julie Frank, Modelling heat exchangers with embedded phase change materials for aircraft (2025)

Dr Sulaiman Abdullah, The environmental impacts of carbon storage: THMC modelling (2024)

Dr J Zhang, Integrating coupled simulation of surface water and groundwater with Artificial Intelligence (2024)

Dr E Shalom, Spatiotemporal analysis of magnetic resonance perfusion data: The multi-compartment problem (2024)

Dr L Gray, Spray Impact on and Carry-Over from Complex Shaped Surfaces (2023)

Dr D Adekanye, Massively parallel models of dilute gravity currents (2023)

Dr M Cherry, Efficient cardio-vascular 4D-flow MRI enabled CFD to improve in-silico predictions of post-surgical haemodynamics in individual patients (2023)

Dr C Faccetti, Modelling dilution and transport processes from marine outfall discharges (2020)

Dr N Gilkeson, Computational fluid dynamics simulations of personalised ventilation (2018)

Dr Ke Wu, Computational modelling of fluid-solid interaction problems by coupling smoothed particles hydrodynamics and discrete element method (2018)

Dr N Delbosc, Real-time simulation of indoor air flow using the lattice Boltzmann method on graphics processing unit (2016)

Co-investigator (Co-I)

• Human - Centric Indoor Climate for Healthcare Facilities (HumanIC)

Professional memberships

• The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
• International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate
• Cambridge Philosophical Society, UK
• American Physical Society, USA

Student education

Engineering Mathematics Level I & 2

Computational Methods Level 3

Design Optimisation Level 4 & 5

Individual Research Project Level 3 & 4

MSc dissertation Module Level 5

Level 3 & 4 Tutor

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Integrated Energy Research
• Energy Leeds
• Computational Science and Engineering
• Water, Public Health and Environmental Engineering
• Centre for Computational Engineering
• Cities, Infrastructure and Energy

Current postgraduate researchers

• Sulaiman Abdullah
• Molly Cherry