A concentration correction scheme for Lagrangian particle model and its application in street canyon air dispersion modelling

Pollutant dispersion in street canyons with various configurations was simulated by discharging a large number of particles into the computation domain after developing a time-dependent wind field. Trajectory of the released particles was predicted using a Lagrangian particle model developed in an earlier study. A concentration correction scheme, based on the concept of “visibility”, was adopted for the Lagrangian particle model to correct the calculated pollutant concentration field in street canyons. The corrected concentrations compared favourably with those from wind tunnel experiments and a linear relationship between the computed concentrations and wind tunnel data were found. The developed model was then applied to four simulations to test for the suitability of the correction scheme and to study pollutant distribution in street canyons with different configurations. For those cases with obstacles presence in the computation domain, the correction scheme gives more reasonable results compared with the one without using it. Different flow regimes are observed in the street canyons, which depend on building configurations. A counter-clockwise rotating vortex may appear in a two-building case with wind flow from left to right, causing lower pollutant concentration at the leeward side of upstream building and higher concentration at the windward side of downstream building. On the other hand, a stable clockwise rotating vortex is formed in the street canyon with multiple identical buildings, resulting in poor natural ventilation in the street canyon. Moreover, particles emitted in the downstream canyon formed by buildings with large height-to-width ratios will be transported to upstream canyons.     

Dilution of exhaust from a rooftop stack on a cubical building in an urban environment

The dispersion of a tracer gas emitted from a short stack on a cubical building was investigated using field and wind tunnel experiments. Air samples were obtained on the roof and the leeward side of the building. Dilution data were compared with estimates of minimum dilution (D_min) obtained with design formulas of Wilson/Chui/Lamb and Halitsky. The Halitsky model produced conservative predictions of D_min. Estimates of D_min obtained with the Wilson/Chui/Lamb model were in reasonable agreement with the field data. Wind tunnel dilution values were usually within a factor of two of the field data. The accuracy of the wind tunnel data improved as distance from the source increased. Wind tunnel dilution was found to be strongly dependent on the ratio of exhaust speed to wind speed, M, particularly for M values in the range of 2–4. This dependence is believed to be associated with the wind tunnel modelling of the stack exhaust, and is thus probably not a feature of the full-scale situation.     

Numerical simulation of flow and dispersion around an isolated cubical building: The effect of the atmospheric stratification

The aim of this work is to investigate atmospheric flow and dispersion of contaminants in the vicinity of single buildings under different stability conditions. The mathematical model used is based on the solution of equations of conservation of mass, linear momentum and energy with the use of a non-standard κ–? turbulence model. The modifications proposed in the κ–? model are the inclusion of the Kato and Launder correction in the production of turbulent kinetic energy and the use of a modified wall function. Results are presented of numerical simulations of dispersion around a cubical obstacle, under neutral, stable and unstable atmospheric conditions. Experimental data from wind tunnel and field trials obtained by previous authors are used to validate the numerical results. The numerical simulation results show a reasonable level of agreement with field and wind tunnel concentration data. The deviation between model results and field experimental data is of the same order as the deviation between field and wind tunnel data.     

建筑物对高架点源大气污染物扩散影响的模拟研究

运用数值方法对城市中高架点源排放大气污染物的扩散规律进行了模拟研究,在计算区域内建立了三维数学模型,并将拉格朗日法描述的颗粒轨道模型耦合到风场。本研究计算了地面风速为3 m/s时的大气流场,并模拟研究了该风场条件下气体污染物的扩散和固体颗粒污染物的运动轨迹。通过分析模拟结果,给出了高架点源中排放的气体污染物的扩散区域和固体颗粒污染物运动轨迹的变化规律。     

Wind-tunnel study of concentration fields in street canyons

The paper presents results from a case study of gaseous pollutant dispersion in street canyons. Tracer-gas experiments were performed in a neutrally stratified wind tunnel. Vehicle emissions were simulated as line sources. Concentration profiles along building walls were measured. A two-dimensional street canyon was considered as the reference case. The influence of systematic parameter variations on the concentration field is studied and discussed. Building dimensions, upwind building configuration, wind direction and roof geometry were found to be important parameters. Data sets from the study may be used for evaluation of numerical models and for expert estimates of air quality in the urban environment     

Comparison of a two-dimensional numerical dust transport model with experimental dust emissions from soil surfaces in a wind tunnel

Near-surface wind-tunnel fugitive dust concentration profiles arising from soil surfaces beds were compared to a finite difference numerical dust transport model. Comparisons of the type shown in this study were previously non-existent in the literature due to the lack of experimental wind-tunnel data for near-surface concentrations over a soil bed. However, in a previous study by the authors, near-surface steady-state concentration profiles were measured in order to obtain fugitive dust emission rates, thus allowing the comparison to models shown in this paper. The novel aspects of the current study include: comparison of concentration profiles of dust obtained experimentally in the wind tunnel with those calculated numerically; comparison of the calculated numerical fetch effect on dust emissions with that obtained in the wind tunnel; and comparison of the emission rates calculated numerically with those obtained experimentally in the wind tunnel. Initial comparisons with the model indicate good agreement implying that the physical mechanism of advection–diffusion is reasonably modeled with the choice of equations for the simple “steady-state” process near the surface. Furthermore, the numerical solutions presented in this paper provide a means to systematically explore the relative impact of varied surface boundary conditions upon the emission process and provide a potential link between wind-tunnel simulations and field scale models.     

Flow and dispersion in an urban cubical cavity

Flow and dispersion in an urban cubical cavity are numerically investigated using a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations (RANS) model with the renormalization group (RNG) k–? turbulence closure model. The urban cubical cavity is surrounded by flank walls that are parallel to the streamwise direction, called end-walls, as well as upstream and downstream walls. A primary vortex and secondary vortices including end-wall vortices are formed in the cavity. Because of the end-wall drag effect, the averaged mean-flow kinetic energy in the cavity is smaller than that in an urban street canyon that is open in the along-canyon direction. A trajectory analysis shows that the end-wall vortices cause fluid particles to move in the spanwise direction, indicating that flow in the cavity is essentially three-dimensional. The iso-surfaces of the Okubo–Weiss criterion capture cavity vortices well. The pollutant concentration is high near the bottom of the upstream side in the case of continuous pollutant emission, whereas it is high near the center of the primary vortex in the case of instantaneous pollutant emission. To get some insight into the degree of pollutant escape from the cavity according to various meteorological factors, extensive numerical experiments with different ambient wind speeds and directions, inflow turbulence intensities, and cavity-bottom heating intensities are performed. For each experiment, we calculate the time constant, which is defined as the time taken for the pollutant concentration to decrease to e^?1 of its initial value. The time constant decreases substantially with increasing ambient wind speed, and tends to decrease with increasing inflow turbulence intensity and cavity-bottom heating intensity. The time constant increases as the ambient wind direction becomes oblique. High ambient wind speed is found to be the most crucial factor for ventilating the cavity, thus improving air quality in an urban cubical cavity.     

Simulations of flow around a cubical building: comparison with towing-tank data and assessment of radiatively induced thermal effects

A three-dimensional (3-D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, coupled with a meteorological radiation and surface physics package, is used to model the mean flow field and tracer dispersion in the vicinity of an idealized cubical building. We first compare the simulations with earlier numerical studies as well as towing-tank laboratory experiments, where radiation effects were not included. Our simulations capture most of the features revealed by the towing-tank data, including the variation of the flow reattachment point as a function of Froude number and the induction of a prominent lee wave in the low Froude number regime. The simulated tracer concentration also compares very favorably with the data.We then assess the thermal effects due to radiative heating on the ground and building including shading by the building, on the mean flow and tracer dispersion. Our simulations show that convergence within and beyond the cavity zone causes a substantial lofting of the air mass downstream from the building. This lofting results from the combination of thermal heating of the ground and building roof, and vortex circulation associated with the horseshoe eddy along the lateral sides of the building. The specific effect of shading on the flow field is isolated by comparing simulations for which the radiative heating and shading patterns are kept constant, but the environmental wind direction is altered. It is found that the shading exerts local cooling, which can be combined into the overall thermodynamic interaction, described above, to effectively alter the circulation downstream from the building.     

A comparison of mesh-adaptive LES with wind tunnel data for flow past buildings: Mean flows and velocity fluctuations

In this paper we address two important aspects of micro-scale urban airflow model evaluation: (a) the identification of key flow features as dictated by the physics of the problem and as captured by the simulations, and (b) the comparison of important model output parameters (mean flows and fluctuations) with experimental data. A series of mesh-adaptive large eddy simulations (LES) was carried out for the study of air flows within two intersecting street canyons with varying building configurations. The novelty of the approach lies in the combination of LES with mesh adaptivity, which allows a variable-filter length and the implementation of an anisotropic eddy-viscosity model. Both coarse and fine-mesh simulations were carried out, using single and parallel-processor systems respectively. The simulations showed clearly that the expected flow patterns such as the street canyon recirculation and the street-mouth vortices, as well as the exchange of air flow at the street intersections, can readily be captured by the mesh-adaptive LES.In addition, the detailed comparisons of mean flows and fluctuations of the resolved velocity field with the measured data showed that the simulation results agreed well with the patterns and trends of the wind tunnel measurements. In most cases the finer-mesh simulations improved considerably the accuracy of the mean flows, especially for the symmetrical configuration. The improvement in the predicted fluctuations was less obvious, with several detector locations underpredicting the measured values, although the overall comparison was also satisfactory. The typical errors for the mean flows for all three building configurations were less than 30%, whilst for the velocity fluctuations less that 40%. Both the simulated means flows and turbulence levels were generally more accurate in the streets parallel to the wind (streamwise direction) than in the streets normal to the wind.     

Wind tunnel experiment of tracer gas diffusion within unstable boundary layer over coastal region

A wind tunnel experiment was carried out to simulate stack gas diffusion within an unstable atmospheric boundary layer over a coastal region. The wind tunnel floor, 4 m leeward of the entrance of the test section, was heated to 90°C over a length of 6 m in the streamwise direction, and wind tunnel experiments were performed under the flat plate condition with a prototype-to-model length scale ratio of 1200. Three similarity criteria of flow fields in the wind tunnel and in atmosphere, viz., bulk Richardson number, surface Reynolds number and the ratio of the Peclet number to the Richardson number, were considered in the wind tunnel experiment. Tracer gas was released along the coastline at a height of 10 cm, which corresponded to 120 m in height in atmosphere. The obtained wind tunnel experimental results of ground level concentration were compared with 30-min average values of the field experiments, viz., the data from the Tokai 82 field experiment. The maximum ground level concentration and its location were accurately simulated when there was close similarity between the wind tunnel and atmospheric flow conditions. The maximum concentration increased and occurred closer to the source when the level of convection was relatively stronger in atmosphere.     

A Lagrangian stochastic model for predicting concentration fluctuations in urban areas

A combined Lagrangian stochastic model with a micromixing sub-model is used to estimate the fluctuating concentrations observed in two wind tunnel experiments. The Lagrangian stochastic model allows fluid trajectories to be simulated in the inhomogeneous flow, while the mixing model accounts for the dissipation of fluctuations using the interaction by exchange with the mean (IEM) mechanism. The model is first tested against the open terrain, wind tunnel data of Fackrell, J.E. and Robins, A.E. [1982. Concentration fluctuations and fluxes in plumes from point sources in a turbulent boundary layer. Journal of Fluid Mechanics 117, 1–26] and shows good agreement with the observed mean concentrations and fluctuation intensities. The model is then compared with the wind tunnel simulation of a two-dimensional street canyon by Pavageau, M. and Schatzmann, M. [1999. Wind tunnel measurements of concentration fluctuations in an urban street canyon. Atmospheric Environment 33, 3961–3971]. Despite the limitations of the k–ε turbulence scheme and the IEM mixing mechanism, the model reproduces the fluctuation intensity pattern within the canyon well. Overall, the comparison with both sets of wind tunnel experiments are encouraging, and the simplicity of the model means that predictions in a complex, three-dimensional geometry can be produced in a practicable amount of time.     

Numerical modeling on air quality in an urban environment with changes of the aspect ratio and wind direction

Due to heavy traffic emissions within an urban environment, air quality during the last decade becomes worse year by year and hazard to public health. In the present work, numerical modeling of flow and dispersion of gaseous emissions from vehicle exhaust in a street canyon were investigated under changes of the aspect ratio and wind direction. The three-dimensional flow and dispersion of gaseous pollutants were modeled using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model which was numerically solved using Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations. The diffusion flow field in the atmospheric boundary layer within the street canyon was studied for different aspect ratios (W/H?=?1/2, 3/4, and 1) and wind directions (θ?=?90°, 112.5°, 135°, and 157.5°). The numerical models were validated against wind tunnel results to optimize the turbulence model. The numerical results agreed well with the wind tunnel results. The simulation demonstrated that the minimum concentration at the human respiration height within the street canyon was on the windward side for aspect ratios W/H?=?1/2 and 1 and wind directions θ?=?112.5°, 135°, and 157.5°. The pollutant concentration level decreases as the wind direction and aspect ratio increase. The wind velocity and turbulence intensity increase as the aspect ratio and wind direction increase.     

Pollutant dispersion in urban street canopies

The effects of building configurations on pollutant dispersion around street canopies were studied numerically. The dispersion of pollutants emitted from ground sources was simulated by continuously discharging large number of particles into the computation domain. The mean wind velocities at each time-step were firstly computed by solving the time-dependent incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, while the fluctuated velocities were determined using a statistical procedure. The trajectories of the discharged particles were obtained from a Lagrangian particle model. Three categories of numerical simulation were conducted to study the effect of different canopy geometries on the pollutant dispersion. The computed wind field data were consistent with the wind field characteristics described in the previous wind tunnel studies. A counter-clockwise vortex was found resulting in high pollutant concentration at the windward side of the downstream building of the street canopy and low pollutant concentration at the leeward side of the upstream building. The increase in height of the urban roughness buildings would facilitate the pollutant dispersion in urban street canopy under certain building configurations. Two or more vortices stacked vertically in a street canopy were found when height of the upstream and downstream buildings of a street canopy was increased, preventing pollutants from escaping out of the canopy.     

Measuring ammonia emissions from land applied manure: an intercomparison of commonly used samplers and techniques

A number of techniques have been developed to quantify ammonia (NH(3)) emissions following land application of manure or fertiliser. In this study, coefficients of variation were determined for three commonly used field techniques (mass balance integrated horizontal flux, wind tunnels and the equilibrium concentration technique) for measuring emissions from a range of manure types. Coefficients of variation (CV) for absorption flasks, passive flux samplers and passive diffusion samplers were 21, 10 and 14%, respectively. In comparative measurements, concentrations measured using passive flux samplers and absorption flasks did not differ significantly, but those measured using passive diffusion samplers were on average 1.8 times greater. The mass balance technique and wind tunnels gave broadly similar results in two out of four field tests. Overexposure of passive diffusion samplers for some sampling periods meant that estimation of cumulative NH(3) emission using the equilibrium concentration technique in the field tests could not be made. For cumulative NH(3) emissions, CVs were in the range of 23-52, 46-74 and 21-39% for the mass balance, wind tunnel and equilibrium concentration techniques, respectively. Lower CVs were associated with measurements following slurry compared with solid manure applications. Our conclusions from this study are that for the measurement of absolute emissions the mass balance technique is to be preferred, and for small-plot comparative measurements the wind tunnel system is preferred to the equilibrium concentration technique.     

Unsteady characteristics of the dispersion process in the vicinity of a pig barn. Wind tunnel experiments and comparison with field data

Two complementary methods, field experiments and physical modelling in a wind tunnel, have been used to investigate the dispersion of tracer-gas released from the ventilation system of a pig barn, under near-neutral stability conditions. In both cases, concentration fluctuations were measured and the deduced statistical results were compared. The choice of data processing applied to the time series of concentration was motivated by special issues in the assessment of odour annoyances: “where, how often, how long and how strong does it smell?” These features were described by the mean concentration distribution, the intermittency factor, the persistence and the 90-percentile. The good agreement between field and wind tunnel data confirmed the ability to replicate in wind tunnel the unsteady properties of a dispersion process, if the unsteady turbulent behaviour of the atmospheric boundary layer was properly modelled.A parametrical study of the influence on the dispersion process of the ratio between the exhaust velocity from the stack and the wind speed was then performed in wind tunnel. The fundamental outcome was that the near-field dispersion process under neutral stability conditions, despite the strong influence of the building wake, was for the most part driven by the meandering behaviour of the plume and not so much by the diffusion process.This study was also focused on the influence of the averaging time on the statistical results. The scatter generated by using dimensionless averaging times 200<T_a^*<400 (used during field experiments) instead of T_a^*→∞ (averaging time to ensure reproducible statistic results) was quantified in the wind tunnel. A degree of representativity of the results obtained from short-term samples, compared to fully converged statistical results was therefore assessed.     

Assessing sensitivity of source term estimation

Source term estimation algorithms compute unknown atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling variables from concentration observations made by sensors in the field. Insufficient spatial and temporal resolution in the meteorological data as well as inherent uncertainty in the wind field data make source term estimation and the prediction of subsequent transport and dispersion extremely difficult. This work addresses the question: how many sensors are necessary in order to successfully estimate the source term and meteorological variables required for atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling?The source term estimation system presented here uses a robust optimization technique – a genetic algorithm (GA) – to find the combination of source location, source height, source strength, surface wind direction, surface wind speed, and time of release that produces a concentration field that best matches the sensor observations. The approach is validated using the Gaussian puff as the dispersion model in identical twin numerical experiments. The limits of the system are tested by incorporating additive and multiplicative noise into the synthetic data. The minimum requirements for data quantity and quality are determined by an extensive grid sensitivity analysis. Finally, a metric is developed for quantifying the minimum number of sensors necessary to accurately estimate the source term and to obtain the relevant wind information.     

Experimental investigation of the residence of contaminants in the wake of an obstacle under different stability conditions

The detrainment behaviour of contaminants in the wake of an isolated building was investigated in the field under atmospheric stability conditions ranging from very stable to very unstable. The model building used was a 2 m cube and two orientations were investigated, with the cube either normal or at 45° to the wind. Tracer gas was first entrained into the wake from a source located a short distance upwind of the cube, the gas being released continuously for a limited period in order to fill the wake. Thereafter, the source was switched off, and the concentration (measured using several fast-response gas detectors located in the wake) was observed to decay in an exponential manner. This procedure was repeated in a total of 118 experiments to provide confidence in statistics. The residence time (T_d), which is defined as the time it takes for the concentration to decay to 1/e of its original value, was measured. The decay duration (t), which is the time it takes for the gas to become fully detrained from the wake, was found to be greater in stable atmospheric conditions, mainly due to the lower wind speeds and higher concentrations observed under these conditions. However, the non-dimensional residence time (τ) was found to be independent of atmospheric stability. The values of τ for a cube normal (τ=6.2) or at 45° to the flow (τ=9.5) are in very good agreement with values calculated using empirical formulae derived from wind tunnel experiments.     

Prediction of gas diffusion in complicated terrain by a potential flow model

A numerical model was developed to simulate gaseous diffusion in complicated terrain. This model calculates the air flow as a potential flow by the Boundary Element Method, and gaseous diffusion by an analytical Gaussian equation in the potential flow. Plume spreads σ_y and σ_z are modified by multiregression equations derived from wind tunnel experiments, and the terrain height is elongated depending on the atmospheric stability.First, tracer data from Cinder Cone Butte in the U.S. measured by the U.S.-EPA were predicted by the model in order to examine the prediction accuracy under stable conditions. The averaged ratio of the observed concentration to predicted concentration for 12 runs was better than a factor of 10. Next, tracer data from the Geysers area in the U.S. measured by the U.S.-DOE were used to examine the prediction accuracy under neutral conditions. The ratio of the observed concentration to predicted concentration for two runs under neutral conditions was better than factor of two at most locations, but prediction capability is poor in blocked or separated flow conditions.     

Air pollution dispersion within urban street canyons

A semi-empirical mathematical model, Urban Street Model (USM), is proposed to efficiently estimate the dispersion of vehicular air pollution in cities. This model describes urban building arrangements by combining building density, building heights and the permeability of building arrangements relative to wind flow. To estimate the level of air pollution in the city of Krasnoyarsk (in Eastern Siberia), the spatial distribution of pollutant concentrations off roadways is calculated using Markov's processes in USM. The USM-predicted numerical results were compared with field measurements and with results obtained from other frequently used models, CALINE-4 and OSPM. USM consistently yielded the best results. OSPM usually overestimated pollutant concentration values. CALINE-4 consistently underestimated these values. For OSPM, the maximum differences were 160% and for CALINE-4 about 400%. Permeability and building density are necessary parameters for accurately modeling urban air pollution and influencing regulatory requirements for building planning.     

Assimilating concentration observations for transport and dispersion modeling in a meandering wind field

Assimilating concentration data into an atmospheric transport and dispersion model can provide information to improve downwind concentration forecasts. The forecast model is typically a one-way coupled set of equations: the meteorological equations impact the concentration, but the concentration does not generally affect the meteorological field. Thus, indirect methods of using concentration data to influence the meteorological variables are required. The problem studied here involves a simple wind field forcing Gaussian dispersion. Two methods of assimilating concentration data to infer the wind direction are demonstrated. The first method is Lagrangian in nature and treats the puff as an entity using feature extraction coupled with nudging. The second method is an Eulerian field approach akin to traditional variational approaches, but minimizes the error by using a genetic algorithm (GA) to directly optimize the match between observations and predictions. Both methods show success at inferring the wind field. The GA-variational method, however, is more accurate but requires more computational time. Dynamic assimilation of a continuous release modeled by a Gaussian plume is also demonstrated using the genetic algorithm approach.