A system designed to control industrial emissions while protecting the environment
has evolved from the Clean Air Act Amendments. The system's primary components are
the pollution sources, government, economy, environment, and public influence. The
functional relationship between all of the system's components manifests itself in the form
of requirements for pollution permits. The pollution permits limit the environmental
impact of the pollution sources while in general do not impose undue economic burdens
on the sources. The environmental impact is determined by analyzing the source's
pollution concentration distributions against the systems functional criteria which establish
threshold limits for pollution concentrations. A computer model, a detail design
component of the system, predicts ambient air concentration distributions around a
proposed facility based on Gaussian Dispersion principles.
<p>A case study of four sources in Giles County, Virginia served to illustrate the
functional relationships of the system's components. A computer program, the Integrated
Gaussian Model (IGM), predicted ambient air concentrations of pollutants resulting from
the emissions by the four sources in the case study. The model application provided an
opportunity to evaluate actual data produced by one of the system's primary detailed
design components. Analysis of the results indicated that at least two of the Giles County
sources in the region exceed the limits imposed by the system's criteria and thus have
adverse impact on the environment. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/44839 |
| Date | 19 September 2009 |
| Creators | Henson, Eric Luis |
| Contributors | Systems Engineering, Hughes, J. Martin, Blanchard, Benjamin S. Jr., Dietrich, Andrea M. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master's project |
| Format | BTD, application/pdf |
| Relation | LD5655.V851_1993.H467.pdf |
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