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Measurements and Three-Dimensional Modeling of Air Pollutant Dispersion in an Urban Street Canyon

In this study, Three-dimensional (3D) airflow and dispersion of pollutants were modeled under various excess wall temperature and traffic rate using the RNG k-£` turbulence model and Boussinesq approximation, which was solved numerically using the finite volume method. The street canyon is 60 m long (=L) and 20 m wide (=W). The height of five-story buildings on both sides of the street are about 16 m (=H). Hence, the street canyon has an aspect ratio (AR=H/W) of 0.8 and a length to width ratio of 3 (=L/W). Vehicle emissions were estimated from the measured traffic flow rates and modeled as banded line sources.
3D simulations reveal that the vortex line, joining the centers of cross-sectional vortices of the street canyon, meanders between street buildings. Notably, there is also a horizontal vortex within street canyon. Pollutant concentrations decline as the height increases, and are higher on the leeward side than on the windward side. The ratio of CO pollutants between leeward side and windward side is related to wind velocity. As wind smaller than 0.7 m/sec , the ratio is 1.23¡Fhowever, the ratio is 2.03 with more wind speed above 1.2 m/sec. The CO concentration reveals that the predicted values generally follow the hourly zigzag traffic rate, indicating that CO is closely related to the traffic emissions in a street canyon.
The 3D airflow in the street canyon is dominated by both wind fields on buildings top and street exit. The 3D simulations reveal that air flux is 50% higher than 2D. Entrainment of outside air reduces pollutant concentrations, thus reducing concentrations of CO¡BNOx¡Band SO2 by about 51%¡B68% and 70% ,respectively.
Thermal boundary layers are very thin. Entrainment of outside air increases and pollutant concentration decreases with increasing heating condition. For T = 5 K, the upward velocity on leeward side increases by about 10%, Also, the downward velocity on windward side decreases by about 28 %. Furthermore, simulation showed that the averaged inflow speed in the lateral direction increases by about 100% as compared with T = 0 K. Hence, the pollutant concentrations with T = 5 K is ony 50% of those without heating.
Simulations are followed measurements in street canyon. The averaged simulated concentrations with no heating conditions are about 11~24% and 22~36% lower than measured for CO and NOx , respectively. For heating conditions and without outside traffic source, the averaged simulated concentrations with T = 2 K are 29~36% lower than the measurements. Even at T = 5 K , the concentrations are only about 54% of those without heating, due to the fact that pollutant dilution is enhanced by buoyancy force as to having more outside air entrained into the canyon. However, when traffic emissions outside two ends of canyon were considered, the simulated CO concentrations are 23% and 19% higher than those without outside traffic sources at T = 0 K and T = 2 K, respectively.
Traffic-produced turbulence (TPT) enhances the turbulent kinetic energy and the mixing of temperature and admixtures in the canyon. Although the simulated means with the TPT effect are in better agreement with the measured means than those without the TPT effect, the average reduction of CO concentration by the TPT is only about 5% at a given height and heating conditions. Factors affecting the variations between this work and other studies are addressed and explained.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0606105-231609
Date06 June 2005
CreatorsTsai, Meng-YU
ContributorsShui-Jen Chen, Ming-Shean Chou, Jim.J Lin, Chen Kang-shin, Jeffrey Chen
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0606105-231609
Rightsoff_campus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive

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