The resuspension of road dust has been recognised as a source of airborne particulate matter, but little information exists as to the strength of this source or to the factors affecting it, particularly in relation .to the United Kingdom This study has focused on determining emission rates for wind-induced road dust resuspension from a tarmac surface for a range of wind speeds, including an unsteady 'gusty' flow. A wind tunnel has been used to generate a boundary-layer flow above a tarmac surface. The flow generated has been compared to that occurring close to a tarmac airport runway and the two are found to be comparable. This has enabled realistic measurements of the resuspension of a tracer dust from the tarmac surface in the wind tunnel for a range of wind speeds. Full-scale measurements have also been made of the flow occurring very close to a tarmac surface during the passage a vehicle. Qualitatively similar gusts to those generated by a vehicle have been generated in a small wind tunnel and these gusts have been shown to significantly increase resuspension. The spatial and temporal variability of the road dust loading for a number of roads in Birmingham has been investigated throughout an entire year. The dust loading at all sites is found to be very stable suggesting that road dust resuspension is in equilibrium with dust deposition to the road surface. The average road dust loading for the roads studied was found to be O.16g m-2 • Using the results of this study a rough estimate of the annual wind-induced UK road dust emissions has been found as 1.9 kilotonnes. This figure does not include the considerable contribution to road dust emissions made by vehicle-induced resuspension.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:502196 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Huggins, Thomas Clement Brian |
| Publisher | University of Birmingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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