EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT NUMERICAL METHODOLOGIES FOR DISPERSION OF AIR POLLUTANTS IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT

摘要

Since 1950 the world population has more than doubled but meanwhile the global number of cars has increased by a factor of 10. In that same period the fraction of people living in urban areas has increased by a factor of 4. Apart from large point-sources of local air pollution, traffic induced pollution is now the most significant contributor to urban air quality in city centres, particularly for carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and fine particulate matter. Until recently, pollutant dispersion in urban areas has usually been numerically investigated by using empirical models, such as the Gaussian plume model, or by extensions of this technique to line sources and multiple sources. More recently, advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been attempted but have been mainly two-dimensional and often encompassing only a single street canyon. This paper provides a comprehensive, critical evaluation of dispersion of pollutants in urban areas. A three-dimensional flow model has been set-up for a staggered crossroad, using the Navier-Stokes equations and the conservation equation for species concentration. The effect of using several different turbulence models, including the k-e model, modifications and extensions, has been investigated. Cartesian coordinates have been used in connection with the Partial Solution Algorithm (PARSOL) and Body Fitted Coordinates (BFC). The effects of several different numerical algorithms for discretization of differential equations have also been studied. More than thirty cases are analysed, and the main results are compared with wind tunnel experiments. The numerical results are presented as non-dimensional values to facilitate comparison between experimental and numerical studies. It has been shown that the numerical studies have been able to simulate the air-flow in urban areas and confirm, qualitatively, the previous field observations and wind tunnel results. This success encouraged the authors to extend such techniques to study the dispersion of pollutants in a real case study of the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland.