A microscale model for air pollutant dispersion simulation in urban areas: Presentation of the model and performance over a single building

A microscale air pollutant dispersion model system is developed for emergency response purposes. The model includes a diagnostic wind field model to simulate the wind field and a random-walk air pollutant dispersion model to simulate the pollutant concentration through consideration of the influence of urban buildings. Numerical experiments are designed to evaluate the model's performance, using CEDVAL(Compilation of Experimental Data for Validation of Microscale Dispersion Models) wind tunnel experiment data, including wind fields and air pollutant dispersion around a single building. The results show that the wind model can reproduce the vortexes triggered by urban buildings and the dispersion model simulates the pollutant concentration around buildings well. Typically, the simulation errors come from the determination of the key zones around a building or building cluster. This model has the potential for multiple applications; for example, the prediction of air pollutant dispersion and the evaluation of environmental impacts in emergency situations; urban planning scenarios;and the assessment of microscale air quality in urban areas.     

街谷环流和热力结构的数值模拟

文章介绍一种用于模拟街谷流场和温度场的动力学模式和热力学模式.应用动力模式模拟了方柱体塔楼和圆柱体塔楼形成的流场,应用动力和热力模式模拟了街谷中流场和温度场的日变化过程.计算实例表明,上述模式可用于城市街谷和建筑群风环境和热力环境研究以及街谷中空气污染物传输和扩散的计算.     

冷空气强风在大型城市中的精细结构和形成机制

地面强风可直接造成人员伤亡和经济损失,严重影响出行安全、工农业生产等社会秩序。强风的发生与天气系统和复杂下垫面的共同作用密切相关,在城市区域尤为明显。受数值模拟技术和计算资源的限制,对实际天气条件下大范围城区的强风现象进行建筑物分辨率的大规模数值模拟研究仍是一个挑战。本研究利用中尺度气象模式嵌套流体计算动力模式的超高分辨率局地气象预报系统,对强冷空气过程造成广州市区的一次强风事件进行数值模拟,深入探讨强风的精细结构和形成机制。结果表明,伴随着强冷空气入侵,广州市区的平均风速和风场高频扰动均明显增强,且在城市冠层顶尤为明显,呈现区域不均匀的三维结构,数值模拟与地面观测相一致。较大范围的强风速和阵风主要出现在建筑物较为低矮的老城区上空,并持续影响下游河道等开阔区域。在高层建筑密集的新城区,虽然整体风速明显减弱,但能在平行风向的街道狭管和下游区域形成局地强风。特别是,超高层建筑群引起显著的垂直环流,导致强风扰动向下传播,造成最大风速达8 m s?1的地面局地强风,阵风指数接近2。上游建筑群引起的风场扰动呈现大尺度湍流结构,能沿着平均气流传播影响数公里之远的下游地区。当风场扰动经过广州塔等单体超高层建筑时,可在其两侧绕流区再次加强,形成局地强风。局地强风和阵风还出现在垂直于风向排列的沿江高层建筑群的侧边,与建筑屏风的阻挡效应和缺口溢出有关。研究结果促进认识城市强风的时空特征和物理机制,有助于提升城市气象的精细化预报水平。     

CFD 在建筑物对气象台站测风影响分析中的应用

受城市化、探测环境变化等人为因素影响,部分气象站风速序列存在不均一性,在使用这类气象站的风速资料时必须进行订正。本文以东山气象站为例,应用测站受建筑物影响前后各5 a的风速资料及探测环境历史沿革资料,利用计算流体力学方法（CFD）研究建筑物对气象站测风数据的影响。结果表明：建筑物与测风杆的相对位置不同,建筑物对测风的影响程度亦不同,测站北面建筑物是影响该站偏北风风速观测的主要因素;研究不同风速下建筑的影响,可得模拟结果与输入风速间呈线性关系,并由此建立风速订正关系式,订正后基本消除了建筑物对N方位风速的影响;订正受建筑物影响较小的NNE方位风速需考虑其他障碍物的影响。本文通过试验,验证了CFD方法可用于定量评估建筑物对测风的影响,从而重建受建筑物影响台站的风速序列。     

Numerical Study on the Impact of Ground Heating and Ambient Wind Speed on Flow Fields in Street Canyons

The impact of ground heating on flow fields in street canyons under different ambient wind speed conditions was studied based on numerical methods.A series of numerical tests were performed,and three factors including height-to-width(H/W) ratio,ambient wind speed and ground heating intensity were taken into account.Three types of street canyon with H/W ratios of 0.5,1.0 and 2.0,respectively,were used in the simulation and seven speed values ranging from 0.0 to 3.0 m s 1 were set for the ambient wind speed.The ground heating intensity,which was defined as the difference between the ground temperature and air temperature,ranged from 10 to 40 K with an increase of 10 K in the tests.The results showed that under calm conditions,ground heating could induce circulation with a wind speed of around 1.0 m s 1,which is enough to disperse pollutants in a street canyon.It was also found that an ambient wind speed threshold may exist for street canyons with a fixed H/W ratio.When ambient wind speed was lower than the threshold identified in this study,the impact of the thermal effect on the flow field was obvious,and there existed a multi-vortex flow pattern in the street canyon.When the ambient wind speed was higher than the threshold,the circulation pattern was basically determined by dynamic effects.The tests on the impact of heating intensity showed that a higher ground heating intensity could strengthen the vortical flow within the street canyon,which would help improve pollutant diffusion capability in street canyons.     

Dynamic and thermal effects on surface airflow associated with southerly changes over the South Island,New Zealand

Summary The Southerly Change Experiment (SOUCHEX) was conducted to examine the influence of the New Zealand Southern Alps on the structure and evolution of cold fronts, locally called southerly changes, as they travel up the east coast. The extensive data obtained by the augmented surface weather station network is used to examine in detail the mesoscale wind field associated with the events observed during the experiment. A comparison of the wind fields observed during the different events illustrates the influence of local dynamic and thermal factors. In particular, lee trough-induced northeasterlies and thermally developed diurnal wind systems are seen to interact with the wind field created by the passage of the front over the Southern Alps.It is apparent that the wind field associated with southerly changes responds to a variety of factors as the cold fronts propagate northwards. For example, there is a tendency for the flow to turn onshore producing a southeast wind during daytime over the Canterbury Plains south of Banks Peninsula probably due to diabatic heating of the mountains and plains. This onshore flow is in direct opposition to pre-frontal foehn northwesterly flow which often continues in the mountain regions and aloft after the front has moved up the coast. The interaction of these air masses over Canterbury creates difficulties for local forecasting. Also, the nocturnal passage of a southerly change is often difficult to detect in surface anemograph traces because of the decoupling of the boundary layer air from that above, producing low level drainage flow over the Canterbury Plains. The overall effect is to create a complex mesoscale wind field resulting from interaction of cold fronts with regional orographic and thermal influences.With 8 Figures     

A Laboratory Model for the Flow in Urban Street Canyons Induced by Bottom Heating

Water tank experiments are carried out to investigate the convection flow induced by bottom heating and the effects of the ambient wind on the flow in non-symmetrical urban street canyons based on the PIV (Particle Image Visualization) technique. Fluid experiments show that with calm ambient wind,the flows in the street canyon are completely driven by thermal force, and the convection can reach the upper atmosphere of the street canyon. Horizontal and vertical motions also appear above the roofs of the buildings. These are the conditions which favor the exchange of momentum and air mass between the street canyon and its environment. More than two vortices are induced by the convection, and the complex circulation pattern will vary with time in a wider street canyon. However， in a narrow street canyon， just one vortex appears. With a light ambient wind, the bottom heating and the associated convection result in just one main vortex. As the ambient wind speed increases, the vortex becomes more organized and its center shifts closer to the leeward building.     

Combining a Detailed Building Energy Model with a Physically-Based Urban Canopy Model

A scheme that couples a detailed building energy model, EnergyPlus, and an urban canopy model, the Town Energy Balance (TEB), is presented. Both models are well accepted and evaluated within their individual scientific communities. The coupled scheme proposes a more realistic representation of buildings and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, which allows a broader analysis of the two-way interactions between the energy performance of buildings and the urban climate around the buildings. The scheme can be used to evaluate the building energy models that are being developed within the urban climate community. In this study, the coupled scheme is evaluated using measurements conducted over the dense urban centre of Toulouse, France. The comparison includes electricity and natural gas energy consumption of buildings, building façade temperatures, and urban canyon air temperatures. The coupled scheme is then used to analyze the effect of different building and HVAC system configurations on building energy consumption, waste heat released from HVAC systems, and outdoor air temperatures for the case study of Toulouse. Three different energy efficiency strategies are analyzed: shading devices, economizers, and heat recovery.     

Effect of grid size on building wind according to a computation fluid dynamics simulation

Skyscrapers negatively impact the environment by creating gusty winds, known as building winds, which are the result of descending turbulences caused by the blockage of upper air by tall buildings. Usually, a building wind impact assessment (BWIA) is carried out using a wind tunnel test or computation fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation methods. The application of wind tunnel test is limited by the high costs of the models. Thus, CFD simulations are now the preferred approach to save time and expense as a result of advancements in computer technology, however, differing grid cell sizes greatly impact simulation results. Therefore, it is important to select appropriate cell sizes. CFD simulations based on different grid sizes were tested and compared in this study. The study site is located in the Dogok-dong at Gangnam-ku in Seoul, Korea. The study results revealed significant errors when using coarse grid sizes due to incorrect representations of building shape.     

二维街谷地面加热引起的流场特征的水槽实验研究

利用拖曳式水槽,采用激光粒子成像速度场测量系统(PIV),模拟了街谷存在地面加热时流场特征;讨论了环境风场对其的影响。我们发现在静风条件下,街谷中环流完全由热力驱动,对流活动可伸展至街谷上方;在建筑物层顶以上,也可发现水平和垂直方向的运动。这些对流活动有助于基本风场为零时,街谷内外动量和物质的交换。当街谷较宽时,对流形成的涡旋可能为两个以上,形态较为复杂并随时间变化,当街谷变窄时,涡旋蜕化成只有一个。当有弱环境风场存在时,街谷中的对流呈现为一个主涡旋,随着风速增加,涡旋形状更加规则,其中心并向下风向移动。     

建筑物对称性对大气输移特性影响的模拟研究

运用修正的k-ε双方程湍流模型分别对非对称性建筑物和对称性建筑物周围的流场和污染物浓度场进行模拟,计算出地面风速为3 m/s时不同建筑物周围的流场与污染物浓度场分布。结果表明:建筑物的形状对建筑物周围风场和污染物浓度场有明显的影响,不同形状建筑物尾流区形态各不相同。数值模拟结果对研究建筑物周围的传输特性有一定的指导意义,并对污染物的扩散机理进行了探讨。     

Micrometeorological Measurements in a Street Canyon during the Joint ATREUS-PICADA Experiment

In order to investigate the microclimatic conditions in a street canyon, a physical model was used to conduct the Joint ATREUS-PICADA Experiment (JAPEX) in situ experimental campaign. Four lines of buildings simulated by steel containers were installed to form three parallel street canyons at 1:5 scale, with width/height aspect ratio approximately 0.40. The reference wind and atmospheric conditions were measured, as well as the flow velocity and direction in the street. Preliminary results concern street canyon ventilation and thermal effects on in-canyon airflow, and show that vortical motions appear for reference wind directions perpendicular to the street axis. The presence of adjacent rows of buildings did not appear to significantly influence the flow character within the canyon for the case of a low aspect ratio corresponding to a skimming flow regime. The flow structure was not significantly affected by the thermal effects although some slight interference occurred in the lower part of the canyon. An analysis of horizontal temperature gradients indicated that a thin boundary layer develops near the heated facade. These facts imply that the thermal effects are considerable only very close to the wall.     

Computational Fluid Dynamics Modelling of the Diurnal Variation of Flow in a Street Canyon

Urban surface and radiation processes are incorporated into a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to investigate the diurnal variation of flow in a street canyon with an aspect ratio of 1. The developed CFD model predicts surface and substrate temperatures of the roof, walls, and road. One-day simulations are performed with various ambient wind speeds of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 ms⁻¹, with the ambient wind perpendicular to the north–south oriented canyon. During the day, the largest maximum surface temperature for all surfaces is found at the road surface for an ambient wind speed of 3 ms⁻¹ (56.0°C). Two flow regimes are identified by the vortex configuration in the street canyon. Flow regime I is characterized by a primary vortex. Flow regime II is characterized by two counter-rotating vortices, which appears in the presence of strong downwind building-wall heating. Air temperature is relatively low near the downwind building wall in flow regime I and inside the upper vortex in flow regime II. In flow regime II, the upper vortex expands with increasing ambient wind speed, thus enlarging the extent of cool air within the canyon. The canyon wind speed in flow regime II is proportional to the ambient wind speed, but that in flow regime I is not. For weak ambient winds, the dependency of surface sensible heat flux on the ambient wind speed is found to play an essential role in determining the relationship between canyon wind speed and ambient wind speed.     

百叶箱内部风场特征仿真分析

流经传感器的风速是决定百叶箱气温测量精度的主要因素之一。基于计算流体动力学CFD仿真,对我国地面气象观测中广泛应用的玻璃钢百叶箱内部风场特征进行了研究。结果表明,受长方体结构特征以及侧面叶片导流的影响,百叶箱内部风场具有明显的非均一性特征,在水平剖面和垂直剖面上分别出现明显的梭形流场和环形流场;百叶箱对环境空气的流动具有明显的阻挡作用,平均相对风速减小率在箱体中轴线上存在明显的垂直差异,最小值53%出现在0.08 m附近,同时在0.25 m和0.55 m高度附近分别存在值为85%和88%的局部最大值。平均相对风速减小率随环境风向的改变而呈周期性变化,当环境风向与箱体侧面成45°、135°、225°和315°时,出现极小值73%,当环境风向与箱体侧面成0°、90°、180°和270°时,出现极大值93%。     

Simulating urban flow and dispersion in Beijing by coupling a CFD model with the WRF model

The airflow and dispersion of a pollutant in a complex urban area of Beijing, China, were numerically examined by coupling a Computational Fluid Dynamics （CFD） model with a mesoscale weather model. The models used were Open Source Field Operation and Manipulation （OpenFOAM） software package and Weather Research and Forecasting （WRF） model. OpenFOAM was firstly validated against wind-tunnel experiment data. Then, the WRF model was integrated for 42 h starting from 0800 LST 08 September 2009, and the coupled model was used to compute the flow fields at 1000 LST and 1400 LST 09 September 2009. During the WRF-simulated period, a high pressure system was dominant over the Beijing area. The WRF-simulated local circulations were characterized by mountain valley winds, which matched well with observations. Results from the coupled model simulation demonstrated that the airflows around actual buildings were quite different from the ambient wind on the boundary provided by the WRF model, and the pollutant dispersion pattern was complicated under the influence of buildings. A higher concentration level of the pollutant near the surface was found in both the step-down and step-up notches, but the reason for this higher level in each configurations was different： in the former, it was caused by weaker vertical flow, while in the latter it was caused by a downward-shifted vortex. Overall, the results of this study suggest that the coupled WRF-OpenFOAM model is an important tool that can be used for studying and predicting urban flow and dispersions in densely built-up areas.     

Effects of Wind Fences on the Wind Environment around Jang Bogo Antarctic Research Station

This study investigated the flow characteristics altered by Jang Bogo Antarctic Research Station using computational fluid dynamics(CFD) modeling. The topography and buildings around Jang Bogo Station were constructed with computeraided-design data in the CFD model domain. We simulated 16 cases with different inflow directions, and compared the flow characteristics with and without Jang Bogo Station for each inflow direction. The wind data recorded by the site's automatic weather station(AWS) were used for comparison. Wind rose analysis showed that the wind speed and direction after the construction of Jang Bogo Station were quite different from those before construction. We also investigated how virtual wind fences would modify the flow patterns, changing the distance of the fence from the station as well as the porosity of the fence. For westerly inflows, when the AWS was downwind of Jang Bogo Station, the decrease in wind speed was maximized(-81% for west-northwesterly). The wind speed reduction was also greater as the distance of the fence was closer to Jang Bogo Station. With the same distance, the fence with medium porosity(25%–33%) maximized the wind speed reduction.These results suggest that the location and material of the wind fence should be selected carefully, or AWS data should be interpreted cautiously, for particular prevailing wind directions.     

Evaluation of a micro-scale wind model’s performance over realistic building clusters using wind tunnel experiments

The simulation performance over complex building clusters of a wind simulation model(Wind Information Field Fast Analysis model, WIFFA) in a micro-scale air pollutant dispersion model system(Urban Microscale Air Pollution dispersion Simulation model, UMAPS) is evaluated using various wind tunnel experimental data including the CEDVAL(Compilation of Experimental Data for Validation of Micro-Scale Dispersion Models) wind tunnel experiment data and the NJU-FZ experiment data(Nanjing University-Fang Zhuang neighborhood wind tunnel experiment data). The results show that the wind model can reproduce the vortexes triggered by urban buildings well, and the flow patterns in urban street canyons and building clusters can also be represented. Due to the complex shapes of buildings and their distributions, the simulation deviations/discrepancies from the measurements are usually caused by the simplification of the building shapes and the determination of the key zone sizes. The computational efficiencies of different cases are also discussed in this paper. The model has a high computational efficiency compared to traditional numerical models that solve the Navier–Stokes equations, and can produce very high-resolution(1–5 m) wind fields of a complex neighborhood scale urban building canopy(～ 1 km ×1km) in less than 3 min when run on a personal computer.     

An Improved Three-Dimensional Simulation of the Diurnally Varying Street-Canyon Flow

The impact of diurnal variations of the heat fluxes from building and ground surfaces on the fluid flow and air temperature distribution in street canyons is numerically investigated using the PArallelized Large-eddy Simulation Model (PALM). Simulations are performed for a 3 by 5 array of buildings with canyon aspect ratio of one for two clear summer days that differ in atmospheric instability. A detailed building energy model with a three-dimensional raster-type geometry—Temperature of Urban Facets Indoor-Outdoor Building Energy Simulator (TUF-IOBES)—provides urban surface heat fluxes as thermal boundary conditions for PALM. In vertical cross-sections at the centre of the spanwise canyon the mechanical forcing and the horizontal streamwise thermal forcing at roof level outweigh the thermal forces from the heated surfaces inside the canyon in defining the general flow pattern throughout the day. This results in a dominant canyon vortex with a persistent speed, centered at a constant height. Compared to neutral simulations, non-uniform heating of the urban canyon surfaces significantly modifies the pressure field and turbulence statistics in street canyons. Strong horizontal pressure gradients were detected in streamwise and spanwise canyons throughout the day, and which motivate larger turbulent velocity fluctuations in the horizontal directions rather than in the vertical direction. Canyon-averaged turbulent kinetic energy in all non-neutral simulations exhibits a diurnal cycle following the insolation on the ground in both spanwise and streamwise canyons, and it is larger when the canopy bottom surface is paved with darker materials and the ground surface temperature is higher as a result. Compared to uniformly distributed thermal forcing on urban surfaces, the present analysis shows that realistic non-uniform thermal forcing can result in complex local airflow patterns, as evident, for example, from the location of the vortices in horizontal planes in the spanwise canyon. This study shows the importance of three-dimensional simulations with detailed thermal boundary conditions to explore the heat and mass transport in an urban area.     

Effects of Street-Bottom and Building-Roof Heating on Flow in Three-Dimensional Street Canyons

Using a computational fluid dynamics(CFD)model,the effects of street-bottom and building-roof heating on flow in three-dimensional street canyons are investigated.The building and street-canyon aspect ratios are one.In the presence of street-bottom heating,as the street-bottom heating intensity increases,the mean kinetic energy increases in the spanwise street canyon formed by the upwind and downwind buildings but decreases in the lower region of the streamwise street canyon.The increase in momentum due to buoyancy force intensifies mechanically induced flow in the spanwise street canyon.The vorticity in the spanwise street canyon strengthens.The temperature increase is not large because relatively cold above-roof-level air comes into the spanwise street canyon.In the presence of both street-bottom and building-roof heating,the mean kinetic energy rather decreases in the spanwise street canyon.This is caused by the decrease in horizontal flow speed at the roof level,which results in the weakening of the mean flow circulation in the spanwise street canyon.It is found that the vorticity in the spanwise street canyon weakens.The temperature increase is relatively large compared with that in the street-bottom heating case,because relatively warm above-roof-level air comes into the spanwise street canyon.     

Effects of climate change on building energy consumption in cities

Summary Sensitivity of building-energy consumption to changing urban environments is examined by simulating building energy loads in hypothetical urban settings. A modified version of an algorithm developed by the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory is used to evaluate energy requirements. Energy loads for two buildings of interest are estimated for changing climatic conditions (air temperature) as well as changing environments around the building. An isolated building and a building surrounded by several other buildings are considered.Results indicate that climate warming may lead to energy savings in a wide range of climates while savings also depend on the nature of the building and its use. In cool climates, climate warming forces net energy-load decreases through reductions of the winter heating loads. For example, a one-degree increase in annual air temperature in Duluth led to a 10 kWh decrease in net energy loads for a small office building. In warm climates, urbanization tends to accelerate energy consumption although shadowing may contribute significantly to decreases in summer cooling loads. In Phoenix, annual mean daily net energy loads decreased by about 10 kWh due to shadowing for the same office building. Even in relatively cool regions, summer cooling-load reductions caused by shadowing are effective.With 12 Figures