Spatiotemporal Spectral Analysis of Turbulent Structures and Pollutant Removal in Two-Dimensional Street Canyon

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - This study expands the study conducted by Zhang et al. (Boundary-Layer Meteorol, 2022, Vol. 183, 97–123) to elucidate turbulent structures within an ideal...     

Large-Eddy Simulation for the Mechanism of Pollutant Removal from a Two-Dimensional Street Canyon

Large-eddy simulation (LES) is conducted to investigate the mechanism of pollutant removal from a two-dimensional street canyon with a building-height to street-width (aspect) ratio of 1. A pollutant is released as a ground-level line source at the centre of the canyon floor. The mean velocities, turbulent fluctuations, and mean pollutant concentration estimated by LES are in good agreement with those obtained by wind-tunnel experiments. Pollutant removal from the canyon is mainly determined by turbulent motions, except in the adjacent area to the windward wall. The turbulent motions are composed of small vortices and small-scale coherent structures of low-momentum fluid generated close to the plane of the roof. Although both small vortices and small-scale coherent structures affect pollutant removal, the pollutant is largely emitted from the canyon by ejection of low-momentum fluid when the small-scale coherent structures appear just above the canyon where the pollutant is retained. Large-scale coherent structures also develop above the canyon, but they do not always affect pollutant removal.     

Spectral Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Analysis of Turbulent Flow in a Two-Dimensional Street Canyon and Its Role in Pollutant Removal

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - Spectral proper orthogonal decomposition (SPOD) is applied as a post-processing technique to elucidate the relationship between turbulent motion and pollutant removal...     

Large-Eddy Simulation of Pollutant Removal from a Three-Dimensional Street Canyon

Large-eddy simulations were conducted to investigate the mechanism of pollutant removal from a three-dimensional street canyon. Five block configurations with aspect ratios (building height to length) of 1, 2, 4, 8 and $\infty $ were used to create an urban-like array. A pollutant was released from a ground-level line source at the centre of the target canyon floor. For smaller aspect ratios, the relative contribution of the turbulent mass flux to net mass flux at the roof level, which was spatially averaged along the roof-level ventilation area, was closer to unity, indicating that turbulent motions mainly affected pollutant removal from the top of the canyon. As aspect ratio increased, the relative contribution became smaller, owing to strong upwind motions. However, the relative contribution again reached near unity for the infinite aspect ratio (i.e. a two-dimensional street canyon) because of lowered lateral flow convergence. At least 75 % of total emissions from the three-dimensional street canyon were attributable to turbulent motions. Pollutant removal by turbulent motions was related to the coherent structures of low-momentum fluid above the canyons. Though the coherent structure size of the low-momentum fluid differed, the positions of low-momentum fluid largely corresponded to instantaneous high concentrations of pollutant above the target canyon, irrespective of canyon geometry.     

城市街谷几何结构对街谷内流场及污染物浓度场影响的数值模拟

利用数值模拟方法研究了微尺度街道峡谷范围内街谷几何结构及街道两侧建筑物高度对称性对街谷内流场及机动车排放污染物扩散规律的影响。结果表明:当街道峡谷高宽比>2.1时,街谷内的流场结构由一个完整的垂直涡旋变为上下两个反向运动的强弱不同的垂直涡旋。各类型街谷内污染物扩散水平从强到弱依次为迎风面建筑物高度大于背风面建筑物高度的街道峡谷,迎风面建筑物高度小于背风面建筑物高度的街道峡谷;平行型街道峡谷。     

Coherent Flow Structures and Pollutant Dispersion in a Street Canyon

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - Coherent flow structures and pollutant dispersion in a spanwise-long street canyon are investigated using a parallelized large-eddy-simulation model. Low- and...     

Effects of Time-Dependent Inflow Perturbations on Turbulent Flow in a Street Canyon

Urban flow and turbulence are driven by atmospheric flows with larger horizontal scales. Since building-resolving computational fluid dynamics models typically employ steady Dirichlet boundary conditions or forcing, the accuracy of numerical simulations may be limited by the neglect of perturbations. We investigate the sensitivity of flow within a unit-aspect-ratio street canyon to time-dependent perturbations near the inflow boundary. Using large-eddy simulation, time-periodic perturbations to the streamwise velocity component are incorporated via the nudging technique. Spatial averages of pointwise differences between unperturbed and perturbed velocity fields (i.e., the error kinetic energy) show a clear dependence on the perturbation period, though spatial structures are largely insensitive to the time-dependent forcing. The response of the error kinetic energy is maximized for perturbation periods comparable to the time scale of the mean canyon circulation. Frequency spectra indicate that this behaviour arises from a resonance between the inflow forcing and the mean motion around closed streamlines. The robustness of the results is confirmed using perturbations derived from measurements of roof-level wind speed.     

Using the OSPM Model on Pollutant Dispersion in an Urban Street Canyon

An observational campaign was conducted in the street canyon of Zhujiang Road in Nanjing city in 2007.Hourly mean concentrations of PM10 were measured at street and roof levels.The Operational Street Pollution Model(OSPM)street canyon dispersion model was used to calculate the street concentrations and the results were compared with the measurements.The results show that there is good agreement between measured and predicted concentrations.The correlation coecient R2 values(R2 is a measure of the correlation of the predicted and measured time series of concentrations)are 0.5319,0.8044,and 0.6630 for the scatter plots of PM10 corresponding to light wind speed conditions,higher wind speed conditions,and all wind speed conditions,respectively.PM10 concentrations tend to be smaller for the higher wind speed cases and decrease rapidly with increasing wind speed.The presentations of measured and modelled concentration dependence on wind direction show fairly good agreement.PM10 concentrations measured on the windward side are relatively smaller,compared with the corresponding results for the leeward side.This study demonstrates that it is possible to use the OSPM to model PM10 dispersion rules for an urban street canyon.     

On the Mechanism of Air Pollutant Removal in Two-Dimensional Idealized Street Canyons: A Large-Eddy Simulation Approach

Flow resistance, ventilation, and pollutant removal for idealized two-dimensional (2D) street canyons of different building-height to street-width (aspect) ratios $AR$ are examined using the friction factor $f$ , air exchange rate (ACH), and pollutant exchange rate (PCH), respectively, calculated by large-eddy simulation (LES). The flows are basically classified into three characteristic regimes, namely isolated roughness, wake interference, and skimming flow, as functions of the aspect ratios. The LES results are validated by various experimental and numerical datasets available in the literature. The friction factor increases with decreasing aspect ratio and reaches a peak at $AR = 0.1$ in the isolated roughness regime and decreases thereafter. As with the friction factor, the ACH increases with decreasing aspect ratio in the wake interference and skimming flow regimes, signifying the improved aged air removal for a wider street canyon. The PCH exhibits a behaviour different from its ACH counterpart in the range of aspect ratios tested. Pollutants are most effectively removed from the street canyon with $AR = 0.5$ . However, a minimum of PCH is found nearby at $AR = 0.3$ , at which the pollutant removal is sharply weakened. Besides, the ACH and PCH are partitioned into the mean and turbulent components to compare their relative contributions. In line with our earlier Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes calculations (Liu et al., Atmos Environ 45:4763–4769, 2011), the current LES shows that the turbulent components contribute more to both ACH and PCH, consistently demonstrating the importance of atmospheric turbulence in the ventilation and pollutant removal for urban areas.     

Joint PDF Modelling of Turbulent Flow and Dispersion in an Urban Street Canyon

The joint probability density function (PDF) of turbulent velocity and concentration of a passive scalar in an urban street canyon is computed using a newly developed particle-in-cell Monte Carlo method. Compared to moment closures, the PDF methodology provides the full one-point one-time PDF of the underlying fields containing all higher moments and correlations. The small-scale mixing of the scalar released from a concentrated source at the street level is modelled by the interaction by exchange with the conditional mean (IECM) model, with a micro-mixing time scale designed for geometrically complex settings. The boundary layer along no-slip walls (building sides and tops) is fully resolved using an elliptic relaxation technique, which captures the high anisotropy and inhomogeneity of the Reynolds stress tensor in these regions. A less computationally intensive technique based on wall functions to represent the boundary layers and its effect on the solution are also explored. The calculated statistics are compared to experimental data and large-eddy simulation. The present work can be considered as the first example of computation of the full joint PDF of velocity and a transported passive scalar in an urban setting. The methodology proves successful in providing high level statistical information on the turbulence and pollutant concentration fields in complex urban scenarios.     

Turbulence and Air Exchange in a Two-Dimensional Urban Street Canyon Between Gable Roof Buildings

We experimentally investigate the effect of a typical building covering: the gable roof, on the flow and air exchange in urban canyons. In general, the morphology of the urban canopy is very varied and complex, depending on a large number of factors, such as building arrangement, or the morphology of the terrain. Therefore we focus on a simple, prototypal shape, the two-dimensional canyon, with the aim of elucidating some fundamental phenomena driving the street-canyon ventilation. Experiments are performed in a water channel, over an array of identical prismatic obstacles representing an idealized urban canopy. The aspect ratio, i.e. canyon-width to building-height ratio, ranges from 1 to 6. Gable roof buildings with 1:1 pitch are compared with flat roofed buildings. Velocity is measured using a particle-image-velocimetry technique with flow dynamics discussed in terms of mean flow and second- and third-order statistical moments of the velocity. The ventilation is interpreted by means of a simple well-mixed box model and the outflow rate and mean residence time are computed. Results show that gable roofs tend to delay the transition from the skimming-flow to the wake-interference regime and promote the development of a deeper and more turbulent roughness layer. The presence of a gable roof significantly increases the momentum flux, especially for high packing density. The air exchange is improved compared to the flat roof buildings, and the beneficial effect is more significant for narrow canyons. Accordingly, for unit aspect ratio gable roofs reduce the mean residence time by a factor of 0.37 compared to flat roofs, whereas the decrease is only by a factor of 0.9 at the largest aspect ratio. Data analysis indicates that, for flat roof buildings, the mean residence time increases by 30% when the aspect ratio is decreased from 6 to 2, whereas this parameter is only weakly dependent on aspect ratio in the case of gable roofs.     

Large-Eddy Simulation of Flow and Pollutant Transports in and Above Two-Dimensional Idealized Street Canyons

A large-eddy simulation (LES) model, using the one-equation subgrid-scale (SGS) parametrization, was developed to study the flow and pollutant transport in and above urban street canyons. Three identical two-dimensional (2D) street canyons of unity aspect ratio, each consisting of a ground-level area source of constant pollutant concentration, are evenly aligned in a cross-flow in the streamwise direction x. The flow falls into the skimming flow regime. A larger computational domain is adopted to accurately resolve the turbulence above roof level and its influence on the flow characteristics in the street canyons. The LES calculated statistics of wind and pollutant transports agree well with other field, laboratory and modelling results available in the literature. The maximum wind velocity standard deviations σ _i in the streamwise (σ _u ), spanwise (σ _v ) and vertical (σ _w ) directions are located near the roof-level windward corners. Moreover, a second σ _w peak is found at z ≈ 1.5h (h is the building height) over the street canyons. Normalizing σ _i by the local friction velocity u _*, it is found that σ _u /u _* ≈ 1.8, σ _v /u _* ≈ 1.3 and σ _w /u _* ≈ 1.25 exhibiting rather uniform values in the urban roughness sublayer. Quadrant analysis of the vertical momentum flux u′′w′′ shows that, while the inward and outward interactions are small, the sweeps and ejections dominate the momentum transport over the street canyons. In the x direction, the two-point correlations of velocity R _v,x and R _w,x drop to zero at a separation larger than h but R _u,x (= 0.2) persists even at a separation of half the domain size. Partitioning the convective transfer coefficient Ω _T of pollutant into its removal and re-entry components, an increasing pollutant re-entrainment from 26.3 to 43.3% in the x direction is revealed, suggesting the impact of background pollutant on the air quality in street canyons.     

Momentum and Turbulent Kinetic Energy Budgets Within the Park Avenue Street Canyon During the Joint Urban 2003 Field Campaign

Very few attempts have so far been made to quantify the momentum and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) budgets within real urban canopies. In this study, sonic anemometer data obtained during the Joint Urban 2003 field campaign in Oklahoma City, U.S.A. were used for calculating the momentum and TKE budgets within a real-world urban street canyon. Sonic anemometers were deployed on multiple towers in the lower half of the canyon. Gradients in all three principal directions were included in the analyses. The storage and buoyancy terms were found to have negligible contributions to both the momentum and TKE budgets. The momentum budgets were generally found to be more complex than a simple balance of two physical processes. The horizontal terms were found to have significant and sometimes dominant contributions to the momentum and TKE budgets.     

Large-Eddy Simulations of Pollutant Removal Enhancement from Urban Canyons

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - Techniques for improving the removal of pollution from urban canyons are crucial for air quality control in cities. The removal mainly occurs at the building roof...     

Street Versus Rooftop Level Concentrations of Fine Particles in a Cambridge Street Canyon

Dispersion of particles, as evidenced by changes in their number distributions (PNDs) and concentrations (PNCs), in urban street canyons, is still not well understood. This study compares measurements by a fast-response particle spectrometer (DMS500) of the PNDs and the PNCs (5–1000 nm, sampled at 1 Hz) at street and rooftop levels in a Cambridge UK street canyon, and examines mixing, physical and chemical conversion processes, and the competing influences of traffic volume and rooftop wind speed on the PNDs and the PNCs in various size ranges. PNCs at street level were ≈6.5 times higher than at rooftop. Street-level PNCs followed the traffic volume and decreased with increasing wind speed, showing a larger influence of wind speed on 30–300 nm particles than on 5–30 nm particles. Conversely, rooftop PNCs in the 5–30 nm size range increased with wind speed, whereas those for particles between 30 and 300 nm did not vary with wind speed.     

Effects of Wall Heating on Flow Characteristics in a Street Canyon

We develop a large-eddy simulation (LES) model based on a meteorological numerical model for a real scale street-canyon flow with rough building facets heated by a given temperature. The model is applied to a canyon with the aspect ratio of unity for two idealized heating scenarios: (1) the roof and the entire upstream wall are heated, named as ‘assisting cases’, and (2) the roof and the entire downstream wall are heated, named as ‘opposing cases’. These facets were heated up to 15 K above the air temperature. A wall function for temperature is proposed for a rough facet with an assumption that the thermal roughness length, z _0T, is much smaller than the aerodynamic roughness length, z ₀. It is demonstrated that the sensible heat flux and canyon-air temperature are significantly influenced by the near-facet process that is parametrized by z _0T as the primary factor; other processes such as in-canyon mixing and roof-level exchange are secondary. This new finding strongly suggests that it is vital to choose an appropriate value of z _0T in a numerical simulation of street-canyon flows with the facet-air exchange processes of heat or any scalar. The finding also raises an awareness of the demand for carefully designed laboratory or field experiments of quantifying z _0T values for various urban surfaces. For the opposing cases, an unsteady penetrating narrow updraft zone appears occasionally along the heated wall and this feature is consistent field observations. The unique result indicates the superior capability of LES. The results of this study can be used to guide the parametrization of turbulent processes inside the urban canopy layer.     

城市街道峡谷汽车尾气污染的数值模拟

建立了一个简单的三维街道峡谷空气污染模式,并用实测资料进行了验证。利用建立的模式设计了7种试验方案,对街道峡谷内的污染状况进行了模拟。以CO为模拟对象的数值试验结果表明,街道峡谷上空的风速风向条件是决定街道峡谷内的污染状况的重要因素。峡谷上空风向与街道轴线的夹角越大、风速越小,则街道地面CO浓度越高。以现有的兰州典型车流量和排放因子,兰州街道地面CO浓度容易超标;若不控制车流量,到2008年,即使兰州上路汽车排放达标,但街道地面CO浓度仍然容易超标。     

由声雷达回波反演湍流场结构系数

定量测量声雷达回波强度可以导出大气温度结构系数（Ct 2）和速度结构系数（Cv2）。文章简要回顾和评述了过去的工作,并讨论了逾量衰减、风和湍流等因素对该测量的影响。研究表明：逾量衰减主要是由速度场的不均匀性所造成。其次,风场也有不可忽视的衰减作用,在风速达10 m/s时,引起的衰减达50%以上。最后给出了改进后的声雷达方程和反演Ct2和Cv2的方法。初步的试验结果对理论的应用是支持的。