Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 56975707

Gas diffusion over an isolated hill under neutral, stable and

unstable conditions
R. Ohbaa,*, T. Haraa, S. Nakamuraa, Y. Ohyab, T. Uchidab
a
b

Nagasaki R&D Center, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Nagasaki, Japan

Research Institute of Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

Received 28 December 1999; received in revised form 28 December 2000; accepted 02 August 2002

Abstract
Wind tunnel experiments of gas diffusion were performed over at terrain and over an isolated three-dimensional hill
under neutral, stable and unstable (sea breeze) conditions. Conditions of airow in the wind tunnel were determined so
as to satisfy the similarity rule for the bulk Richardson number, by controlling temperature proles and wind velocity of
the thermally stratied wind tunnel. Typical characteristics were observed under each condition of atmospheric
stability; reversed vortex behind the hill in neutral condition, downward slope wind in stable one and convective motion
in unstable one.
We compared these experiments with the results of a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) model for the wind velocity
over the hill under neutral conditions. The numerical results showed good agreement with the experimental results.
r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Diffusion; Airow; Atmospheric stability; Wind tunnel; Numerical simulation

1. Introduction
The effects of atmospheric stability and complicated
terrain on gas diffusion are important factors when we
perform an environmental assessment for air quality.
Many numerical models have been developed and
compared with experimental data observed in the eld.
However, the scatter in eld data is so wide that it is very
difcult to use these observational data to improve and
validate numerical models. The alternative is to use
experimental data from a laboratory setting to evaluate
and improve the numerical models. This second
approach is adopted in this paper.
The velocity and density structure of the ow in the
wind tunnel experiments must conform to that appropriate for the real environment and that used in the
numerical model for this approach to make sense. For
*Corresponding author. Fukahorimachi 5-717-1, Nagasaki,
Japan.
E-mail address: ohba@ngsrdc.mhi.co.jp (R. Ohba).

the present study, a similarity rule dictates the desired

proles. Many kinds of similarity rules are recommended for physical modeling of airow and gas
diffusion (see Snyder, 1981). We selected the bulk
Richardson number from a practical point of view;
rules based on the gradient Richardson number or the
MoninObkhof length is difcult to achieve in the wind
tunnel environment.
It was conrmed that the concentration distributions
in wind tunnel agreed well with eld data by simulating
the same value of the bulk Richardson number as in the
eld, under the stable condition by Ohba et al. (1990a)
and the unstable condition by Ohba and Nakamura
(1990b).
There are many approaches to numerical modeling
that could be used for the prediction of gas diffusion in
the eld. These include k
e; LES, RMS and DNS
models. In this paper we compare results of a DNS
model with our experimental data. The results of a k
e
model were compared with our wind tunnel results as a
validation study of numerical model organized by the

1352-2310/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 2 - 2 3 1 0 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 6 4 2 - 8

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R. Ohba et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 56975707

Nuclear Safety Research Association in Japan (see

Sakuma et al., 1996).

2. Wind tunnel experiment

2.1. Equipment
The experiments were performed in the wind tunnel
shown in Fig. 1. The test section was thermally insulated
by means of double walls, where hot or cold air ows
between the walls under the same condition as inside the
test section. There are heating pipes and wind vanes at
the entrance section to control temperature and velocity
proles of the air. The heating pipes are vertically
divided into ten blocks by a horizontal plate in order to
prevent any convective vertical ow around the pipes,
and can be controlled separately and automatically. The
test section oor can be easily cooled down to 20 K
lower than the air temperature by semiconductor
thermos-module, and heated up to 80 K higher than it
by electric heaters. These conditions may be achieved for
a short period (10 min to 1 h). The wind tunnel control
systems can be started up automatically without manual
control, 1 h before the working time, in order to reduce
the waiting time for warming up the wind tunnel.
The wind tunnel is the suction type, 2:5 m wide, 1:0 m
high and 19:5 m long (test section length 10 m). Wind

velocity is adjustable from 0.1 to 1:5 m=s: A source of

tracer gas is placed at a distance of 5:6 m from the
cooling edge in stable conditions and 0:6 m from the
heating edge in unstable conditions. The model of
the terrain was made of cast aluminum, under which a
few hundreds of semiconductor thermos-modules are set
for cooling the surface temperature.
Temperature was measured with a thermocouple and
velocity with a Laser Doppler Velocity-meter (LDV),
using ber-optics to position the head at the desired
location and small particles of oil fog as a tracer.
Dispersion was measured using methane as a tracer gas
and determining the concentration with an FID hydrocarbon meter. In addition, articial smoke was used to
visualize the dispersion and provide an overall picture of
the ow.
2.2. Results of flat terrain model
First, we performed an experiment using the at
terrain model to conrm the similarity of the airow and
gas diffusion with typical eld data and theory. The ow
conditions are shown in Table 1. The structure of the
airow in the wind tunnel was adjusted so as to satisfy
the similarity rule for the bulk Richardson number
under the model scale of 1/1000. The parenthesis in
Table 1 indicates the combination of a stable upper layer
over both the land and the sea, and sea breeze conditions

Fig. 1. Schematic view of thermally stratied wind tunnel.

R. Ohba et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 56975707

in the lower layer. This situation is shown in Fig. 2. In

addition, neutral and stable conditions, extending
throughout the test section, were studied.
Vertical temperature proles measured in the wind
tunnel are shown in Fig. 3. These proles indicate the
stable layer over the cooling section (sea; xo0) and a
development of the convection layer downwind from the
shoreline over the heating section (land; x > 0). Fig. 4(a)
shows that these proles agree well with the eld data on
temperature prole and depth of convection layer
observed by Kakuta and Hayashi (1986) in Tokai area
near Tokyo. The convection layer depth in the wind
tunnel increased in proportion with the 1/2 power of the
distance downwind from a shoreline, an observation
that agrees well with the eld result (see Fig. 4(b)).
Vertical velocity proles are shown in Fig. 5 for three
kinds of stabilities, which indicate that the exponent of
power law increases with increased stability.
Measurements of the dispersion of a plume of
methane tracer gas, released from a ground-level source
are shown in Fig. 6. These measurements show the vertical spread sZ agrees well with the PasquillGifford
relationships (also shown in the gure), for unstable (B),
neutral (D) and stable (F) conditions. Lateral plume
spread sy of wind tunnel are smaller than that of PG

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curves, due to the lack of meandering effect in the wind

tunnel.
Axial ground-level concentrations are shown in Fig. 7
for two different release heights below the convection
layer depth. These data indicate that the ground-level
concentration from 100 m release height is greater than
the one from 50 m release height at approximately 1 km
downwind of the release. This is a characteristic
phenomenon of gas diffusion in the convection layer,
which was found by Willis and Deardorff (1976) and
called touch-down and lift-up phenomenon by Briggs
(1985). This phenomenon is considered to be caused by a
mechanism that a plume emanating from a low-level
source ascends up, while that from a high-level source
descends down.
The temporal mean structure of a smoke plume,
illuminated by a LASER sheet, was obtained from a
video sequence using the DigImage of an image
processing software (Dalziel, 1993). A sample of these
visualizations, corrected for the geometric distortion of
the very wide-angle lens required to capture the ow, is
shown in Fig. 8. The time-averaged plume shows clearly
the touch-down and lift-up phenomenon.

Table 1
Experimental conditions
Atmospheric stability

Velocity
Um=s

Temperature
diff. DyK

Rib

Stable
(over sea)
Neutral
(upper layer)
Unstable
(over land)

4.0
0.4
4.0
0.4
4.0
0.4

4.0
40.0
0
0

8.0

80.0

0.85
0.85
0.0
0.0

1.7

1.7

Field
Wind tunnel
Field
Wind tunnel
Field
Wind tunnel

Rib gLDy=yU 2 ; where L: reference length ( source

height : 100 m), Dy : difference of potential temperature, y:
average potential temperature 300 K:

Fig. 3. Vertical temperature prole under unstable (sea breeze;

Rib
1:7) condition.

Fig. 2. Combination of atmospheric stability under the unstable (sea breeze) condition.

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R. Ohba et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 56975707

Fig. 4. Comparison of temperature proles in the eld (Tokai area) and wind tunnel under unstable condition Rib
1:7: (a)
Vertical temperature prole. (b) Convection layer development.

Fig. 5. Vertical velocity prole of neutral, stable and unstable

stabilities.

Vertical wind uctuations were measured using the

LDV as shown in Fig. 9(a), which is almost in agreement
with eld data reported by Shao et al. (1998). In
Fig. 9(a), vertical wind uctuations were normalized by
convection velocity scale w * gHg dh=Tair rCp 1=3 ;
where g is the gravitational acceleration, Hg the heat
ux at ground level, dh the convection layer depth, Tair
the air temperature, r the air density and Cp the specic
heat capacity at a constant pressure. Heat ux at ground
level Hg were calculated from the increment of enthalpy
with downwind distance, namely a change of vertical
temperature proles. A typical example of Probability
Density Function (PDF) observed in wind tunnel is
shown in Fig. 9(b). The ascent and descent of the plume
axis are thought to depend on the skewness of vertical
wind uctuation, as shown in Fig. 9(b).

Fig. 6. Vertical plume spread of wind tunnel and PG chart.

2.3. Results of isolated hill model

Vertical proles of velocity and temperature
were measured under neutral, stable and unstable
conditions for the ow over the hill whose prole
is shown in Fig. 10. The tracer gas or smoke was
released upwind of the hill from the same and a half
height as the hill that is indicated by + symbol in
Fig. 10.
Fig. 11 shows pseudo-color images of the smoke
plume under neutral (Fig. 11(a)), unstable (Fig. 11(b))
and stable (Fig. 11(c)) conditions, while Fig. 12 shows
the mean velocity elds visualized by tuft streamers
under neutral condition.

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It was found from these results that:

(1) Under neutral conditions, a recirculating vortex
exists behind the hill due to the separation of
airow, and the smoke plume jumps over the
vortex.
(2) Under stable condition, the recirculating vortex
disappears due to down-slope wind, and the smoke
plume follows the surface of the hill like a drainage
ow. When the release height of the smoke is
sufciently lower than the hill, the smoke cannot
climb up the hill surface at the upwind side, and it
goes around the hill horizontally.
(3) Under unstable condition, the recirculating vortex
develops due to the upstream up-slope wind behind
the hill, and the smoke plume jumps higher and
diffuses wider vertically due to convective motion.

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are, in general, higher than those for ow over the

at terrain.
(2) Under an unstable condition, the centerline concentration with the hill model is higher before the
top of the hill, but the concentration is lower
behind the top.
These results correspond well with the direct observations of the ow shown in Figs. 11 and 12 under each
atmospheric stability.

Contours of concentration in a vertical section and at

the ground level are shown in Figs. 13 and 14,
respectively. They show the same situation as the image
of the smoke shown in Fig. 11.
Centerline ground-level concentrations are shown in
Fig. 15, which compare the results of at terrain model
and hill model.
It was found from these results that:
(1) Under neutral and stable conditions, centerline
ground-level concentrations for ow over the hill

Fig. 7. Axial ground-level concentration of two release heights

under unstable condition Rib
1:7:

Fig. 9. Fluctuation of vertical wind velocity at source position

x 0; z 100 mm under unstable condition Rib
1:7:
(a) Intensity of vertical turbulence. (b) Probability density
function (PDF).

Fig. 8. Pseudo-colorized photo of smoke plume under unstable condition Rib
1:7 averaged for 256 images during 85 s; where
gray level corresponds to the concentration level.

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Fig. 10. Shape of isolated hill with 100 mm height, where + symbol means source position and unit is mm.

Fig. 11. Pseudo-colorized photo of smoke plume averaged for some periods, where gray level corresponds to concentration level, (a)
Neutral condition. (b) Stable condition. (c) Unstable condition.

Fig. 12. Tuft streamer, which indicates wind direction over the hill (a) Neutral (hill height 100 mm) (b) Neutral (hill
height 200 mm).

3. Numerical simulation
3.1. Calculation method
The experimental measurements of the previous
section were undertaken to allow a comparison with
numerical results from a DNS simulation of the ow,
because the DNS model can simulate airow without

any assumption on turbulence model. The DNS code

used has been developed by Uchida and Ohya (1999)
specically for modeling ow. A key component of any
DNS, especially when density variations are important,
is the coupling between the velocity and pressure
components. Here the fractional step method of Uchida
and Ohya (1999) is used, with the pressure eld
determined by solving the Poisson equation, derived

R. Ohba et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 56975707

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Fig. 13. Contour of concentration in vertical section where number on the contour means relative concentration UC=Q 
106 ; m
2 : (a) Neutral. (b) Stable. (c) Unstable.

by taking divergence of momentum equation. Solution

of the Poisson equation is obtained by Successive
Over Relaxation (SOR) method. The solution is
advanced using the rst-order accurate explicit Euler
method, with the step size selected to maintain the
stability of the scheme. Spatial derivatives are handled
using a second-order central difference on an irregular grid, except for the advection terms for which
a non-conservative third-order upwind scheme is
employed.
In line with the philosophy behind DNS, a very high
spatial resolution is used (thus requiring very small time
steps) in order to explicitly simulate the behavior of the
turbulence. However, as a consequence, the DNS
requires approximately one month CPU time for each
run by EWS. One million mesh points are used
approximately, producing 1 Gbyte data for subsequent
analysis.

The most important factor to the success of the

numerical simulation of the atmospheric ow over threedimensional topography is the specication of the
topography as a boundary condition in the computation. For this purpose, we examine two grid systems, as
shown in Fig. 16: one is a body-tted coordinate (BFC)
grid system in Fig. 16(a) and the other is an orthogonal
grid system in Fig. 16(b). It should be noted that in the
latter case, the topography model is approximated by
rectangular grids.
3.2. Calculated results
(1) Two grid systems
In order to test the efciency, accuracy and applicability of the two alternative grid systems, we calculated
airow over an isolated hill under neutral and stable
conditions using both types of grids. The shape of the

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Fig. 14. Contour of concentration at ground-level, where circle is model size and number on the contour means relative concentration
UC=Q  106 ; m
2 : (a) Neutral. (b) Stable. (c) Unstable.

isolated hill is the same as the wind tunnel model,

dened as f r h=1 r4 ; where f r is the height, h is
the maximum height and r is the distance from the
center of the hill. The number of grid points is 111 
61  51 in the x-, y- and z-directions, respectively, and
the vertical smallest grid spacing at the top of the hill is
approximately 0:5  10
3 h: The Reynolds number

based on the hill height h is 5  103 ; which matches

with the value of wind tunnel experiment. The Reynolds
number 5  103 is lower than the one of eld, so that
there may be somewhat differences between the calculated and observed results in the eld. The nondimensional time step is around Dt 10
3 ; which is
determined from the criteria of numerical stability, and

R. Ohba et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 56975707

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Fig. 15. Axial ground-level concentration with and without the hill, where blanket number means the release height, where unit of
relative concentration UC=Q is 106 m
2 : (a) Neutral condition. (b) Stable condition. (c) Unstable.

Fig. 16. Images of coordinate grid systems around the hill. (a) BFC grid system. (b) Orthogonal grid system.

in proportion with mesh width and reciprocal of wind

velocity.
Fig. 17 shows the instantaneous streaklines in the
vertical plane passing the top of the hill once the ow is
fully developed. A coherent structure of eddies in the lee
of the hill is conrmed under the neutral condition in
Fig. 17(a). A lee wave with a long wave length and a
rotor are excited downstream of the hill under the stable
condition (Fr2 1:0; namely Rib 1:0) in Fig. 17(b).
These phenomena are in agreement with the results
observed in the wind tunnel, as already shown in
Figs. 11 and 12.

However, there are some differences between the ow

patterns obtained with body-tting coordinates and
those with orthogonal coordinates. The streaklines of
the orthogonal grid are more complicated than that of
the body-tting one, especially behind the hill under
neutral conditions. We believe that this is due to the
stepwise approximation of the hill surface. The result of
the body-tting grid is thought to be more reasonable
than that of the orthogonal one.
(2) Two inflow conditions
Airow over the isolated hill was calculated under
neutral conditions for two different inow conditions:

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R. Ohba et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 56975707

Fig. 17. Streaklines in the vertical plane passing the top of the hill, where left is BFC grid system and right orthogonal one. (a) Neutral
ow (Fr ). (b) Stablystratied ow Fr 1:

Fig. 18. Vertical prole of non-dimensional wind velocity u=U over the hill, where circle symbol means wind tunnel results, broken
and solid lines means results of DNS model without and with boundary layers, respectively.

the rst is uniform ow and the second is boundary

layer ow. The calculation domain was covered by
302  101  51 grid points in the x-, y- and z-directions,
respectively, and the smallest vertical grid spacing
at the top of the hill is approximately 1:5  10
3 H:
The Reynolds number based on the hill height h is 5 
103 : The non-dimensional time step is again around
Dt 10
3 :
Calculated results are compared with the wind tunnel
results, in Figs. 18 and 19, as for the vertical prole of
wind velocity and turbulence intensity. The turbulent
intensity behind the hill was so large that it was omitted
in Fig. 19, judging it to be an error of measurement. It
was found from these comparisons that:
(1) There is little difference between the two kinds of
inow conditions behind the hill, although some
differences exist upwind of the hill.

(2) Calculated results agreed well with experimental

results, especially mean velocity behind the hill.
4. Conclusion
It was conrmed from the wind tunnel experiments
with the thermally stratied wind tunnel that:
(1) The wind tunnel can simulate the convection layer
development under the sea-breeze condition, and
gas diffusion pattern under each atmospheric
stability, by satisfying the similarity rule of the
bulk Richardson number Rib, similar with the eld.
(2) The airow and gas diffusion over the isolated hill
change dramatically with the atmospheric stability.
The comparison between experimental results from
the thermally stratied wind tunnel and the DNS

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Fig. 19. Vertical prole of longitudinal turbulence intensity (standard deviation of u0 =u : % over the hill, where circle symbol means
wind tunnel results, broken and solid lines means results of DNS model without and with boundary layers, respectively.

calculations has lead to a number of important

conclusions.
(3) The calculated results with a body-tted grid
show better accuracy than that with the orthogonal
grid.
(4) The calculated results under two inow conditions
do not show much difference of wind prole
downwind of the hill.
(5) The DNS model shows good agreement with the
wind tunnel results as for the wind prole over the
hill under the neutral condition.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Prof. Alan Robins of Surrey
University and Dr. Stuart Dalziel of Cambridge University for their advises and English corrections.

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