Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

Validation of a two-dimensional pollutant dispersion model in an isolated street canyon

T.L. Chana,*, G. Donga,1, C.W. Leunga, C.S. Cheunga, W.T. Hungb
a

Research Centre for Combustion and Pollution Control, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong b Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong Received 1 June 2001; received in revised form 13 September 2001; accepted 19 September 2001

Abstract A two-dimensional numerical model based on Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes equations coupled with a series of standard, Renormalization Group (RNG) and realizable k2e turbulence models was developed to simulate the uidow development and pollutant dispersion within an isolated street canyon using the FLUENT code. In the present study, the validation of the numerical model was evaluated using an extensive experimental database obtained from the atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel at the Meteorological Institute of Hamburg University, Germany (J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 62 (1996) 37). Among the studied turbulence models, the RNG k2e turbulence model was found to be the most optimum turbulence model coupled with the two-dimensional street canyon model developed in the present study. Both the calculated and measured dimensionless pollutant concentrations have been shown to be less dependent on the variation of wind speed and source strength conditions for the studied street canyon aspect ratio of the B=H 1 case. However, the street canyon conguration has signicant inuence on the pollutant dispersion. The wider street and lower height of the buildings are favorable to pollutant dilution within the street canyon. The uid-ow development has demonstrated that the rotative vortex or vortices generated within the urban street canyon can transport the pollutants from a line source to the wall surfaces of the buildings. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Street canyon; Two-dimensional pollutant dispersion model; k2e turbulence models; Vehicle emissions; Wind tunnel data

1. Introduction The pollutants emitted from motor vehicles have direct impact on human health, especially on the drivers, bicyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians, people working nearby, and vehicle passengers in urban street canyon with high-rise buildings in most large cities. The physical parameters of ambient conditions (e.g. wind speed and direction), the building congurations and source
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +852-2766-6656; fax: +8522365-4703. E-mail address: mmtlchan@polyu.edu.hk (T.L. Chan). 1 Present address: Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, Peoples Republic of China.

strength of pollutants dominate the pollutant dispersion process. Full-scale eld measurements, small-scale measurements of physical model and mathematical model have recently been used to investigate the eects of these parameters on pollutant dispersion in street canyons (Sini et al., 1996; Meroney et al., 1996; Leitl and Meroney, 1997; Hassan and Crowther, 1998; KastnerKlein and Plate, 1999; Huang et al., 2000). Among these research works, the atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel studies were carried out to model physically, the pollutant dispersion in street canyons by Meroney et al. (1996) and Kastner-Klein and Plate (1999). These experiments included the physical modeling of an isolated street canyon (two buildings enclosing a street) and urban environment (many equally spaced buildings). Between the two buildings, a steady line source

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 1 ) 0 0 4 9 0 - 3

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ejected the tracer gas (i.e. ethane or sulfur hexauoride) into the street canyon for simulating the pollutant formation. Both buildings and line source were laid across the wind tunnel. The wind was perpendicular or oblique to the direction of the street. The concentration of pollutant was measured at the sampling points located at the wall surface of buildings when the pollutant was ejected steadily from the line source. The measured results showed that the wind speeds and directions, and building congurations have signicant inuence on the distribution of pollutant concentrations. The vortex circulation generated in the street canyon led to higher pollutant concentration levels on the leeward side than on the windward side of the buildings and decreased exponentially in the vertical direction of the leeward side of the upstream building. The pollutant-concentration distributions in the street canyon were further evaluated by the statistical measured data obtained from the atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel (Pavageau and Schatzmann, 1999). The results of pollutant concentrations obtained from the eld and wind tunnel experiments provide the possibility of validation on the numerical model to simulate the pollutant dispersion in the street canyon. Recently, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approaches have been increasingly used to simulate the pollutant dispersion in street canyons. Various research workers have proposed two- or three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes equations coupled with the dierent turbulence models (e.g. k2e turbulence model) and a large eddy simulation approach to simulate the pollutant dispersion in street canyons. These CFD approaches are able to reproduce the qualitative features of airow and pollutant concentrations within the street canyon, and provide the development of a vortex or circulation of several vortices with upward transportation of the pollutants into the atmosphere. Sini et al. (1996) developed a two-dimensional numerical model using the CHENSI code coupled with a standard k2e turbulence model to simulate the pollutant dispersion in an isolated street canyon. Although the eects of street canyon aspect ratio and the dierent heating of the wall surfaces on the small-scale ows were studied, experimental validations were limited. Leitl and Meroney (1997) calculated the two- and three-dimensional pollutant concentration distributions within the urban environment street canyon model of the boundary layer wind tunnel using standard and Renormalization Group (RNG) k2e turbulence models. However, they lacked the detailed calculation on the dierent ambient parameters and street congurations. Hassan and Crowther (1998) carried out a two-dimensional steadystate numerical calculation using the PHOENICS code for simulating the transport and dispersion processes from urban street canyon when the wind speed and

street canyon conguration varied. The accuracy of these predicted data was then evaluated with eld observations and previous research ndings. However, these predicted data of the physical model were limited, particularly for investigation within the canyon concentration eld. Similarly, Huang et al. (2000) performed a two-dimensional calculation using two types of tracer gases as the pollutant and compared this with the eld data. Then, a series of sensitivity studies on dierent wind speeds and street canyon congurations were carried out numerically. However, these sensitivity studies lacked validation of the measured data. Chabni et al. (1998) simulated the pollutant dispersion in urban street canyons by means of the large eddy simulation approach. However, their calculations were purely numerical work without any validation of the measured results. Baik and Kim (1999) investigated, numerically, the ow and pollutant dispersion characteristics within the street canyons with dierent street canyon aspect ratios of B=H; wind speeds and pollutant source sites. Although their numerical investigations are comprehensive, the calculated results were not compared with the experimental data. After that, Baik et al. (2000) performed a series of experiments for investigating the ow characteristics within street canyons using a circulating water channel. The measured results of ow characteristics under the dierent street canyon aspect ratios were compared with the calculated results and good agreement was obtained. However, the investigation of pollutant dispersion was not included in their experimental work. The reasons for the limited experimental data for validating the numerical data were well reviewed by Schatzmann et al. (1997). They concluded that the validation of the pollutant dispersion models should be based on the laboratory data (e.g. wind tunnel experiments), rather than the eld data which could vary widely due to the instability of atmospheric environment. The aim of the present study is to develop a twodimensional numerical model based on the Reynoldsaveraged NavierStokes equations coupled with a series of standard, RNG and realizable k2e turbulence models for simulating the pollutant dispersion within an isolated street canyon. The calculated data of the numerical model are then validated under the dierent source strengths, wind speeds and street canyon congurations by comparing the extensive experimental database obtained from Meroney et al. (1996). These three studied k2e turbulence models are evaluated to determine the most optimum turbulence model and its constants for simulating the pollutant dispersion within an isolated street canyon. After this, the numerical predictions of the pollutant concentrations at dierent heights of buildings are investigated. The wind speed vector and stream function distributions for simulating the pollutant dispersion within an isolated street canyon

T.L. Chan et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

863

by varying the width-to-height ratio, B=H are also demonstrated.

2. Wind tunnel experimental description Meroney et al. (1996) carried out a series of pollutant concentration measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel at the Meteorological Institute of Hamburg University, Germany. The boundary layer was generated using the wind tunnel, which consisted of an inlet nozzle, ow straighteners, Irwin-type vortex generators, a ow establishment section, a test section, anti-swirl devices and a squirrel-cage centrifugal fan. Two wooden bars were laid across the wind tunnel to model two-dimensional multi-story at-roofed buildings. The precisely designed line source was placed in the center of the street oor between these two bars to model the emission source from the vehicular exhaust. The direction of line source was parallel to the direction of bars. The mixture of air and ethane (pollutant) was ejected steadily and homogeneously from both sides of the line source in a certain ow rate. The mixture must be ejected out horizontally, and all vertical momentums were eliminated. A power law can be used to describe the fully developed vertical velocity prole within the boundary layer region as follows:   Uz z d0 a ; 1 d d0 Ud where Uz and Ud are the mean velocity at the height z and the boundary layer height d; respectively; d0 is the displacement height; and a is the vertical wind prole exponent. The wind direction was controlled carefully so as to be perpendicular to the direction of bars and line source to ensure the whole experimental setup in a twodimensional street canyon conguration. The testsection wind speeds ranging from 0 to 15 m s1 were controlled by means of a DC motor with a thyristor-type control system, and the reference wind speed, Uref ; was recorded at a height of 0.65 m above the street oor level. The whole conguration corresponded to a physical scale model of 1:500 for the real street canyon case. The measured pollutant concentrations were expressed in the dimensionless pollutant concentration form, K: K CUref HL ; Qe 2

trations were almost independent of the wind speeds for the street canyon aspect ratio, B=H 1 except the experimental errors at the two lowest wind speeds used, Uref 1:0 and 0.5 m s1, as described by Meroney et al. (1996). It also showed that the dimensionless pollutant concentrations decreased everywhere on the wall surfaces of the buildings with increase in the street canyon width.

3. Numerical calculations Fig. 1 shows the computational street canyon conguration for B=H 1; where B 0:06 m; B is the street canyon width and H 0:06 m; H is the building height. The actual physical domain is 0.18 m wide and 0.24 m high. The height and width of line source are 0.0012 and 0.01 m, respectively. The quadrangular meshes used for the present calculations are 70 50 in X and Y directions, respectively. Extensive tests of the independence of the meshes are carried out with increasing mesh numbers until further renement is shown to be less signicant. The mixture of ethane (pollutant) and air is ejected horizontally from both sides of the source at a constant ow rate. The dimensionless pollutant concentrations, K on the wall and roof surfaces of the leeward and windward sides of the buildings are calculated. The inow vertical wind speed prole on an isolated street canyon is assumed to be in a logarithmic law form (Gayev and Savory, 1999) as follows:   un z d0 uz ln ; 3 k z0

Top

Inflow

Wind speed profile

Outflow
Y

Roof

Roof

where C is the volume fraction of ethane; H is the height of building; L is the length of line source; Qe is the volume ow rate of ethane. These experiments were mainly focused on the eects of wind speed and street canyon width for pollutant dispersion in an isolated street canyon. The measured results showed that the dimensionless pollutant concen-

B The upstream building Leeward side The downstream building Street (line source)

Windward side

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the computational domain for an isolated street canyon, B=H 1:

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T.L. Chan et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

where z is the height above the oor; u is the friction velocity; k 0:4; k is the von K! rm! n constant; d0 and a a z0 are the displacement height and the surface roughness length of buildings, respectively, and these values are taken from Meroney et al. (1996). Since the wind direction is perpendicular to an isolated street canyon, a two-dimensional computational domain is considered. The air within the street canyon can be regarded as an incompressible turbulent inert ow, and the air and pollutant densities are assumed to be constant. These assumptions are reasonable for most lower atmosphere environment as described by Sini et al., 1996. Besides, the turbulence production due to the buoyancy eect is not included because the thermal eect in the street canyon is not taken into consideration in the present study. For the two-dimensional isolated street canyon problem, as shown in Fig. 1, the governing equations can be expressed as follows: Continuity equation: quj 0: 4 qxj Momentum equation: qui qui 1 qp m q2 ui q 0 0 uj u u gi : qt qxj r qxi r qxj @xj qxj i j 5

energy production; sk and se are the turbulent Prandtl numbers for k and e; respectively; Ci is the chemical species (pollutants) concentration; Di is the diusivity; Sct is the turbulent Schmidt number. Besides the standard k2e turbulence model, the RNG k2e turbulence model based on the RNG theory (Yakhot and Orszag, 1986) and the realizable k2e turbulence model (Shih et al., 1995) are also used to evaluate their numerical performance for the pollutant dispersion modeling in an isolated street canyon. The RNG k2e turbulence model has a similar form with the standard k2e turbulence model, but it provides an analytically derived dierential formula for determining the eective viscosity and an additional term for the e equation. In addition, the RNG k2e turbulence model also provides an analytical formula for determining the turbulent Prandtl number instead of a constant value for the standard k2e turbulence model as follows:   qk qk 1 q qk Gk uj e; 9 ak meff qt qxj r qxj qxj r   qe qe 1 q qe 1 e Ce1 Gk ae meff uj qt qxj r qxj qxj r k   10 Cm rZ3 1 Z=Z0 e2 ; Ce2 1 bZ3 k where ak and ae are the inverse eective Prandtl number for k and e; respectively; meff is the eective turbulent viscosity; Z Sk=e; S is the scalar measure of the deformation tensor; the constants of Z0 and b are 4.38 and 0.012, respectively. The dierence between the realizable k2e turbulence model and the other two k2e turbulence models are that the turbulent viscosity is determined from a new analytical formula and the e equation is derived from an exact equation for the transport of the mean-square vorticity uctuation as follows:    qe qe 1 q m qe e2 p ; uj C1 Se C2 m t qt qxj r qxj se qxj k ne 11 where  C1 max 0:43;  Z : Z5

k and e transport equations in the standard k2e turbulence model:    qk qk 1 q m qk Gk uj e; 6 m t qt qxj r qxj sk qxj r    qe qe 1 q m qe 1 e e2 uj Ce1 Gk Ce2 : m t qt qxj r qxj r k se qxj k 7 The species (pollutants) transport equation:    qCi qCi 1 q mt qCi uj ; Di qt qxj r qxj Sct qxj where u0i u0j   1 qui quj 2 mt kdij ; r 3 qxj qxi

u0i u0j is the Reynolds stress; mt rCm k2 =e; mt is the turbulent viscosity; m is the molecular viscosity; gi is the gravitational body force; Gk is the turbulent kinetic

12

Table 1 The constants of three studied k2e turbulence models k2e turbulence model Ce1 Standard RNG Realizable
a

Ce2 1.92 1.68 1.9a

Cm 0.09 0.0845 Analytical formula

sk 1.0 Analytical formula 1.0

se 1.3 Analytical formula 1.2

1.44 1.42 Eq. (12)a

The two constants should be C1 and C2 in Eq. (11) instead of Ce1 and Ce2 in Eq. (7).

T.L. Chan et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

865

All the above calculations were performed using the FLUENT code. The constants for these three studied k2e turbulence models are summarized in Table 1. The governing Eqs. (4)(11) were discretized using a nite volume method and the SIMPLE algorithm was used to solve the equations (Leung et al., 2000). The boundary conditions of the pollutant dispersion model in an isolated street are shown in Table 2.

4. Results and discussion 4.1. Eect of wind speed Fig. 2 shows the dimensionless pollutant concentration, K distributions under dierent reference wind speeds and Uref ranging from 0.5 to 4 m s1. The calculated data using the standard, RNG and realizable

Table 2 The boundary conditions of pollutant dispersion model Boundary type Velocity Concentration Inow Logarithmic prole 0 Top Constant 0 Source Constant Constant Outow Zero gradient Zero gradient Wall Logarithmic law Zero gradient

0.07

0.07

0.07

0.06

(a)

0.06

(b)

0.06

(c)

Building height, H (m)

Building height, H (m)

0.04

0.04

Building height, H (m)

50 100 150

0.05

0.05

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.01

0.01

0.01

0 0

40

80

120

0 0

0 0

60

120

180

Dimensionless concentration (K)

Dimensionless concentration (K)

Dimensionless concentration (K)

0.07

0.07

0.06

(d)

0.06

(e)
leeward side, RNG k- model leeward side, standard k- model leeward side, realizable k- model windward side, RNG k- model windward side, standard k- model windward side, realizable k- model measured data (Meroney, 1996)

Building height, H (m)

0.04

Building height, H (m)

50 100 150 200 250

0.05

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.03

0.02

0.02

0.01

0.01

0 0

0 0

100

200

300

Dimensionless concentration (K)

Dimensionless concentration (K)

Fig. 2. The dimensionless concentration, K; distributions on the leeward and windward sides of the buildings from dierent wind speeds: (a) Uref 0:5 m s1, (b) Uref 1 m s1, (c) Uref 2 m s1, (d) Uref 3 m s1, (e) Uref 4 m s1 (B=H 1 and Qe 4 l h1).

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T.L. Chan et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

k2e turbuelnce models are compared with the measured data obtained from Meroney et al. (1996). Both the calculated and measured results show that the magnitude of dimensionless pollutant concentrations on the leeward side of the upstream building is much larger than the windward side of the downstream building. On the leeward side, the pollutant concentrations decrease exponentially from the oor to the roof of the upstream building, while the pollutant concentrations are almost constant along with the height of the downstream building on the windward side. In the case of lower wind speed, Uref 0:5 m s1, the pollutant dispersion model using standard and RNG k2e turbulence models obtained almost the same results for pollutant concentrations on both the leeward and windward sides of the buildings. However the realizable k2e turbulence model provides larger pollutant concentrations on the leeward side of the upstream building. The present calculated data using these three studied turbulence models are in good agreement with the measured data. When the wind speed is 1 m s1, the standard k2e turbulence model provides the best calculated results, while the RNG and realizable k2e turbulence models under-predict and over-predict the pollutant concentrations on the leeward side, respectively. When the wind speed further increases, the standard and realizable k2e turbulence models over-predict the pollutant concentrations on the leeward and windward sides of the buildings, while the RNG k2e turbulence model provides the best calculated data by comparing with the measured data obtained from Meroney et al. (1996). The measured data given in Fig. 2 show that the dimensionless pollutant concentrations on the leeward and windward sides of the buildings do not change signicantly with dierent reference wind speeds. Meroney et al. (1996) concluded that the street canyon dispersion behavior is almost independent of the Reynolds number for the studied street canyon aspect ratio of B=H 1: The present calculated results demonstrated that the RNG k2e turbulence model shows a minor change of dimensionless pollutant concentrations under dierent wind speeds (or Reynolds numbers). Hence, it is also concluded that the street canyon dispersion behavior in terms of dimensionless pollutant concentrations is almost independent of the Reynolds number for B=H 1: Although the RNG k2e turbulence model under-predicts the pollutant concentrations in the lower wind speed (i.e. 0.5 and 1.0 m s1) as shown in Figs. 2(a) and (b), these deviations between the calculated and measured data are mainly due to the experimental errors for such low wind-speed cases in the wind tunnel as described by Meroney et al. (1996). Fig. 3 shows the dierent turbulent intensity distributions within the street canyon aspect ratio of B=H 1 and Uref 2 m s1 using the standard, RNG and realizable k2e turbulence models for the present calculations. Both the studied standard and RNG

turbulence k2e models produce similar turbulent intensity distribution, while the realizable turbulence k2e model produces a lower turbulent intensity distribution within the studied street canyon. However, the similar turbulent intensity distribution produced by the standard and RNG k2e turbulence models cannot explain the variation of pollutant concentration distributions, as shown in Fig. 2(c). On the other hand, the turbulent viscosity, mt distributions on both the leeward and windward sides as shown in Fig. 4 can reect on the variation of pollutant concentration distributions using the three studied k2e turbulence models. Among these three studied turbulence models, the mt distributions produced by the RNG k2e turbulence model on both leeward and windward sides of the buildings are the lowest. It is because the RNG k2e turbulence model provides an analytically derived formula for the viscosity term. As the magnitude of mt is decreased, it supresses the diusion of species (pollutants) in Eq. (8). Hence, it improves the calculation of turbulent viscosity and the diusion of pollutant, and leads to the lowest pollutant concentration distributions on both leeward and windward sides of the buildings as shown in Fig. 2(c). For the other two turbulence models, the mt distribution produced by the standard k2e turbulence model is lower than that of the realizable k2e turbulence model on the leeward side, but is higher than that of the realizable k2e turbulence model on the windward side as shown in Fig. 4. The corresponding pollutant concentration distributions on the leeward and windward sides for these two turbulence models are shown in Fig. 2(c). It should be noted that Meroney et al. (1996) used two isolated model buildings, which stood in a relatively open space (i.e. inside a wind tunnel). Thus, the ow separation can occur at the upwind edge of upstream buildings and cause the airow not to be parallel with the ground at the roof level of street canyon. This situation is somewhat dierent from the present numerical model, where the inlet wind is blown horizontally across the street canyon. This may cause the dierence between the calculated and measured data by using the three studied turbulence models. Compared with the measured results, it can also be noted that among these three studied turbulence models, the RNG k2e turbulence model has lesser signicant change on the results of dimensionless pollutant concentration distributions when the reference wind speed is increased, as shown in Fig. 2. Due to the above reasons, the RNG k2e turbulence model is found to be the most optimum turbulence model for calculating the airow in an isolated street canyon in the present study. It is then used to investigate the eects of source strengths and street canyon congurations on the concentrations of pollutant dispersion. Fig. 5 shows the wind speed vector distribution at the width-to-height ratio, B=H 1 when the reference wind

T.L. Chan et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

0.09 0.08 0.09 0.08

867

0.69
0.07 0.06 0.07 0.06

0.69

Y (m)

Y (m)

0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0 0.04

0.57

0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02

0.5 7

0.4 6

0.4 6
0. 35

0.3 5

0.2 3

0.01

0.23

12 0.

0.12
0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14

0 0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

(a)
0.09 0.08 0.07 0.06

X (m)

(b)

X (m)

0.69

0.57
0.4 6
5 0.3

Y (m)

0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01

0.23

0.12
0 0.04 0.06

0.16
0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14

(c)

X (m)

Fig. 3. The turbulent intensity distributions within the street canyon under dierent studied turbulence models: (a) RNG k2e model, (b) standard k2e model, (c) realizable k2e model (B=H 1; Uref 2 m s1 and Qe 4 l h1).

0.06

0.05

0.04

0.03 leeward side, RNG k- model leeward side, standard k- model leeward side, realizable k- model windward side, RNG k- model windward side, standard k- model windward side, realizable k- model 0 0.0001 0.0002 0.0003 0.0004
t (kg

0.02

0.01

0.0005

0.0006

Turbulent viscosity,

m-1 s-1)

Fig. 4. The turbulent viscosity, mt distributions on the leeward and windward sides of the buildings from dierent turbulent models (B=H 1; Uref 2 m s1 and Qe 4 l h1).

speed is 2 m s1 and the mass ow rate of the source (ethane) is 4 l h1. It is clear that a clockwise vortex circulation is generated within the street canyon when the wind is blown across the street canyon from the left of the upstream building, as described by Hassan and Crowther (1998), Baik and Kim (1999), Baik et al. (2000) and Huang et al. (2000). The center of the vortex circulation is located near the middle of the twodimensional street canyon plane. The stream function within the street canyon shows a similar behavior, as shown in Fig. 6. It shows that the studied B=H 1 case belongs to the standard skimming ow (SF) regime as described by Sini et al. (1996), in which a large unique vortex can be found in the range 0.60.65oB/Ho1.5 1.6. The airow in the center of the vortex circulation is slow, and it becomes faster when approaching the wall surface of buildings and the oor surface of street.

Building height, H (m)

868
0.09 0.08 0.07 0.06

T.L. Chan et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

Y (m)

0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0 0.04

1 m s-1

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

X (m)

Fig. 5. Wind-speed vector distribution within an isolated street canyon. RNG k2e turbulence model (B=H 1; Qe 4 l h1 and Uref 2 m s1).

0.09 0.08 0.07 0.06

ethane-gas discharge rates, Qe 1:2; 2, and 4 l h1, and a constant air discharge rate, Qa 100 l h1 are used to investigate the eect of source strength on the dimensionless pollutant dispersion within an isolated street canyon when the reference wind speed is 1 m s1, as shown in Fig. 7. Since both the horizontal wind speed at the street level and the line source discharge speeds have the same magnitude of a few cm s1, these interactions have signicant eect on the pollutant dispersions. The present pollutant dispersion modeling for all the three studied Qe cases provide almost the same dimensionless pollutant concentration distributions on both leeward and windward sides of the buildings. The calculated and measured data show good agreement for the three source strengths studied. Since the pollutant dimensionless concentration, K is inversely proportional to the source strength, Qe ; as shown in Eq. (2), the independence of K on Qe implies that the volume fractions of the pollutant, C on both leeward and windward sides of the buildings decrease with decreasing Qe : 4.3. Eect of street canyon conguration The street canyon conguration has signicant inuence on the pollutant dispersion from the trac emission source. Fig. 8 shows the eect of dierent width-to-height ratios (B=H) in which the street width is varied but the building height is xed when the reference wind speed, Uref 2 m s1. It shows that the dimensionless pollutant concentrations decrease along with the increasing street width on both the leeward and windward sides of the buildings. The pollutant concentrations are almost constant from the top to the bottom of the leeward side of the upstream building within the wider street canyon while the pollutant concentrations are also constant on the windward side of the downstream building within the street canyon congurations studied. The calculated and measured data show good agreement for the four studied B=H ratios. Figs. 9 and 10 show the wind speed vector and the airow stream function distributions, respectively, when B=H 4 and Uref 2 m s1. It is clearly shown that the patterns of wind speed vector and airow stream function are quite dierent by comparing the studied street canyon conguration of B=H 4 (the wider street) and the B=H 1 (the narrow street) cases. For the B=H 4 case, when the reference wind is blown from left to right, two clockwise co-rotative vortices circulation are generated and thus, the wake interference ow (WIF) regime is found according to the description of Sini et al. (1996). In this particular case, these vortices approach the leeward and windward sides of buildings, respectively. The vortex circulation is changed from the circular shape in the B=H 1 case to the triangular shape in the B=H 4 case. The airow stream function

0.0360
0.0233
0.0149

Y (m)

0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01

0.0084 0.0054 0.0027 0.0010

0.0001
0.0010 0.0023

0.0041 0.0064 0.0088

0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14

0.04

X (m)

Fig. 6. Stream function distribution (kg s1) within an isolated street canyon. RNG k2e turbulence model (B=H 1; Qe 4 l h1 and Uref 2 m s1).

Moreover, a tiny vortex is generated at the lower corner region on the leeward side of the upstream building. The clockwise vortex transports more pollutant (ethane) from the line source of street canyon to the leeward side of upstream building, thus it leads to more pollutant concentration distribution on the leeward side of the upstream building than on the windward side of the downstream building. The importance of vortex circulation eect on pollutant dispersion is also found in Lee and Park (1994), Sini et al. (1996) and Baik and Kim (1999). 4.2. Eect of source strength The variation of source strength corresponds to the dierent trac volumes in most large urban cities. Three

T.L. Chan et al. / Atmospheric Environment 36 (2002) 861872

0.07 0.06 leeward side, Q e = 4 l h-1 leeward side, Q e = 2 l h-1 leeward side, Q e = 1.4 l h-1 windward side, Q e = 4 l h-1 windward side, Q e = 2 l h-1 windward side, Q e = 1.4 l h-1 Q e = 4 l h -1 Q e = 2 l h-1 Q e = 1.4 l h-1

869

Building height, H (m)

0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0

Lines are the calculated data Symbols are the measured data (Meroney, 1996)

20

40

60

80

100

Dimensionless concentration, K
Fig. 7. The dimensionless concentration, K; distributions on the leeward and windward sides of the buildings from dierent source strengths. RNG k2e turbulence model (B=H 1; Uref 1 m s1).

0.07 B/H=1 B/H=3 B/H=4 B/H=8

0.07 B/H=1 B/H=3 B/H=4 B/H=8

0.06

0.06

Building height, H (m)

0.05

Building height, H (m)

Symbols are the measured data (Meroney, 1996) Lines are the calculated data

0.05

Symbols are the measured data (Meroney, 1996) Lines are the calculated data

0.04

0.04

0.03

0.03

0.02

0.02

0.01

0.01

50

100

150

10

20

30

40

50

(a)

Dimensionless concentration, K

(b)

Dimensionless concentration, K

Fig. 8. The dimensionless concentration, K; distributions on the (a) leeward side and (b) windward side of the buildings from dierent street canyon widths. RNG k2e turbulence model (Qe 4 l h1 and Uref 1 m s1).

demonstrates that the vortex near the leeward side of upstream building rotates much faster than that near the windward side of downstream building, as shown in Fig. 10. The left vortex transports the pollutant closer to the leeward side, while the right vortex transports the pollutant further from the windward side. These two corotative vortices lead to more pollutants on the leeward side than on the windward side of buildings. Furthermore, the blowing wind approaches the street oor and removes the pollutant more easily from the line source of the street canyon when the street between the buildings is widened. As a result, lesser pollutants reach the vertical surfaces and roofs of the buildings at both

the leeward and windward sides. The calculated and measured data show that the wider street can promote air ventilation within an isolated street canyon, hence, less pollutant is accumulated. The typical eect of an isolated street canyon conguration due to high-rise buildings in most large urban cities is investigated numerically for three studied cases of B=H 1; 1/2, and 1/3, where three dierent building heights, H; are used while the street width, B; remains constant. Fig. 11 shows that there are more pollutants on the leeward side than on the windward side of the buildings for the studied B=H 1 and 1/2 cases. The pollutants at the upper region of street

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Fig. 9. Wind speed vector distribution within an isolated street canyon. RNG k2e turbulence model (Qe 4 l h1, B=H 4 and Uref 2 m s1).

Fig. 10. Stream function distribution (kg s1) within an isolated street canyon. RNG k2e turbulence model (B=H 4; Qe 4 l h1 and Uref 2 m s1).

0.2
leeward side,
B/H = 1/3

leeward side,
B/H = 1/2

Building height, H (m)

0.15

leeward side,
B/H = 1

windward side,
B/H = 1/3

windward side,
B/H = 1/2

0.1

windward side,
B/H = 1

Lines are the calculated data

Figs. 12 and 13 demonstrate the development of wind speed vector and stream function distributions, respectively, within the street canyon for B=H 1=3 and Uref 2 m s1. Circulation of two contra-rotative vortices, generated vertically as similar physical mechanisms, are found in Lee and Park (1994) and Baik et al. (2000). In such a very narrow street case, a multi-vortex SF regime can be found, as described by Sini et al. (1996). The center of upper clockwise vortex circulation is located at about 5/6 of the building height, while the lower counter-clockwise vortex circulation is located at about 1/5 of the building height. The upper vortex has the larger rotative speed, hence it can transport the pollutant to the leeward side of the buildings. When the airow is blown from right to left at the bottom of the upper vortex, it is restrained by the wall surface of upstream building. It leads to the downward ow and produces a counter-clockwise vortex circulation at the lower region of the street canyon. Although the lower vortex circulation has the smaller rotative speed, it can still carry the pollutant to the windward side from the line source at the lower region of downstream building. It leads to more pollutants on the windward side than on the leeward side at the lower region of street canyon. Due to the smaller rotative speed of the lower vortex circulation, it is dicult to remove the pollutant discharged from the line source out of the street canyon. The present calculated results show that the street canyon with tall buildings can suppress the air ventilation, and that the larger number of pollutants may accumulate at the street level within the street canyon. Hence, it leads to direct impact on human health, particularly on the drivers, bicyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians, people working nearby, and vehicle passengers within an isolated street canyon, especially in a narrow street with high-rise buildings in most Asian cities.

0.05

5. Summaries and conclusions

0 0 10 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

Dimensionless concentration,K
Fig. 11. The calculated dimensionless concentration, K; distributions on the leeward and windward sides of the buildings from dierent building heights. RNG k2e turbulence model (Qe 4 l h1 and Uref 2 m s1).

canyon are more on the leeward side than on the windward side of buildings for the B=H 1=3 case, but the inverse behavior occurs at the lower region of street canyon. The inverse point is found to be at about 0.07 m of the building height. It also shows that the pollutant concentrations within the street canyon increase with increasing heights of both buildings.

A two-dimensional numerical model based on the Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes equations coupled with a series of standard, RNG and realizable k2e turbulence models was developed to simulate the uidow development and pollutant dispersion within an isolated street canyon using the FLUENT code. The calculated results under dierent wind speeds, source strengths and street canyon congurations were validated using an extensive experimental database obtained from the atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel of the Meteorological Institute of Hamburg University, Germany (Meroney et al., 1996). Among the studied turbulence models, a two-dimensional canyon street model coupled with an RNG k2e turbulence model was demonstrated to be the most optimum turbulence model

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Fig. 12. Wind speed vector distribution within the (a) upper region and (b) lower region of an isolated street canyon. RNG k2e turbulence model (B=H 1=3; Qe 4 l h1 and Uref 2 m s1).

windward side are almost constant along the height of downstream building. Furthermore, the pollutant concentrations on the leeward side are more than that on the windward side due to the pollutant transportation of vortex circulation. The calculated and measured results have shown that the wider street and the lower building height are favorable to the air ventilation and the removal of pollutant within the urban street canyon. Hence, the street canyon conguration has a signicant inuence on the pollutant dispersion. The calculated results have demonstrated that a rotative vortex circulation in B=H 1; circulation of two co-rotative vortices in B=H 4 or circulation of two contrarotative vortices in B=H 1=3 can transport the pollutant from the line source within an isolated street canyon. These circulations of the vortices have led to the variation of pollutant concentration distributions along the wall surface of buildings under dierent street canyon congurations.
Fig. 13. Stream function distribution (kg s1) within an isolated street canyon. RNG k2e turbulence model (B=H 1=3; Qe 4 l h1 and Uref 2 m s1).

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for the nancial support (Project No. G-YC65) towards this work. References
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