scholarly journals On the Effects of Lateral Openings on Courtyard Ventilation and Pollution—A Large-Eddy Simulation Study

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Gronemeier ◽  
Matthias Sühring

Courtyards are an omnipresent feature within the urban environment. Residents often use courtyards as recreation areas, which makes them crucial for the physical and psychological comfort of the urban population. However, considering that courtyards represent enclosed cavities, they are often poorly ventilated spaces and pollutants from neighboring traffic, once entrained, can pose a serious threat to human health. Here, we studied the effects of lateral openings on courtyard pollution and ventilation. Therefore, we performed a set of large-eddy simulations for idealized urban environments with different courtyard configurations. While pollutant concentration and ventilation are barely modified by lateral openings for wide courtyards, lateral openings have a significant effect on the mean concentration, the number of high-concentration events and the ventilation within narrower and deeper courtyards. The impacts of lateral openings on air quality within courtyards strongly depend on their orientation with respect to the flow direction, as well as on the upstream flow conditions and upstream building configuration. We show that lateral openings, in most cases, have a negative impact on air quality; nevertheless, we also present configurations where lateral openings positively impact the air quality within courtyards. These outcomes may certainly contribute to improve future urban planning in terms of health protection.

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. 7261-7276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Wolf-Grosse ◽  
Igor Esau ◽  
Joachim Reuder

Abstract. Street-level urban air pollution is a challenging concern for modern urban societies. Pollution dispersion models assume that the concentrations decrease monotonically with raising wind speed. This convenient assumption breaks down when applied to flows with local recirculations such as those found in topographically complex coastal areas. This study looks at a practically important and sufficiently common case of air pollution in a coastal valley city. Here, the observed concentrations are determined by the interaction between large-scale topographically forced and local-scale breeze-like recirculations. Analysis of a long observational dataset in Bergen, Norway, revealed that the most extreme cases of recurring wintertime air pollution episodes were accompanied by increased large-scale wind speeds above the valley. Contrary to the theoretical assumption and intuitive expectations, the maximum NO2 concentrations were not found for the lowest 10 m ERA-Interim wind speeds but in situations with wind speeds of 3 m s−1. To explain this phenomenon, we investigated empirical relationships between the large-scale forcing and the local wind and air quality parameters. We conducted 16 large-eddy simulation (LES) experiments with the Parallelised Large-Eddy Simulation Model (PALM) for atmospheric and oceanic flows. The LES accounted for the realistic relief and coastal configuration as well as for the large-scale forcing and local surface condition heterogeneity in Bergen. They revealed that emerging local breeze-like circulations strongly enhance the urban ventilation and dispersion of the air pollutants in situations with weak large-scale winds. Slightly stronger large-scale winds, however, can counteract these local recirculations, leading to enhanced surface air stagnation. Furthermore, this study looks at the concrete impact of the relative configuration of warmer water bodies in the city and the major transport corridor. We found that a relatively small local water body acted as a barrier for the horizontal transport of air pollutants from the largest street in the valley and along the valley bottom, transporting them vertically instead and hence diluting them. We found that the stable stratification accumulates the street-level pollution from the transport corridor in shallow air pockets near the surface. The polluted air pockets are transported by the local recirculations to other less polluted areas with only slow dilution. This combination of relatively long distance and complex transport paths together with weak dispersion is not sufficiently resolved in classical air pollution models. The findings have important implications for the air quality predictions over urban areas. Any prediction not resolving these, or similar local dynamic features, might not be able to correctly simulate the dispersion of pollutants in cities.


2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 1655-1666 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Romps ◽  
Zhiming Kuang

Abstract Tracers are used in a large-eddy simulation of shallow convection to show that stochastic entrainment (and not cloud-base properties) determines the fate of convecting parcels. The tracers are used to diagnose the correlations between a parcel’s state above the cloud base and both the parcel’s state at the cloud base and its entrainment history. The correlation with the cloud-base state goes to zero a few hundred meters above the cloud base. On the other hand, correlations between a parcel’s state and its net entrainment are large. Evidence is found that the entrainment events may be described as a stochastic Poisson process. A parcel model is constructed with stochastic entrainment that is able to replicate the mean and standard deviation of cloud properties. Turning off cloud-base variability has little effect on the results, which suggests that stochastic mass-flux models may be initialized with a single set of properties. The success of the stochastic parcel model suggests that it holds promise as the framework for a convective parameterization.


Author(s):  
Kevin Tracy ◽  
Stephen P. Lynch

Abstract Shaped film cooling holes are used extensively for film cooling in gas turbines due to their superior performance in keeping coolant attached to the surface, relative to cylindrical holes. However, fewer studies have examined the impact of the orientation of the shaped hole axis relative to the main flow direction, known as a compound angle. A compound angle can occur intentionally due to manufacturing, or unintentionally due to changes in the main flow direction at off-design conditions. In either case, the compound angle causes the film cooling jet to roll up into a strong streamwise vortex that changes the lateral distribution of coolant, relative to the pair of vortices that develop from an axially oriented film cooling hole. In this study, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) using the Wall-Adapting Local Eddy Viscosity (WALE) model was performed on the publicly available 7-7-7 shaped film cooling hole, at two orientations (0°, 30°) and two blowing ratios (M = 1, 3). Laterally-averaged film effectiveness was largely unchanged by a compound angle at a blowing ratio of 1, but improved at a blowing ratio of 3. For both blowing ratios, the lateral distribution of film was more uniform with the addition of a 30° compound angle. Both wall normal and lateral turbulent convective heat transfer was increased by the addition of a compound angle at both blowing ratios.


2019 ◽  
Vol 128 ◽  
pp. 05002
Author(s):  
Ali Cemal Benim ◽  
Michael Diederich ◽  
Ali Nahavandi

The present paper presents a detailed computational analysis of flow and dispersion in a generic isolated single–zone buildings. First, a grid generation strategy is discussed, that is inspired by a previous computational analysis and a grid independence study. Different turbulence models are appliedincluding two-equation turbulence models, the differential Reynolds Stress Model, Detached Eddy Simulation and Zonal Large Eddy Simulation. The mean velocity and concentration fields are calculated and compared with the measurements. A satisfactory agreement with the experiments is not observed by any of the modelling approaches, indicating the highly demanding flow and turbulence structure of the problem.


2019 ◽  
Vol 875 ◽  
pp. 173-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anqing Xuan ◽  
Bing-Qing Deng ◽  
Lian Shen

The effects of a water surface wave on the vorticity in the turbulence underneath are studied for Langmuir turbulence using wave-phase-resolved large-eddy simulation. The simulations are performed on a dynamically evolving wave-surface-fitted grid such that the phase-resolved wave motions and their effects on the turbulence are explicitly captured. This study focuses on the vorticity structures and dynamics in Langmuir turbulence driven by a steady and co-aligned progressive wave and surface shear stress. For the first time, the detailed vorticity dynamics of the wave–turbulence interaction in Langmuir turbulence in a wave-phase-resolved frame is revealed. The wave-phase-resolved simulation provides detailed descriptions of many characteristic features of Langmuir turbulence, such as elongated quasi-streamwise vortices. The simulation also reveals the variation of the strength and the inclination angles of the vortices with the wave phase. The variation is found to be caused by the periodic stretching and tilting of the wave orbital straining motions. The cumulative effect of the wave on the wave-phase-averaged vorticity is analysed using the Lagrangian average. It is discovered that, in addition to the tilting effect induced by the Lagrangian mean shear gradient of the wave, the phase correlation between the vorticity fluctuations and the wave orbital straining is also important to the cumulative vorticity evolution. Both the fluctuation correlation effect and the mean tilting effect are found to amplify the streamwise vorticity. On the other hand, for the vertical vorticity, the fluctuation correlation effect cancels the mean tilting effect, and the net change of the vertical vorticity by the wave straining is negligible. As a result, the wave straining enhances only the streamwise vorticity and cumulatively tilts vertical vortices towards the streamwise direction. The above processes are further quantified analytically. The role of the fluctuation correlation effect in the wave-phase-averaged vorticity dynamics provides a deeper understanding of the physical processes underlying the wave–turbulence interaction in Langmuir turbulence.


Author(s):  
Mehrdad Shademan ◽  
Vesselina Roussinova ◽  
Ron Barron ◽  
Ram Balachandar

Large Eddy Simulation (LES) has been carried out to study the flow of a turbulent impinging jet with large nozzle height-to-diameter ratio. The dynamic Smagorinsky model was used to simulate the subgrid-scale stresses. The jet exit Reynolds number is 28,000. The study presents a detailed evaluation of the flow characteristics of an impinging jet with nozzle height of 20 diameters above the plate. Results of the mean normalized centerline velocity and wall shear stress show good agreement with previous experiments. Analysis of the flow field shows that vortical structures generated due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in the shear flow close to the nozzle undergo break down or merging when moving towards the plate. Unlike impinging jets with small stand-off distance where the ring-like vortices keep their interconnected shape upon reaching the plate, no sign of interconnection was observed on the plate for this large stand-off distance. A large deflection of the jet axis was observed for this type of impinging jet when compared to the cases with small nozzle height-to-diameter ratios.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhangquan Wu ◽  
Chun-Ho Liu

<p>More than 80% of people living in urban areas that exposed to air quality levels that exceed WHO guideline limits both indoors and outdoors. Road transport has been found to be one of major anthropogenic sources of aerosol particles and many gaseous pollutants in urban areas. Dispersion of pollutants emitted from vehicles over urban areas largely affects pedestrian-level air quality. A good understanding of pollutant transport, mixing process and removal mechanism is crucial to effectuate air quality management. In this study, turbulent dispersion of reactive pollutants in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) over hypothetical urban area in the form of an array of idealised street canyons is investigated using large-eddy simulation (LES). The irreversible ozone O3 titration oxidizes nitric oxide NO to nitrogen dioxide NO2, representing the typical anthropogenic air pollution chemistry. Nitric oxide (NO) is emitted from the ground level of the first street canyon into the urban ABL doped with ozone (O3). From the LES results, negative vertical NO flux is found at the roof level of the street canyons.  By looking into the different plume behavior and vertical flux between the inert pollutant and chemically reactive pollutant, a fundamental understanding of exchange processes of anthropogenic chemicals between an urban surface and the atmosphere is developed. </p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Karima Heguehoug ép. Benkara-Mostefa ◽  
Zoubir Nemouchi ◽  
Lahouari Adjlout

2011 ◽  
Vol 383-390 ◽  
pp. 5344-5349
Author(s):  
Zhen Bu

This paper discusses the sustainability of the areaway-attached basement concept with the attentions focused on wind-driven single-sided natural ventilation. First, numerical simulations were performed on an areaway-attached basement with a single-sided opening. Two CFD approaches: Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and large-eddy simulation (LES) were used and compared with the previous experimental results of effective ventilation rate. A good agreement between the measurement and LES model was found and RANS model tends to underestimate the ventilation rates. Furthermore, Based on LES with the inflow turbulent fluctuations, the mean airflow patterns within and around the areaway-attached basement was investigated for different wind incidence angles to examine the influences of wind direction on ventilation performances.


2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Changwoo Kang ◽  
Kyung-Soo Yang

In the present investigation, turbulent heat transfer in fully developed curved-pipe flow has been studied by using large eddy simulation (LES). We consider a fully developed turbulent curved-pipe flow with axially uniform wall heat flux. The friction Reynolds number under consideration is Reτ  = 1000 based on the mean friction velocity and the pipe radius, and the Prandtl number (Pr) is 0.71. To investigate the effects of wall curvature on turbulent flow and heat transfer, we varied the nondimensionalized curvature (δ) from 0.01 to 0.1. Dynamic subgrid-scale models for turbulent subgrid-scale stresses and heat fluxes were employed to close the governing equations. To elucidate the secondary flow structures due to the pipe curvature and their effect on the heat transfer, the mean quantities and various turbulence statistics of the flow and temperature fields are presented, and compared with those of the straight-pipe flow. The friction factor and the mean Nusselt number computed in the present study are in good agreement with the experimental results currently available in the literature. We also present turbulence intensities, skewness and flatness factors of temperature fluctuations, and cross-correlations of velocity and temperature fluctuations. In addition, we report the results of an octant analysis to clarify the correlation between near-wall turbulence structures and temperature fluctuation in the vicinity of the pipe wall. Based on our results, we attempt to clarify the effects of the pipe curvature on turbulent heat transfer. Our LES provides researchers and engineers with useful data to understand the heat-transfer mechanisms in turbulent curved-pipe flow, which has numerous applications in engineering.


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