Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Flow and Pollutant Dispersion in Urban Street Canyons

Abstract

In this study, we have developed a numerical model based on an open source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package OpenFOAM, in order to investigate the flow pattern and pollutant dispersion in urban street canyons with different geometry configurations. In the new model, the pollutant transport driven by airflow is modeled by the scalar transport equation coupling with the momentum equations for airflow, which are deduced from the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. The turbulent flow calculation has been calibrated by various two-equation turbulence closure models to select a practical and efficient turbulence model to reasonably capture the flow pattern. Particularly, an appropriate value of the turbulent Schmidt number has been selected for the pollutant dispersion in urban street canyons, based upon previous studies and careful calibrations against experimental measurements. Eventually, the numerical model has been validated against different well-known laboratory experiments in regard to various aspect ratios (a relationship between the building height and the width of the street canyon), and different building roof shapes (flat, shed, gable and round). The comparisons between the numerical simulations and experimental measurements show a good agreement on the flow pattern and pollutant distribution. This indicates the ability of the new numerical model, which can be applied to investigate the wind flow and pollutant dispersion in urban street canyons.