High-Resolution CFD Simulation of Airflow and Tracer Dispersion in New York City
In 2004, a research project--the New York City Urban Dispersion Program (NYC UDP)--was launched by the Department of Homeland Security with the goal to improve the permanent network of wind stations in and around New York City and to enhance the city's emergency response capabilities. Encompassing both field studies and computer modeling, one of the program's objectives is to improve and validate urban dispersion models using the data collected from field studies and to transfer the improved capabilities to NYC emergency agencies. The first two field studies were conducted in March and August 2005 respectively and an additional study is planned for the summer of 2006. Concurrently model simulations, using simple to sophisticated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models, have been performed to aid the planning of field studies and also to evaluate the performance of such models. Airflow and tracer dispersion in urban areas such as NYC are extremely complicated. Some of the contributing factors are complex geometry, variable terrain, coupling between local and larger scale flows, deep canyon mixing and updrafts/downdrafts caused by large buildings, street channeling and upstream transport, roof features, and heating effects, etc. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), we have developed a CFD model, FEM3MP, to address some of the above complexities. Our model is based on solving the three-dimensional, time-dependent, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with appropriate physics for modeling airflow and dispersion in the urban environment. Also utilized in the model are finite-element discretization for effective treatment of complex geometries and a semi-implicit projection method for efficient time-integration. A description of the model can be found in Gresho and Chan (1998), Chan and Stevens (2000). Predictions from our model are continuously being verified against data from field studies, such as URBAN 2000 and the Joint URBAN 2003 experiments. Modeling studies comparing simulations to observations from these field experiments are discussed in Chan et al. (2001,2004), Chan and Leach (2004), Chan and Lundquist (2005), Humphreys et al. (2004), Lundquist and Chan (2005).
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 884757
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-CONF-216801; TRN: US200616%%90
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Presented at: Sixth Symposium on the Urban Environment, Atlanta, GA, United States, Jan 29 - Feb 02, 2006
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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