Evaluation of an urban vegetative canopy scheme and impact on plume dispersion

Conference · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2009

OSTI ID:956476

Nelson, Matthew A ^[1]; Williams, Michael D ^[1]; Zajic, Dragan ^[1]; Brown, Michael J ^[1]; Pardyjak, Eric R ^[2]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory
2. U OF U

The Quick Urban and Industrial Complex (QUIC) atmospheric dispersion modeling system attempts to fill an important gap between the fast, but nonbuilding-aware Gaussian plume models and the building-aware but slow computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. While Gaussian models have the ability to give answers quickly to emergency responders, they are unlikely to be able to adequately account for the effects of the building-induced complex flow patterns on the near-source dispersion of contaminants. QUIC uses a diagnostic massconsistent empirical wind model called QUIC-URB that is based on the methodology of Rockle (1990), (see also Kaplan and Dinar 1996). In this approach, the recirculation zones that form around and between buildings are inserted into the flow using empirical parameterizations and then the wind field is forced to be mass consistent. Although not as accurate as CFD codes, this approach is several orders of magnitude faster and accounts for the bulk effects of buildings.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 956476
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-09-00068; LA-UR-09-68
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
EVALUATION
FLUID MECHANICS
METEOROLOGY
PLUMES
SIMULATION
URBAN AREAS