High fidelity simulations of contaminant dispersion in an urban environment with comparison to magnetic resonance imaging measurements

Owkes, Mark; Homan, Ty; Benson, Michael; Banko, Andrew

doi:10.1007/s10652-025-10019-3

Title: High fidelity simulations of contaminant dispersion in an urban environment with comparison to magnetic resonance imaging measurements

Journal Article · 10 January 2025 · Environmental Fluid Mechanics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10652-025-10019-3 · OSTI ID:2502148

Owkes, Mark ^[1]; Homan, Ty ^[2];

^[3]; Banko, Andrew ^[2]

Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States)
United States Military Academy, West Point, NY (United States)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The dispersion of a contaminant in an urban environment has the potential to impact a large population of people. In this work, a complex urban canopy flow based on the Oklahoma City downtown business district circa 2003 is studied using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and high-fidelity Large Eddy Simulations (LES). MRI is a novel experimental technique that can provide high-resolution measurements in four dimensions (three spatial and temporal) for lab scale models. The experiments and simulations use the same geometry and boundary conditions providing a one-to-one comparison of the two methods. Results are presented on the time-averaged velocity and concentration fields, the temporal dynamics of the concentration plumes for a transient release, and a novel Cloud Identification Algorithm that can separate plumes produced by periodic contaminant releases used for ensemble averaging over many releases. The MRI and LES datasets both include millions of measurement voxels and the comparisons highlight the complex 3D nature of the flow including strong vertical velocities in spanwise street canyons and flow acceleration in streamwise street canyons. The concentration fields are qualitatively similar albeit the LES shows larger dispersion. A quantitative analysis with performance measures compares the datasets pointwise and demonstrates that the two 3D datasets are similar with respect to many measures including a fractional bias of 0.02 (ideal=0.0), correlation coefficient of 0.87 (ideal = 1.0), and the fraction points within a factor of 2 is 0.98 (ideal = 1.0). Plume analysis compares the arrival and residence time of contaminant and is found to vary significantly with location within the urban environment with arrival times between 0 and 1.25 and differences within the contaminant cloud less than 10% at most locations.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 2502148

Journal Information:: Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Journal Name: Environmental Fluid Mechanics Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 25; ISSN 1567-7419

Publisher:: SpringerCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Title: High fidelity simulations of contaminant dispersion in an urban environment with comparison to magnetic resonance imaging measurements

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