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

Conference ·
OSTI ID:956476

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), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
956476
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-09-00068; LA-UR-09-68; TRN: US201013%%183
Resource Relation:
Conference: American Meteorological Society-8th Symposium on the Urban Environment ; January 12, 2009 ; Phoenix, AZ
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English