A study on air pollution dispersion around traffic roads – effect of atmospheric stability on odor dispersion
Odor dispersion from road emissions were investigated using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). The Shear Stress Transport k-ω model in FLUENT CFD code was used to simulate odor dispersion around the road. The two road configurations used in the study were at-grade and fill road. Experimental data from the wind tunnel obtained in a previous study was used to validate the numerical result of the road dispersion. Five validation metrics are used to obtain an overall and quantitative evaluation of the performance of Shear Stress Transport k-ω models: the fractional bias (FB), the geometric mean bias (MG), the normalized mean square error (NMSE), the geometric variance (VG), and the fraction of predictions within a factor of two of observations (FAC2). The results of the vertical concentration profile for neutral atmospheric show reasonable performance for all five metrics. Six atmospheric stability conditions were used to evaluate the stability effect of road emission dispersion. It was found that the stability category D case of at-grade decreased the non-dimensional surface odor concentration smaller 0.78~0.93 times than those of stability category A case, and that F case decreased 0.39~0.56 times smaller than those of stability category A case. It was also found that stability category D case of filled road decreased 0.84~0.92 times the non-dimensional surface odor concentration of category A case and stability category F case decreased 0.45~0.58 times compared with stability category A case.