Numerical study of dispersing pollutant clouds in a built-up environment

In this paper, we study numerically the dispersion of a passive scalar released from an instantaneous point source in a built-up (urban) environment using a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes method. A nonlinear k–ϵ turbulence model [Speziale, C.G., 1987. On nonlinear k–l and k–ϵ models of turbulence. J. Fluid Mech., 178, 459–475] was used for the closure of the mean momentum equations. A tensor diffusivity model [Yoshizawa, A., 1985. Statistical analysis of the anisotropy of scalar diffusion in turbulent shear flows. Phys. Fluids, 28, 3226–3231] was used for closure of the scalar transport equations. The concentration variance was also calculated from its transport equation, for which new values of Yoshizawa’s closure coefficients are used, in order to account for the instantaneous tracer release and the complex geometry. A new dissipation length-scale model, required for the modelling of the dissipation rate of concentration variance, is also proposed. The numerical results for the flow, the pollutant concentration and the concentration variance, are compared with experimental data. This data was obtained from a water-channel simulation of a full-scale field experiment of tracer dispersion through a large array of building-like obstacles known as the Mock Urban Setting Trial (MUST).