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ADDRESSING HUMAN EXPOSURE TO AIR POLLUTANTS AROUND BUILDINGS IN URBAN AREAS WITH COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS (CFD) MODELS

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http://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_comments.cfm

Citation:

Huber, A H., M. Bolstad, M. Freeman, S. Rida, I. S. Bish, AND K. H. Kuehlert. ADDRESSING HUMAN EXPOSURE TO AIR POLLUTANTS AROUND BUILDINGS IN URBAN AREAS WITH COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS (CFD) MODELS. Presented at AMS Third Symposium on the Urban Environment, Davis, CA, August 14-18, 2000.

Impact/Purpose:

The research is planned to meet the following objectives:

Support is provided to HEASD Tasks by Alan Huber. (60% 9524 New Air Toxics Modeling, ; 10% 5732 PM Population Exposure Modeling; 10% 3948 Next Generation MMMP Exposure Modeling; 10% N533 PM Toxic agent exposure modeling, and 10% 3957 Integrated Human Exposure Source-to-Dose Modeling)

  • Development of data and algorithms for exposure modeling in urban areas, to be used in refined probabilistic exposure models being developed elsewhere, to allow prediction of human exposures for an urban population.

  • Characterize exposures and variability of concentrations in critical microenvironments in urban areas using targeted measurement studies and refined air quality models.

  • Identify critical human activities influencing exposures, especially identifying microenvironments that are key to exposures to urban air toxics.

  • Develop methods (measurements, dispersion modeling, receptor modeling) to distinguish exposures to "near field" sources - like indoor sources, human activities or hobbies, or nearby point or area sources - from "background" concentrations or from distant sources that can be modeled well by compartmental or air quality models.

  • Provide data and algorithms based on a scientific understanding of exposure dynamics for inclusion in NERL human exposure models and other models like OAR's TRIM..

    • Description:

    Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations provide a number of unique opportunities for expanding and improving capabilities for modeling exposures to environmental pollutants. The US Environmental Protection Agency's National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) has been conducting cooperative research with Fluent, Inc. to examine and evaluate the application of CFD models for simulating air pollution along the pathway from source to human exposures. The basic framework of population-based human exposure models separates a person's day into time spent in a series of exposure microenvironments. The environmental concentration in these exposure microenvironments is weighted by the time-spent in each microenvironment to provide to a total daily exposure. The detailed spatial resolution of environmental pollution concentrations that is possible from CFD simulations can provide important information that is not available from a single point measurement. There are multiple potential roles for CFD simulations in supporting human exposure studies which will be presented outside of this brief abstract. In this study, we are examining in detail the urban buildings and roadway microenvironments of human exposure to ambient air pollutants. This abstract can present only a summary of some of the issues we are examining and a few examples of progress.

    Record Details:

    Record Type:DOCUMENT( PRESENTATION/ PAPER)
    Product Published Date:08/14/2000
    Record Last Revised:06/21/2006
    Record ID: 63595