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An Overview of Recent Building Downwash Research at EPA/ORD (2017 Regional, State, and Local Modelers' Workshop Presentation)
Citation:
Heist, D., S. Perry, E. Monbureau, L. Brouwer, H. Foroutan, AND W. Tang. An Overview of Recent Building Downwash Research at EPA/ORD (2017 Regional, State, and Local Modelers' Workshop Presentation). 2017 EPA Regional, State, and Local Dispersion Modelers' Workshop, Research Triangle Park, NC, September 25 - 26, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
These modifications to EPA's building downwash algorithm presented here are demonstrated to improve the ability of AERMOD to model observed ground-level concentrations in the vicinity of a building for the variety of conditions examined in the wind tunnel and numerical studies.
Description:
Knowing the fate of effluent from an industrial stack is important for assessing its impact on human health. AERMOD is one of several Gaussian plume models containing algorithms to evaluate the effect of buildings on the movement of the effluent from a stack. This presentation describes three modifications to the building downwash algorithm in AERMOD that improve the physical basis and internal consistency of the model, and one modification to AERMOD’s building pre-processor to better represent elongated buildings in oblique winds. These modifications are demonstrated to improve the ability of AERMOD to model observed ground-level concentrations in the vicinity of a building for the variety of conditions examined in the wind tunnel and numerical studies.