CFD Study on the Influence of Atmospheric Stability on Near-field Pollutant Dispersion from Rooftop Emissions

The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of atmospheric stability on near-field pollutant dispersion from rooftop emissions of a single cubic building using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This paper used the shear stress transport (here after SST) k-${\omega}$ model for predicting the flow and pollutant dispersion around an isolated cubic building. CFD simulations were performed with two emission rates and six atmospheric stability conditions. The results of the simulations were compared with the data from wind tunnel experiments and the result of simulations obtained by previous studies in neutral atmospheric condition. The results indicate that the reattachment length on the roof ($X_R$) obtained by computations show good agreement with the experimental results. However, the reattachment length of the rooftop of the building ($X_F$) is greatly overestimated compared to the findings of wind tunnel test. The result also shows that the general distribution of dimensionless concentration given by SST k-${\omega}$ at the side and leeward wall surfaces is similar to that of the experiment. In unstable conditions, the length of the rooftop cavity was decreased. In stable conditions, the horizontal velocity in the lower part around the building was increased and the vertical velocity around the building was decreased. Stratification increased the horizontal cavity length and width near surface and unstable stratification decreased the horizontal cavity length and width near surface. Maintained stability increases the lateral spread of the plume on the leeward surface. The concentration levels close to the ground's surface under stable conditions were higher than under unstable and neutral conditions.