Modelling of fluid flow and pollutant dispersion in a street canyon

A two-dimensional steady state numerical simulation has been carried out for a typical street canyon ventilated by a cross-wind. The PHOENICS package from CHAM was used to solve for the air flow above and within the street canyon. The k-epsilon turbulence model was used for turbulence modelling and pollutant sources were added at ground level over the road but not over the pavements. Results for the air flow showed the formation of a longitudinal vortex within the street canyon, as found by other researchers. Pollutant concentrations were predicted with the highest values occurring at the leeward walls of the upwind buildings, and the lowest values on the windward walls of the downwind buildings. The accuracy of these simulations was examined by comparing the predicted results with field observations. Reasonable agreement was obtained, confirming the difference between concentrations on the leeward and windward walls. The results show that the dispersion characteristics can be simulated in terms of structural configurations.