Urban dispersion modelling using parallel large-eddy simulation
Responsible: Jin Zhang
Project type: international research student exchange (funded jointly by our group and by Manabu Kanda at the ​Department of International Development Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
Duration: 12/04/2006 - 30/03/2007

This project is a cooperation with the Kanda Laboratory at the Department of International Development Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, that focuses on the urban climate and enviroment.

In an urban area, the flow, turbulence structure, and pollutant-transport characteristics are affected by the urban building geometry. To resolve urban climatic problems, it is important to investigate the mechanisms of their impacts. To conduct LES with urban geometry and climate conditions two key problems need to be resolved: Large calculation domain and building resolution. The urban version of PALM has both of these abilities.

The objective of this LES study is to investigate the flow, turbulence structure, and pollutant transport in varities of urban geometry by employing PALM and the embeded Lagrangian Dispersion Model.
The first step is to test the possibilty for using Lagrangian Models in PALM which requests a large amount of system resources as millions of particles are released during the simulations. Then some analyses are going to be conducted to investigate the differences between PALM and former LES street canyon studies which used different numerical methods. The second step is going to be analysis between different urban geometries. Several different urban geometries like square array, staggered array are going to be set in different thermal codintions. Finally these results are going to be compared with those from outdoor model experiments COSMO, which is being conducted by members of Kanda Laboratory in Tokyo.