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Perspectives on
Air Pollution
Aerodynamics
By
Robert N. Meroney

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 Landmarks in Air Pollution
Aerodynamics
• History of Air Pollution and Man
• Fluid Modeling
• Similitude
• Plumes and Complex Terrain
• The Y2K Problem

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 Landmarks in the
History of Air Pollution

From Antiquity to Modern Times

 Air Pollution:
Antiquity
• Genesis 19:28
Abraham
“beheld the
smoke of the
country go up as
Raphael Loggias
the smoke of a
Vatican Apartments furnace”

Gustav Dore
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 Butterfly Fish
Air Pollution:
Antiquity
Pliny the Elder: AD 23-79

• Roman writer,
Pyrallis or Pyrotocon
historian, public
servant & scientist
• Wrote “Historian
Naturalis” in AD 77
• Only records of many
of ancient’s beliefs in
Unicorn
Carnivorous Plant
Sea Unicorns
countless areas
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 Air Pollution: Antiquity
Death of Pliny the Elder

• Pliny's last assignment was

that of commander of the
fleet in the Bay of Naples.
Learning of the eruption of
Mt. Vesuvius, Pliny
went ashore to ascertain
Vesuvius prior to AD 63 the cause and to reassure
the terrified citizens. He
was overcome by the
fumes resulting from the
volcanic activity and died
on August 24, AD 79.
Vesuvius after eruption Vesuvius 1944 Eruption
<<<< F. Dobran, 1998. 11
 Air Pollution: Middle Ages

• 1272-1307 Edward I: Forbade coal burning when Parliament was in session

• 1307-1327 Edward II: Put man to torture due to pestilential odors of coal
• 1377-1422 Richard III & Henry V: Placed taxation on coal and
regulated transportation into London
• 1661 John Evelyn: “Fumifigation: or the Inconveneice of the Aer and
Smoke of London Dissapated; together with Some Remedies Humbly
Proposed.” 12
Air Pollution:
Middle Ages

• Illustration from
Bruegel's Garden of
Earthly Delights
• Flemish
artist
c1525-
1569
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“London was this day involved, for
Air Pollution:
“The practical acquaint-
several hours in palpable darkness Industrial
ance thus to be obtained
of the
…the generation
fuliginous cloud wasandvisible , Revolution
inmovements
this instance forofa sewer
distance gases
of 40
under
miles. Wereatmospheric
it not for the extreme • 1739 Benjamin
• 1877 Franklin and
Henry Stokes
Eaton
his addressed
neighbors the
petition
changes
mobility might,
of our I think,
atmosphere, this be Royal Meteorological
Pennsylvania Assembly to
advantageously
volcano actedwould,
of a thousand mouths on Society and noted
stop trash dumping and
urban heat island
inby local
winter authorities
be scarcely for
habitable” control
would odor from tanneries
influence
ventilating or disinfecting • 1812,
London pollution
1813 Killer smog in
the sewers, as thereby
….Luke Howard, 1812 London
• Hence, he proposed
many an outbreak of a way
• 1863 to control
Alkali Act in UK -
noisome odors and
disease could be palliated voluntary ….no actual
public health
if not entirely prevented.” regulation involved
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Air Pollution: Progressive Era
• 1900: Automobile is welcomed as
bring relief from pollution. New
York city with 120,000 horses,
scrapes up 2.4 million pounds of
manure every day
• 1916: Porton Down Laboratory,
UK established in response to gas
warfare in WW I
• 1812, 1909, 1930, 1948, 1952, 1953,
1954, 1956, 1962 Killer Smog in
Glasgow; Meuse River Valley; St.
Louis, Mo.; Donora, Pa.; London,
UK; New York, NY; Los Angeles

<< London 1952 at 11:00 am

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 Killer Smog
1962 London
1956 London
1953 New York
1952 London
1948 London
1948 Donora Pa
1930 Meuse Valley
1909 Glasgow

1 10 100 1000 10000

Dead Sick
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 Industrial Pollution
Hazards of Modern Era
1979

1986

1944 1984

• 1944 LNG spill at Cleveland Illuminating Company, Ohio

• 1979 Three Mile Island Power Station, nuclear melt down,
Harrisburg, Pa.
• 1984 Petrochemical Reactor release, Bohpal, India
• 1986 Fire and nuclear radiation release at Chernobyl, Russia 17
Air Pollution: Other Sources

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Air Pollution: Other Sources

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Landmarks in Fluid Modeling

Earliest attempts to 1970

Leading to Air Pollution Aerodynamics
 Sir John Smeaton’s
Windmill Test Apparatus
• John Smeaton (1724-
1792) English mining
and canal engineer
• Founded Society of
Civil Engineering
1771
• First systematic study
of windmill blade
aerodynamics
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 1780
• Apparatus
provided air
flow through
relative
motion
• Windmill
model
performance
indicated by
raising
weights 22
 The Eiffel Tower
Laboratory
• Alexandre Gustav Eiffel (1832-
1923) Engineer, inventor, aero-
dynamist, physicist,
meteorologist
• 1885 Designed interior Statue of
Liberty structure to withstand New
York harbor winds

• 1889 Designed Eiffel Tower-tallest

structure in world - 300 m (twice
any previous structure height)

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• Retained full ownership of
Eiffel Tower for 20 years as
a test laboratory
• Erected a wind tunnel under
the tower for aerodynamic
tests
• Tested overturning forces
on bluff bodies, atmospheric
electricity, meteorology,
human physiology

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Eiffel studied
falling obstacles
to estimate
drags of
different shapes

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Prof. La Cour’s Askov
Wind Energy Laboratory
• Poul La Cour (1846-
1908) Meteorologist
and pioneer electrical
wind energy scientist
• Founded first Wind
Energy Laboratory at
Askov, Denmark
• Published world’s first
Journal of Wind
Electricity
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First Plume/Building Model Study??

+50 ft
• R.H. Sherlock & E.A.
Stalker (1935), U. of
Michigan, Ann Arbor,
studied stack plume
downwash on Crawford
R.H. Sherlock Power Station, Chicago
IL

E.A. Stalker

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Model Study of Riverside Power
Station, Baltimore MD
• 1942 H.L. von Hohen-
leiten & E.W. Wolf
performed wind tunnel
tests for stack height
design of Consolidated
Gas Electric Light and
Power of Baltimore, MD.
• Tests performed in the
Allied Aviation Corp
windtunnels.

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Models 10 mph 20 mph

H = 167 ft

H =127
127ft ft 139 ft 147 ft

Prototype Flagging

157 ft 167 ft 175 ft

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Earliest Quantitative Diffusion Study
of Air Pollution Aerodynamics
• McElroy et al. (1944)
studied ventilator stacks
for Brooklyn-Battery
auto tunnel
• 12 m sq, 77 m tall stacks
• Scales 1:200 & 1:400
• V/Uref ratios 0.3 to 10
• Clocal /Csource isopleths
plotted

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 Hstack = 78 m Hstack = 108 m

V/U = 0.17

0.50

0.67

Brooklyn-Battersea Model and Model Base

2.00
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 Diffusion Studies at
Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research
• In 1940s Hunter Rouse
at IIHR built a wind
tunnel to study
dispersion and diffusion

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•Smooth boundary

•Rough boundary

•Heated boundary

•Flow over wall

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Classified WW II Dispersion Research
• Anton Kalinske
(1940s) studied gas
bomb dispersion in
models of 1:72 scale
models of Japanese
urban districts
• Subsequently, field
studies were carried
out over full scale
replicas in Nevada
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Transverse Jet Studies
• 1918 Etkes sketched the
visual appearance of
plumes in different wind
regimes-calms
• Light winds-steady
• Light gusty winds
• Convection
• Light winds & convection
• Sea Breeze
• Moderate winds &
convection
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Plume trajectories and growth
• Bryant (1949) and Bryant
11 cm
& Cowdrey (1955) studied
Therm-
4stack
cm plumes and jets
couples
flowing transversely into
58 cm
heaters
low turbulence winds in an
open jet windtunnel at the
National Physical asbesto
Laboratory, UK s
• They studied neutral and
107 cm
buoyant plumes heaters
• Only visualization was
used to determine plume
rise and plume width

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Natural Ventilation Studies
• During the late 1940s and
early 1950s natural
ventilation was studied by
architectural staff in an air-
chamber at Texas A&M by
Evans, Smith, Caudill,
Reed, and White.
• They established
separation, wake, and
reattachment profiles for a
wide range of building and
roof shapes.

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Plumes, Cubes & Cylinders

• Jim Halitsky & Gordon

Strom (1954, 1962, 1968,
1969) at New York
University studied plume
behavior and plume/
building interactions for
public health situations
• Halitsky wrote definitive
chapter in AEC manual
Meteorology and Atomic
Energy - 1968
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 Boundary Layer Windtunnels
• J.E. Cermak and M.
Albertson (1958)
conceive the long test
section BLWT at CSU
• Point, line, area, and
volume sources in
neutral, stable &
SO2 unstable shear layers
LNG

NH4 41
Reservoir Evaporation Study
• 1953 J.E. Cermak & H.J.
Koloseus modeled the wind
structure and evaporation
over a model of Lake
Hefner, OK at CSU
• A 1:2000 scale model of the
reservoir area was made of
porous plaster of Paris and
kept moist with a constant
head system
• Comparisons were made to
field evaporation data
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N= E L
ΔC ν
Albertson (1951)
Windtunnel model

Prototype

Re = U L
ν
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 Combined Stacks
• N. Ukeguchi (1955) led a
1.0 -
Relative group at the Nagasaki
plume Technical Institute,
elevation
from stack
0.5 - Mitsubushi Heavy Industries,
exit Japan which conceived of the
“combined stack” concept to
Gas Volume Ratio 4 4 achieve4higher2plume1
4
Gas Exit Area Ratio 4 4 elevation.
4 1x4 2 1
• They also studied building
Type and terrain effects for siting
nuclear power stations.

Symbol A B C D E F 44
Roof
top fin

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Windtunnel/Field Comparisons
of Nuclear Reactor Safety
• J.E. Martin (1965)
modeled plume
dispersion near the U.
of Michigan Phoenix
Memorial Nuclear
Reactor
• Model results were
compared with field
measurements
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U = 4.7 m/s

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U = 2.4 m/s
 Dense Gas Plume Behavior
• F. Bodurtha (1961) while SG = 1
at E.I. du Pont de Nemours
performed initial plume
trajectory studies of dense U = 1.34 m/s, D = 610 mm, V S = 6.10 m/s, HS = 30.5 m
plumes associated with
refinery relief valves and SG = 5.2 SG = 1.5
stacks.
• Later Hoot & Meroney
(1974) performed plume
trajectory, impingement,
and concentration studies.
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Landmarks in Similitude

One example only

 Jensen & Shelter
• Martin Jensen (1954) investigated the aerodynamics of
shelter including boundary layer effects produced by
corrugated paper roughness
• Experiments were performed in a 60 x 60 cm tunnel at
“Danmarks tekniske Højskole”as well as at full scale in the
field

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SHELTER - S POROSITY - 40 %

DOWNWIND DISTANCE - X

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 Jensen Number
• M. Jensen & N. Franck (1963) published Model-Scale Tests
in Turbulent Wind: Parts 1 & 2
• Book dealt with experiments
performed from 1952-1957 on
similitude, wind loads, and
dispersion in tunnel at Tech.
University of Copenhagen
(60 x 60 cm x 10 m long)
• Major conclusion was that proper simulation required the
maintenance of the Jensen Number = Zo/L equality
between model and field conditions to assure proper shear
flow and turbulence scales
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Dispersal of Smoke from Chimneys
V/U = 1.0 CROSSWISE

CIRCULAR RECTANGULAR

V/U = 2.0 LENGTHWISE

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 H
h • J & M define a
b = C*Zo2 u* dimensionless con-
centration based on
Q roughness length and
H/h friction velocity
•Leeward concent-
rations tend to exceed
windward
concentrations at a
given distance and
stack/building height
X/h ratio
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Landmarks in Complex Terrain
Modeling Studies

Earliest attempts to 1970

 Mountain Clouds Over Mt. Fuji
• Masano Abe (1929)
reproduced cloud
formations over a
1:50,000 scale model of
Mt. Fuji in a small
windtunnel using dry ice
for stratification.
• He argued Remodel =UL/υ
and Reprototype =UL/ε were
equal.

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The Rock of Gibraltar

• J.H. Field & R. Warden

(1929) studied winds over
a 1:5000 scale model of
the Rock in the N.P.L. in
UK
• They compared results to
balloons, kites and
theodolites and found
good agreement

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 U

• 800 Silk flags of two-inch

silk fibers were attached to
supports.
• Later long streamers of
fine wool fibers were placed
at critical positions 60
 Terrain Effects & Wind Energy
• During the design and installation of the
Grandpa’s Knob wind turbine in Vermont, USA
Dr. Theodore von Karman (1939-1941)
supervised wind tunnel measurements of flow
over various terrain models in the Guggenheim
Laboratory Tunnels in Akron, OH
• Given no approach flow boundary layer--results
were very poor.

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Fluid Models/Computational Models
• Mikio Hino (1968)
compared field, model
and CFD results for
flow and dispersion
1969
over complex terrain.
• Test case was a power
station on west coast
of Japan. Model study
at scale of 1:2500.
1999
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K Y = 3 km
3 CFD results

Y = 0 km
0
WT results

Y Stack
= -3 km 4 m/s
6 m/s
-3
10 m/s
CFD Velocity profiles results X km
CFD & Windtunnel
2 km Concentrations at ζ = (z-h) = 45 m
CFD Concentration profiles

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 Fluid Modeling of Stratified
Dispersion Terrain Flows
• In the late 1960s CSU
Prevailing initiated a series of studies
Winds of transport and diffusion
over complex terrain
including stratification: Pt.
Arguello (1:12,000) & San
Nicolas Island , CA(1:6,200
& 12,000)
• Test were performed in the
Engine Test Stand Site stratified Meteorological
Wind Tunnel
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 • Field experiments
Heating/cooling
San Nicolas Is.coils
100- were a complete failure
H* = 0.01 H* = 0.10
• Stably stratified wind
0.05 Lagrangian
Similarity Theory tunnel measurements
10- appear to agree with
0.10 Bachelor’s Lagrangian
Model
C*
Similarity Theory when
0.15
scaled with the Monin-
1- 0.20
Obukhovplates
Heating/cooling Stability
Length, LMO
2m x 2m x24 m long

0.1-
0.1 1 10
X*
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Air Pollution Aerodynamics
The Y2K Problem

Directions in the 21st Century

 Some Research Needs
• Define limitations of similitude
• Consider infiltration, exfiltration and indoor
air pollution
• Vehicular transport problems
• Urban terrorism: disease and toxic vectors
• Behavior of dense plumes in gravity flow
terrain situations
• Behavior of plumes in CBL situations
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Thank You for your Attention

Young

Older/wiser
Older/Fatter Older

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