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Penthouses’ impact on the wind flow structure and pollution distribution in the street canyons with or without balconies on building facades

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Abstract

This research is focused on how the different shape and parts (penthouses balconies, etc.) of a building with an aspect ratio of 2.33 takes part firstly to the creation of the flow field around it and secondly to the distribution of pollutants concentration. For the simulation a Computational Fluid Dynamic package (ANSYS-FLUENT) was used. The closure of the dynamic flow equations employed the steady state κ-ε RNG (Re-Normalized Group theory) method. In order to achieve a good compromise between accuracy and computational time, the flow domain was divided into 2 regions, each with its own grid. The street canyon (height = 28 m, width = 12 m) incorporated a finer structured Quad (Cartesian) grid of uniform spacing whereas for the remaining domain (above the canyon) incorporated a coarser structured mesh of tetrahedral elements. Numerical results illustrate the formation of the vortices (i.e. number, nature, rotation rate) inside the canyon and the vertical concentration profiles of the aerosol particles. It is demonstrated that the presence of the penthouses helps the pollutant to escape from the cavity. The vorticity patterns are more complex for the penthouse scenarios compared to the scenarios without them showing more turbulence and mixing.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Thermal Engines Laboratory of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics at the University of Patras, for their permission to use their licensed latest version of the ANSYS-Fluent suite.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuclear Technology Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics, University of Patras, 26500, Rion-Patras, Greece

    V. A. Karkoulias & E. A. Maraziotis

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering Educators, School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, 14121, Heraclion Attikis, Greece

    P. E. Marazioti

  3. Thermal Engines Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics, University of Patras, 26500, Rion-Patras, Greece

    D. P. Georgiou

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  1. V. A. Karkoulias
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Karkoulias, V.A., Marazioti, P.E., Georgiou, D.P. et al. Penthouses’ impact on the wind flow structure and pollution distribution in the street canyons with or without balconies on building facades. Environ Fluid Mech 23, 907–942 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10652-023-09939-9

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