Effect of double noise-barrier on air pollution dispersion around road, using CFD

Abstract

Noise-barriers on both sides of the roadway (hereafter referred to as double noise-barriers), are a common feature along roads in Korea, and these are expected to have important effects on the near-road air pollution dispersion of vehicle emissions. This study evaluated the double noise-barrier impact on near-road air pollution dispersion, using a FLUENT computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The realizable k-ε model in FLUENT CFD code was used to simulate vehicle air pollutant dispersion, in around 11 cases of double noise-barriers. The simulated concentration profiles and surface concentrations under no barrier cases were compared with the experimental results. The results of the simulated flows show the following three regimes in this study: isolated roughness (H/W = 0.05), wake interface (H/W = 0.1), and skimming flow (H/W > 0.15). The results also show that the normalized average concentrations at surface (z = 1 m) between the barriers increase with increasing double noisebarrier height; however, normalized average concentrations at the top position between the barriers decrease with increasing barrier height. It was found that the double noise-barrier decreases normalized average concentrations of leeward positions, ranging from 0.8 (H/W = 0.1, wake interface) to 0.1 (H/W = 0.5, skimming flow) times lower than that of the no barrier case, at 10 x/h downwind position; and ranging from 1.0 (H/W = 0.1) to 0.4 (H/W = 0.5) times lower than that of the no barrier case, at 60 x/h downwind position.