Strategic guidelines for street canyon geometry to achieve sustainable street air quality - part II: multiple canopies and canyons

The flow field and pollutant dispersion characteristics in a three-dimensional urban street canyon are investigated for various building array geometries. The street canyon in consideration is located in a multi-canopy building array that is similar to realistic estate situations. The pollutant dispersion characteristics are studied for various canopy aspect ratios, namely: the canyon height to width ratio, canyon length to height ratio, canyon breadth ratio and crossroad locations are studied. A three-dimensional field-size canyon has been analysed through numerical simulations using k - epsilon turbulence model. As expected, the wind flow and mode of pollutant dispersion is strongly dependent on the various flow geometric configurations and that the results can be different from that of a single canyon system. For example, it is found that the pollutant retention value is minimum when the canyon height-to-width ratio is approximately 0.8, or that the building height ratio is 0.5. Various rules of thumbs on urban canyon geometry have been established for good pollutant dispersion. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.