Title: Numerical study for the flow around moving cars and its effect on the dispersion of the traffic emitted pollution within a road tunnel

Authors: Fotios Barmpas, I. Ossanlis, N. Moussiopoulos

Addresses: Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University, Box 483, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece. ' Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University, Box 483, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece. ' Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University, Box 483, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract: This paper presents results from a numerical study which was conducted in order to investigate the effect of the flow around moving vehicles on the dispersion and the concentration of traffic emitted pollution within the Traforo Umberto road tunnel in the city centre of Rome. A series of three dimensional numerical transient simulations were performed using the commercial CFD code Ansys CFX 5.7.1 employing RANS advanced CFD techniques. The results have identified the effects of the flow around moving cars on the resulting concentration fields and show that increased mixing due to the motion of vehicles inside the tunnel leads to increased concentrations.

Keywords: road tunnels; moving cars; traffic turbulence; pollutant dispersion; dispersion modelling; traffic emissions; air quality; air pollution; flow patterns; Italy; CFD; computational fluid dynamics; vehicle motion.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2011.038431

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2011 Vol.44 No.1/2/3/4, pp.307 - 315

Published online: 29 Apr 2015 *

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