Large-eddy simulation of plume dispersion in a turbulent boundary layer flow generated by a dynamically controlled recycling method

Abstract

When conducting large-eddy simulations (LESs) of plume dispersion in the atmosphere, crucial issue is to prescribe time-dependent turbulent inflow data. Therefore, several techniques for driving LESs have been proposed. For example, in the original recycling (OR) method developed by Kataoka and Mizuno (Wind and Structures, 2002, 5, 379–392), a mean wind profile is prescribed at the inlet boundary, the only fluctuating components extracted at the downstream position are recycled to the inlet boundary. Although the basic turbulence characteristics are reproduced with a short development section, it is difficult to generate target turbulent fluctuations consistent with realistic atmospheric turbulence. In this study, we proposed a dynamically controlled recycling (DCR) method that is a simple extension of the OR procedure. In this method, the magnitude of turbulent fluctuations is dynamically controlled to match with the target turbulent boundary layer (TBL) flow using a turbulence enhancement coefficient based on the ratio of the target turbulence statistics to the computed ones. When compared to the recommended data of Engineering Science Data Unit (ESDU) 85020, the turbulence characteristics generated by our proposed method were quantitatively reproduced well. Furthermore, the spanwise and vertical plume spreads were also simulated well. It is concluded that the DCR method successfully simulates plume dispersion in neutral TBL flows.