EPA-454/R-93-038

(Revised April 21, 2004)

(Electronic copy only)

USER'S GUIDE
TO THE
BUILDING PROFILE INPUT PROGRAM

U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards
Technical Support Division
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711

October 1993
 3.0 USER'S INSTRUCTIONS

The following subsections contain information on setting up

and running BPIP. The BPIP program is straight forward in its
operation.

3.1 INPUT PREPARATION

Before preparing the input data to BPIP, the structure-

source relationships should be assessed with respect to the GEP
and building downwash guidance. Any relationships that do not
appear to be covered by the guidance or in some way appear
ambiguous should be discussed with the Regional Modeling Contact.
For example, a multi-tiered building with two separate towers can
be treated in two ways. The first way as strictly a multitiered
building where each tier is treated as a stand-alone structure.
The second way as a multitiered building with two towers that may
be combined. If the second way is recommended, the base tier
would have to be entered twice; once with the first tower and
once with the second tower.

Stacks can be on top of roofs and also be more than 5L

downwind from an upwind roof edge. The main algorithms in BPIP
were not designed to process these stacks if they are further
than 5L downwind from a roof edge. This is contrary to guidance.
An algorithm was written to automatically detect when a stack is
on a roof.

Data preparation for use by the Huber-Synder downwash

algorithm should be prepared as if it were to be used by the
Schulman-Scire downwash algorithm. Input data to BPIP should use
normal building dimensions and orientation in all cases. BPIP
will calculate 36 pairs of BH and PBW values for input to the
ISCST2 model or 16 pairs of input for the ISCLT2 model for each
stack.

It is up to the user to determine the suitability of BPIP to

meet the needs of the modeling situation. There are additional
conditions and situations that are discussed in the GEP technical
support document which are not fully programmed into BPIP. The
conditions and situations concern the use of various formulae for
determining GEP stack height based upon the date a stack came
into existence. BPIP has not been programmed to use the 2.5H
formula that is prescribed for stacks in existence prior to
January 12, 1979 but after December 31, 1970. However, for low
or squat buildings only, the 2.5H formula is equivalent to the H
+ 1.5L formula for calculating GEP stack height. The user needs
to read and understand the guidance and this guide before running
BPIP.

If the structure and location values are not in meters, the

conversion factor will be applied during the input process and

3-1 (Revised 04112)

3.2 INITIAL PROGRAM SETTINGS

BPIP was originally programmed using PARAMETER statements to

set the maximum size of several arrays. Thereafter, these array
sizes could only be size adjusted by editing the PARAMETER values
governing array sizes and then recompiling the program. Many
users needed larger array sizes but some did not have a compiler
available. A better method for sizing arrays was requested.

As a solution, ALLOCATABLE and ALLOCATE statements have been

added to BPIP. The ALLOCATABLE statement identifies which fixed
arrays are to become adjustable and specifies the number
dimensions assigned to each ALLOCATABLE Array. In BPIP, the
dimension sizes can be based on number of buildings, tiers, tier
sides, stacks, etc. Once the maximum dimension sizes have been
determined, the ALLOCATE statement is used to set the maximum
dimension size(s) for each allocatable array. In BPIP, this
readjustment is done by reading an input file and searching for
the maximum size number for each dimension. After the maximum
dimension sizes have been determined and allocated for each
array, the input file is rewound to the beginning of the file and
read again. The individual input values are read and then
properly stored in the appropriately sized arrays. There is no
need to recompile BPIP.

BPIP was rewritten to Fortran 90 standards and recompiled with

Compaq Visual FORTRAN version 6.6 compiler. The OPEN and CLOSE
statements have been commented out in the source code.
3.3 INPUT FORMAT

The input format consists of 12 different types of data

input lines or records. Table 3-1 identifies each record type
and its purpose. An example is given with each type of input.

The types of record in Table 3-1 are required to be entered

into an ASCII file in a certain sequence. In Table 3-2 is an
outline of that sequence. After the eighth line, entry is
dependent upon the number of buildings, tiers, tier corners, and
stacks. An annotated example of the sequence, using actual data,
is shown in Table 3-3.
3.4 EXECUTION OF BPIP

Once the input file has been prepared and saved to disk,
BPIP is ready to be executed. The execution line is as follows:

BPIP input_filename output_filename summary_filename

which can be executed from a Command Prompt or saved in a *.BAT
file and double clicked from Windows Explorer. Normal runtime
using a Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz is about 1 second for the smaller input
files to about 4 seconds for the larger input files. The larger
files consist of 3 combinable buildings with 3 tiers each and

3-3 (Revised 04112)

 Table 3-1 Cont'd

Record
Type Description

TIERi,j Contains the number of tier corner coordinates to

follow in the following record lines and the tier
height with respect to the building base
elevation. The number of corners is an integer
while the base elevation value is real.
Example line: 6 20.5

CORNERi,j,k Contains a pair of tier corner x-y coordinate

values if the GRID line contains a 'UTMN' flag.
If the GRID line contains a 'UTMY' flag, the
coordinate pair are treated as UTM Easting and
Northing coordinates, respectively.
Example line: -23.5 46.75

S-NO Contains the integer value of the number of stacks

to be processed.
Example line: 9

STACKs Contains the stack data which consists of:

Stack name - up to 8 characters allowed with no
spaces allowed in the name. The name
has to be between single quotes.
Stack base elevation - real value
Stack height - real value measured from the
stack base.
Stack coordinates - see CORNER for format
Example line: 'Stk3' 123.1 10.5 -45.3 -34.1

3-4 (Revised 04112)

 Table 3-2

Data Input Sequence

Record
Type Placement

TITLE First line of file

PROCESS Second line of file
UNITS Third line of file
GRID Fourth line of file
B-NO Five line of file
BLDG 1 Sixth line of file
TIER 1,1 Seventh line of file
CORNER 1,1,1 Eight line of file
CORNER 1,1,2 Etc.
.
CORNER 1,1,m
TIER 1,2
. CORNER 1,2,1
. .
. CORNER 1,2,n
TIER 1,t
CORNER 1,t,1
.
CORNER 1,t,r
BLDG 2
.
. (repeat of the TIER-CORNER pattern for BLDG 1.)
.
BLDG b (followed by a repeat of the BLDG 1 pattern.)
S-NO
STACK 1
.
STACK s

3-5 (Revised 04112)

 Table 3-3

Input Example

Record
Type Example input

TITLE 'Simple building'

PROCESS 'LT'
UNITS 'Feet' 0.3048
GRID 'UTMY' 270.0
B-NO 2
BLDG 1 'L - Blg' 1 10.0
TIER 1,1 6 20.0
CORNER 1,1,1 -10.3 -20.5
CORNER 1,1,2 -10.3 80.1
CORNER 1,1,3 40.3 80.1
CORNER 1,1,4 40.3 30.3
CORNER 1,1,5 90.4 30.3
CORNER 1,1,6 90.4 -20.5
BLDG 2 'Proc. 1' 1 15.5
TIER 2,1 4 10.0
CORNER 2,1,1 110.3 120.5
CORNER 2,1,2 110.3 180.1
CORNER 2,1,3 140.3 180.1
CORNER 2,1,4 140.3 120.5
S-NO 4
STACK 1 'Stack100' 5. 25.0 -10.0 -20.0
STACK 2 'Stack101' 5. 25.0 10.0 15.0
STACK 3 'Stack102' 5. 25.0 136.0 121.0
STACK 4 'Stack103' 5. 25.0 118.0 103.0

3-6 (Revised 04112)