Air Quality Modelling

Air Quality Modelling
Presented by
SUBHAMOY GHOSH, 219MN1410
Dept. of Mining Engineering
NIT Rourkela
Introduction:
• An air quality dispersion model is a set of mathematical equations used for

determining what happens to the pollutants emitted in the atmosphere.
• The emitted pollutants are transported by winds and its concentration
decreases due to the atmospheric turbulence.
• A dispersion model estimates the concentration levels at any point in the
space.
• A dispersion model can replace monitoring and thus saving time and cost.
• It identifies source contributions to air quality problems.
• Assess source impacts and design control strategies.
• Predicts future concentration from sources after implementation of new
regulatory programs
Factors affecting dispersion of pollutants in
the atmosphere:
• Source characteristics:
o Emission rate of pollutants
o Stack height
o Exist velocity of the gas
o Exit temperature of the gas
o Stack diameter
• Meteorological conditions:
o Wind velocity
o Wind direction
o Ambient temperature
o Atmospheric stability
Types of models:
Different types of air quality dispersion models include the following:
• Box Model
• Lagrangian Model
• Eulerian Model
• Dense Gas Model
• Gaussian Plume Dispersion Model
Box Model:
• Box Model of a simple urban air quality monitoring includes source emissions,
advective inflow and outflow to and from the sides, entrainment and
detrainment of pollutants aloft due to increasing and decreasing of rising mixed
height or vertical height (h), chemical transformations and wind direction. The
length, breadth and height of box model represents downwind dimension (I),
crosswind dimension (m) and vertical dimension (h).
• This model can predict only the volume-averaged concentration as a function of
time.
• Instead of considering individual sources, it considers all sources in estimating
source emissions within the box.
• The rate of change of mass within the box must be equal to the sum of the rates
at which the pollutant mass is added by all the emission sources in the box, the
change due to horizontal advection, and the change due to entrainment from the
top resulting from the growth in mixed height.
Box model can be mathematically expressed as:
Where,
Lagrangian Model:
• Lagrangian model is based on the phenomena that pollutant-air parcel moving
along the trajectories determined by the wind field, the buoyancy and the
turbulence effects.
• Lagrangian model uses ordinary differential equations and partial differential
equations to calculate these trajectories.
• The Lagrangian parcel trajectory model follows standard assumptions
employed by classical puff dispersion models.
• For a pollution puff initially released at a point and diffusing in an environment
of spatially constant winds and diffusivities, limited vertically by the surface
(z = 0) and planetary boundary layer top, the concentration around the puffed
center are analytically calculated using the equation:
Where,
The center of the puff, located at xc and yc is calculated following a trajectory,
zc is the puff emission height (500 m),
𝜎𝑦 and 𝜎𝑧 are the horizontal and vertical dispersion of pollutant mass around
the puff center.
Eulerian Model:
Eulerian Model is similar to Lagrangian model but the only difference is
Eulerian model uses fixed 3D Cartesian grid as a frame of reference rather than a
moving frame of reference. The 3D advection-diffusion equation forward in time
(t) on a Cartesian grid is given by:
Where, C is the pollutant concentration,

K is the turbulent diffusion coefficient,
𝑣Ԧ is the velocity vector.
Eulerian models monitor atmospheric properties, including temperature,
pressure and chemical concentration of traces, over a period of time.
Dense Gas Model:
• The Dense Gas Dispersion Model (DEGADIS) is a mathematical dispersion
model that can be used to model the transport of toxic chemical releases into the
atmosphere.
• DEGADIS can be used as a refined modelling approach to estimate short term
ambient concentrations and the expected area of exposure to concentrations
above specified threshold values for toxic chemical releases. It is usually useful
in situations where density effects are mainly important and where screening
estimates of ambient concentrations are above levels of concern.
• The three most commonly used models are:
1. DEGADIS 2. SLAB 3. HEGADIS
Gaussian Plume Model:
• Gaussian plume model was developed for the purpose of understanding of the
diffusion properties of plumes emitted from industrial stacks.
• This model is applied to calculate the maximum ground level impact of plumes
and the distance of maximum impact from the source.
• Experimentally it is described by plotting standard deviation of its concentration
distribution in both the vertical and horizontal direction as a function of the
atmospheric stability and downwind distance from the source.
• The origin of Gaussian Plume Model (GPM) was found in work by Sir Oliver
Graham Sutton (1932). The GPM is an analytical solution of three dimensional
advective diffusion equation.
To obtain the GPM, the following assumptions are made:
• The solution is time invariant.
• The wind speed is not a function of position.
• The diffusivities are not the functions of position.
• Diffusion in the downwind direction is insignificant compared with the mean
flow i.e. advection dominates over diffusion.
• The terrain is relatively flat, open country.
• Background pollution is negligible.
• Steady state conditions.
• The material diffused is a stable gas or aerosol, with a negligible deposition
rate.
The concentration, C, of a gas or aerosols ( of particle size less than 20
microns) at x, y, z from a continuous source with an effective stack height ‘H’ as
given by GPM is :
Where,
x, y, z are the coordinates of any point in space with origin at the point of
release,
C(x, y, z; H) is the concentration at a point x, y, z from an effective source
height of H,
Q is the uniform emission rate of pollutants in kg/s, g/s, m3/s,
𝜎𝑦 and 𝜎𝑧 are the standard deviations of plume concentrations in
horizontal and vertical directions respectively in meters,
U is the mean wind speed affecting the plume in m/s,
H is the effective height of release, i.e. physical stack height + plume rise
∆h
Gaussian Air Pollution Plume Dispersion Model
Experimental Description of Gaussian Plume Model

Pasquill-Gifford 𝝈𝒚 (left) and 𝝈𝒛 (right)
Pasquill Atmospheric stability class is commonly used method developed by Pasquill in 1961
of categorizing the amount of atmospheric turbulence and is as given:
The meteorological conditions that define Pasquill Stability Class are as follows:
• Gaussian Plume Models are applicable for a downwind distance x > 100 m
because near the source concentration approaches infinity.
• From the Gaussian dispersion equation, 𝜎 is the dispersion coefficient which
defines the plume dispersion. By plotting the standard deviation of its
concentration distribution, the normal distribution assumed to be 67% of the
pollutant within ±𝜎 of the centerline of the plume.
• The value of 𝜎 is determined by the magnitude of the turbulences in the
atmosphere.
• Unstable atmosphere defines larger eddies and larger values of 𝜎 and stable
atmosphere defines smaller eddies and smaller values of 𝜎.
Effects of Meteorology on Plume Dispersion:
Thermal Boundary
Layer (TBL)
• Dispersion of emission into atmosphere depends on various meteorological
factors.
• Height of thermal boundary layer is one of the important factors responsible for
high ground level concentrations.
• At 9 AM pollutants are pulled to the ground by convective eddies.
• Spread of plume is restricted in vertical due to thermal boundary height at this

time.
Chakradharpur, Jharkhand at 15:10 PM
Near Tatanagar at 17:20 PM
LOOPING PLUME
Bakreshwar Thermal Power Plant, Birbhum District,
West Bengal at 11:00 AM
Bakreshwar Thermal Power Plant, Birbhum District,
West Bengal at 19:15 PM
LOOPING PLUME
Limitations of Air Pollution Dispersion Models:
• Inadequate dispersion parameters.

• Inadequate treatment of dispersion upwind of the road.
• It requires a complex and tiresome numerical integration especially when the
wind forms a small angle with the roadways.
• Gaussian based plume models perform very poorly when the wind speeds are
less than 1 m/s.
• The Gaussian puff model relative diffusion parameters are derived from very
few field experiments thereby limiting its applicability.
• Limitations of numerical models include large computational costs in terms of
time and storage of data. It also requires large amount of input data.
THANK YOU!

Air Quality Modelling

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Air Quality Modelling

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Air Quality Modelling

• An air quality dispersion model is a set of mathematical equations used for

Where, C is the pollutant concentration,

Experimental Description of Gaussian Plume Model

• At 9 AM pollutants are pulled to the ground by convective eddies.

• Spread of plume is restricted in vertical due to thermal boundary height at this

• Inadequate dispersion parameters.

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