Numerical study of a buoyant plume from a multi-flue stack into a variable temperature gradient atmosphere

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 22; no. 21; pp. 16814 - 16829
• Main Authors: Velamati, Ratna Kishore, Vivek, M., Goutham, K., Sreekanth, G. R., Dharmarajan, Santosh, Goel, Mukesh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.11.2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Air Pollutants - analysis; Air Pollutants - chemistry; Air pollution; Air temperature; Aquatic Pollution; Atmosphere; Atmosphere - chemistry; Atmospheric boundary layer; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric temperature; cooling; Dimensional analysis; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental science; Experiments; Fluid dynamics; fluid mechanics; Gases; Hydrodynamics; Industrial plant emissions; industry; mixing; Models, Theoretical; momentum; Outdoor air quality; Plumes; Pollutants; Pollution control; Research Article; Studies; Temperature; Temperature gradients; temperature profiles; Toxicology; Turbulence models; Velocity; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Wind; India; Atmospheric temperature gradient; Plume dispersion; Buoyant plumes; Multi-flue stack; Froude number
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-015-4877-9

Air pollution is one of the major global hazards and industries have been one of its major contributors. This paper primarily focuses on analyzing the dispersion characteristics of buoyant plumes of the pollutant released from a multi-flue vertical stack into a variable temperature gradient atmosphere ( α ) in a constant-velocity cross wind using two stack configurations—inline and parallel. The study is conducted for different Froude numbers, Fr = 12.64, 9.55, and 8.27. The atmospheric temperature gradients considered for the study are 0, +1, +1.5, and +2 K/100 m. The numerical study is done using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT. The effects of stack configuration, α , and Fr on the plume characteristics are presented. It is observed that the plume rises higher and disperses over a larger area with the inline configuration due to better mixing and shielding effect. With higher α , it is seen that the plume rises initially and then descends due to variation of the buoyant force. The plume rise initially is strongly influenced by the momentum of the jet, and as it moves downstream, it is influenced by the cooling rate of the plume. Furthermore, the plume rises higher and disperses over a larger area with a decrease in Fr.