A model of second-order chemical reactions in turbulent fluid — part II. Application to atmospheric plumes
Abstract
The model developed in Part I to describe second order chemical reactions in turbulence is adapted for predicting the rates of chemical reactions occurring in plumes from atmospheric sources. The numerical planetary boundary layer model of Deardorff is employed to obtain the turbulence statistics required to implement the closure model in this role under unstable atmospheric conditions. A test of the model is performed by simulating the rate of nitric oxide oxidation in the near-source portion of a plume from the Potomac Electric Company's power plant at Morgantown, Maryland. The results, which agree well with observations, indicate that turbulent concentration fluctuations greatly inhibit the rate of nitric oxide conversion in the plume for a period of about 2zᵢ/w*, where zᵢ is the height of the inversion layer below which convection is confined and w* is the convective velocity scale. When fluctuation effects were eliminated from the model in one particular case, the 50%-conversion time dropped from 20 minutes to about three minutes.
Additional Information
© 1978 Published by Elsevier. The authors wish to thank Dr. James Deardorff of the National Center for Atmospheric Research for making available the velocity data used in this study. We are also indebted to Mr. Larry Reid and Mr. Robert Frost of Systems Applications, Inc. for their assistance with the computer programs. This work was supported in part by funds from the Environmental Protection Agency under grant 68-02-2216 to Systems Applications, Inc., San Rafael, California and in part by National Science Foundation grant ENG 71-02486 to the California Institute of Technology.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 120871
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20230414-532618000.11
- 68-02-2216
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
- ENG 71-02486
- NSF
- Created
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2023-04-20Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-04-20Created from EPrint's last_modified field