Seminarium Zakładu Mechaniki i Fizyki Płynów Urban Fluid Mechanics: Air Circulation and Contaminant Dispersion in Cities prof. J.H.S. Fernando, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Arizona State University wtorek, 23 września 2003

n the latter part of the 20th century, there has been a massive influx of population to urban areas, and currently in the US about 70% of the population occupies less than 2% of the landmass. Most of these urban areas, especially those in the southwestern US, are associated with complex terrain, the air flow in which is characterized by the synoptic winds perturbed by the terrain, local meso-scale thermal circulation (slope and valley winds), flow past small-scale features such as building clusters, and complex interactions thereof. The dispersion and advection of contaminates released within air basins, transported from elsewhere and formed due to chemical reactions are also of great interest in dealing with issues such as the quality of life of urban population. In this presentation, an overview of the results of an on-going program designed to study flow, turbulence and contaminant transport in complex terrain cities will be given. Theoretical concepts, laboratory experiments, field observations and numerical simulations underpinning this program will be presented, and integration of results from cross-cutting areas of research to understand and predict urban air quality will be discussed.