Abstract
The Alcantara Launch Center (ALC) is the main Brazilian access to space. It is positioned over a complex terrain, and it has some important buildings for assembling, integration and launching activities, such as the Mobile Integration Tower. Being in a region of prevalent trade winds, the flow interaction between the complex terrain and the buildings can affect the safety of operations on the platform, and the dispersion of toxic gases emitted during the launching. The main objective of this work was to study the influence of topography and buildings on the atmospheric flow of ALC using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques. Three geometries were considered: simplified terrain (case 1), smooth complex terrain (case 2), and roughness complex terrain (case 3). The flow conditions over ALC were simulated using the ANSYS Fluent 19.0 CFD commercial code. The numerical simulations used a realizable ?-? to model turbulence effects and the results presented a good agreement with the in-situ field measurements for the most complex geometry (case 3). The topography clearly influences the flow pattern at ALC, with the cliff influence over the wind being the major cause for establishing the flow patterns.
Highlights
The Alcantara Launch Center (ALC), located in the northeastern Brazil, is the leading country gateway to space (Fig. 1)
Uchida and Ohya (2003) observed that local accelerations of the wind and separation regions of the boundary layer can be formed in flows over complex topographies, which affects the safety of operations on the platform as, for example, the dispersion of toxic gases emitted during launching
A reverse flow region is formed upstream the obstacle with velocities below 2.5 m∙s–1 and negative velocities close to –1.0 m∙s–1
Summary
The Alcantara Launch Center (ALC), located in the northeastern Brazil, is the leading country gateway to space (Fig. 1). The launch pad area (called SPL) is positioned 150 m from the coastline, on a jagged cliff, with approximately 40 m height. The change in roughness (smooth surface at the ocean to the rough surface at the continent) and the abrupt topography variation caused by the cliff can affect the atmospheric flow in the region and modify the flow properties of the planetary boundary layer. The flow from the ocean to the continent is disturbed and the flow properties of the planetary boundary layer are modified. Uchida and Ohya (2003) observed that local accelerations of the wind and separation regions of the boundary layer can be formed in flows over complex topographies, which affects the safety of operations on the platform as, for example, the dispersion of toxic gases emitted during launching. The flow from the ocean to the continent is disturbed and the flow properties of the planetary boundary layer are modified. Uchida and Ohya (2003) observed that local accelerations of the wind and separation regions of the boundary layer can be formed in flows over complex topographies, which affects the safety of operations on the platform as, for example, the dispersion of toxic gases emitted during launching.
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