Numerical investigations of Re-independence and influence of wall heating on flow characteristics and ventilation in full-scale 2D street canyons

Abstract

Validated by wind tunnel data, this study numerically investigates the integrated impacts of wind and thermal buoyancy on urban turbulence, ventilation and pollutant dispersion in full-scale 2D deep street canyons (aspect ratio AR = H/W = 3 and 5, W = 24 m). Isothermal urban airflows for such deep street canyons can be Reynolds-number-independent when reference Reynolds number (Re) exceeds the critical Re (Rec~106,107 when AR = 3, 5), i.e. AR = 5 experiences two main vortices and one-order smaller NEV* (~10−3, the normalized net escape velocity) than AR = 3 with a single main vortex (NEV*~10−2).With sufficiently large Re (Re > Rec) and the same air-wall temperature difference (Ri = 2.62, 4.36 when AR = 3, 5), four uniform wall heating patterns were considered, including leeward-wall heating (L-H), windward-wall heating (W–H), ground heating (G-H), and all-wall heating (A-H). Various indicators were adopted to evaluate street ventilation and pollutant dilution capacity (e.g. age of air (τ,s), NEV*, pollutant transport rates (PTR)). Full-scale wall heating produces a strong upward near-wall buoyancy force, which significantly influences flow patterns and improves street ventilation for most cases. When AR = 3, L-H strengthens the single-vortex airflow. When AR = 5, L-H converts the isothermal double vortices into a single-clockwise vortex. For both ARs, W–H reverses the main clockwise vortex to an enhanced counterclockwise one, moreover G-H and A-H cause a more complicated multi-vortex pattern than isothermal cases. Overall, when AR = 3, L-H and W–H increase NEV* by 68% and 40% than the isothermal case. When AR = 5, four wall heating patterns all raise NEV* considerably (by 150%–556%). For both ARs, the L-H, W–H and A-H amplify the contribution of mean flows on removing pollutants but reduce that by turbulent diffusion compared with isothermal cases.