Addressing Human Exposures to Air Pollutants Around Buildings in Urban Areas with211 Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Models

摘要

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations provide a number of unique211u001eopportunities for expanding and improving capabilities for modeling exposures to 211u001eenvironmental pollutants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National 211u001eExposure Research Laboratory (NERL) has been conducting cooperative research with 211u001eFluent, Inc. to examine and evaluate the application of CFD models for simulating 211u001eair pollution along the pathway from source to human exposures. The basic 211u001eframework of population-based human exposure models separates a person's day into 211u001etime spent in a series of exposure microenvironments. The environmental 211u001econcentration in these exposure microenvironments is weighted by the time-spent 211u001ein each microenvironment to provide to a total daily exposure. The detailed 211u001espatial resolution of environmental pollution concentrations that is possible 211u001efrom CFD simulations can provide important information that is not available from 211u001ea single point measurement. There are multiple potential roles for CFD 211u001esimulations in supporting human exposure studies which will be presented outside 211u001eof this brief abstract. In this study, the authors are examining in detail the 211u001eurban buildings and roadway microenvironments of human exposure to ambient air 211u001epollutants. This abstract can present only a summary of some of the issues the 211u001eauthors are examining and a few examples of progress.