Stabilization of polymer-fullerene bulk-heterojuntion morphology

International audienc

Large-Eddy Simulation of Flow and Pollutant Transport in Urban Street Canyons with Ground Heating

Our study employed large-eddy simulation (LES) based on a one-equation subgrid-scale model to investigate the flow field and pollutant dispersion characteristics inside urban street canyons. Unstable thermal stratification was produced by heating the ground of the street canyon. Using the Boussinesq approximation, thermal buoyancy forces were taken into account in both the Navier–Stokes equations and the transport equation for subgrid-scale turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). The LESs were validated against experimental data obtained in wind-tunnel studies before the model was applied to study the detailed turbulence, temperature, and pollutant dispersion characteristics in the street canyon of aspect ratio 1. The effects of different Richardson numbers (Ri) were investigated. The ground heating significantly enhanced mean flow, turbulence, and pollutant flux inside the street canyon, but weakened the shear at the roof level. The mean flow was observed to be no longer isolated from the free stream and fresh air could be entrained into the street canyon at the roof-level leeward corner. Weighed against higher temperature, the ground heating facilitated pollutant removal from the street canyon.Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. Center for Environmental Sensing and Monitorin

Comparison between large-eddy simulation and Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes computations for the MUST field experiment. Part I: Study of the flow for an incident wind directed perpendicularly to the front array of containers

The large-eddy simulation (LES) and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) methodologies are used to simulate the air flow inside the container's array geometry of the Mock Urban Setting Test (MUST) field experiment. Both tools are assessed and compared in a configuration for which the incident wind direction is perpendicular to the front array. The assessment is carried out against available wind-tunnel data. Effects of including small geometrical irregularities present in the experiments are analysed by considering LES and RANS calculations on two geometries: an idealized one with a perfect alignment and an identical shape of the containers, and a second one including the small irregularities considered in the experiment. These effects are assessed in terms of the local time-mean average and as well in terms of spatial average properties (relevant in atmospheric modelling) given for the velocity and turbulent fields. The structural flow properties obtained using LES and RANS are also compared. The inclusion of geometrical irregularities is found significant on the local time-mean flow properties, in particular the repeated flow patterns encountered in a perfect regular geometry is broken. LES and RANS provide close results for the local mean streamwise velocity profiles and shear-stress profiles, however the LES predictions are closer to the experimental values for the local vertical mean velocity. When considering the spatial average flow properties, the effects of geometrical irregularities are found insignificant and LES and RANS provide similar results