Investigation of the Wind-Direction Effect on Buoyancy-Driven Fire Smoke Dispersion in an Urban Street Canyon

Kaihua Lu (), Yanqing Xiang, Songyang Yu, Jie Wang and Shaohua Mao
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Kaihua Lu: Faculty of Engineering, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Lumo Road 388, Wuhan 430074, China
Yanqing Xiang: Faculty of Engineering, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Lumo Road 388, Wuhan 430074, China
Songyang Yu: China Ship Development and Design Centre, Wuhan 430064, China
Jie Wang: School of Resource and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Heping Avenue 947, Wuhan 430081, China
Shaohua Mao: Faculty of Engineering, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Lumo Road 388, Wuhan 430074, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: When a fire occurs in a street canyon, smoke recirculation is the most harmful factor to human beings inside the canyon, while the wind condition is an essential factor determining if the smoke is recirculated. This paper focuses on the wind direction’s effect on buoyancy-driven fire smoke dispersion in a street canyon, which is innovative research since the effect of wind direction has not been reported before. In this study, an ideal street canyon model with a height–width ratio of 1 was established, and both the wind velocity and wind direction were changed to search for the critical point at which smoke recirculation occurs. The results show that with an increase in the wind direction angle (the angle of wind towards the direction of the street width), the smoke recirculation could be distinguished into three regimes, i.e., the “fully re-circulation stage”, the “semi re-circulation stage”, and the “non-recirculation stage”. The critical recirculation velocity was increased with the increase in the wind direction angle, and new models regarding the critical wind velocity and the Froude number were proposed for different wind direction conditions.

Keywords: smoke dispersion; urban street canyon; critical recirculation velocity; wind direction; Froude number (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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