Investigation of urban air quality using CFD simulation at traffic congested hot spots

Rapid urbanisation has led to a remarkable increase in travel demand as well as the number of vehicles globally. Inadequate road networks, especially in developing countries fail to serve this increasing vehicle population resulting in frequent traffic congestion. Proportional vehicular emissions are found to be responsible for serious consequences on human health and the environment. The nature and impact of these emissions depend on the traffic, environmental and meteorological factors. The present study focuses on vehicular emissions in a typical identified urban road stretch. The dispersion of vehicular pollutants in the selected urban stretch was studied using Fluidyn PANACHE version 5.2.6 software. The analysis of dispersion revealed that the highest concentration of pollutants is observed along the road sections, with a gradual decrease in concentration as you move away from the streets in both directions. From the vertical profile plotted, the maximum concentration is found to be on the ground and decreases as the height increases, which reveals the influence of meteorological parameters on urban air quality. These results indicate the significant influence of vehicular emissions and meteorological characteristics on ambient air quality.