Author(s)

S. Torno, J. Toraño, I. Diego, M. Menéndez, M. Gent & J. Velasco

Abstract

In open storage piles in bulk solids port terminals, power stations and cement factories, not only the solid and porous barrier behaviour in front of the pile is important, but also the effect that porous and solid barriers produce when they are behind the pile. Considering the dust propagation behind the pile, the solid barriers are more effective than the porous ones. But, the effect of the porous barriers on the wind velocity distribution, mainly in zones between the barriers and the piles should be taken into account, regarding the total dust emission to the atmosphere and its propagation. In these studies, wind and dust concentration measurements in laboratory and field were carried out. A hot-wire anemometer (Velocicalc Plus (TSI)) was used in the wind study and two dust collectors (E-Sampler, Met One Instruments, Inc., Oregon, USA) were used to measure the dust concentration (Total Particle like PM10); a meteorological station (E-Sampler, Met One Instruments, Inc., Oregon, USA) attached to a PM10 collector was also employed. All these measurements were used to adjust the 3D CFD computational model (Ansys CFX 10.0): In the wind case through a k-epsilon turbulence model and the dust case by Lagrangian method. These adjusted models allow us to carry out several simulations combining the effect of solid and porous fences in front of and behind the pile, as well as pile shape modifications and behaviour analysis according to the dust emission from several special configurations and its relation to the wind gust preferential directions. Keywords: particle emission, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), open storage pile, air pollution.

Keywords

particle emission, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), open storage pile, air pollution