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Flow and turbulence characteristics in a suburban street canyon

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Abstract

Flow and turbulence data collected during a yearlong experiment in a street-canyon configuration located in suburban terrain are analyzed. The instrumentation included 13 sonic anemometers deployed on two masts within the street canyon and on three masts on the building roofs. Flow patterns were classified as being in the wake-interference regime. The in-canyon flow and turbulence structure showed a strong dependence on the above-roof wind direction. While channeling along the street dominates for most wind directions, recirculation patterns develop for narrow sectors with above-roof wind directions perpendicular to the street. For these cross-flow scenarios, different scaling velocities were tested and the influence of upwind fetch and stability was investigated in more detail. Similar to previous studies, our findings confirmed that it is difficult to identify a single velocity scale that unifies both mean flow and turbulence properties inside the canyon. Turbulence properties scaled best with the friction velocity at the upwind roof but scaling with mean wind speeds measured at the upwind roof or at an operational meteorological station 5-km away from the study area, resulted in comparable or even better statistics for the mean flow parameters. Turbulence kinetic energy in the shear-layer region at roof layer varied depending on upwind fetch and stability. As turbulence is transported from the shear layer into the canyon region, the in-canyon turbulence characteristics also varied as a function of these two parameters.

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Notes

  1. The lowest portion of the urban boundary layer which extends from the ground upto a height at which the effects of individual buildings become negligible, which is typically at height equivalent to 2–5 times the building height.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported through the NSF Career award ILREUM (NSF ATM 0547882). We would like to thank Sean Arms and Brian Bridges for their dedicated efforts during the set-up and operation of the instruments and Alan Shapiro for his comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, 120 David L. Boren Blvd, Norman, OK , 73072, USA

    Petra M. Klein & Jose M. Galvez

  2. SRG/NCEP/NWS/NOAA, National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, College Park, MA, USA

    Jose M. Galvez

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  1. Petra M. Klein
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Correspondence to Petra M. Klein.

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Klein, P.M., Galvez, J.M. Flow and turbulence characteristics in a suburban street canyon. Environ Fluid Mech 15, 419–438 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10652-014-9352-5

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