Smoke Plume Dispersion

Professor Jon Kahl

The dispersion of smoke plumes can be simulated as a random process. Picture a piece of graph paper. We can start with a point on the left edge of the paper, in the middle of the page. Let's suppose the wind is blowing from left to right. If we consider our "point" to be a speck of pollution, it will move with the wind from left to right. If many "specks" were present, as in the case of smoke coming out of a smokestack, they would all move from left to right in exactly the same way.

Obviously this isn't realistic. Actual smoke plumes spread out vertically as they move with the wind. Let's call the horizontal motion "advection" and the vertical motion "turbulence". We can simulate both processes - turbulence and advection - by using the following simple procedure. All we need is a coin (in addition to our graph paper).

First, flip the coin. Every time we flip the coin the pollution speck moves one square to the right. If the coin turns up "heads", the speck also moves one square upward. If the coin turns up "tails", the speck moves one square downward.

Click here for an animation demonstrating this process.

Now, let's apply the same procedure to two specks at the same time. However, let's flip the coin separately for each speck.

Click here for an animation demonstrating the "2-speck" process.

You can see from the second animation that the specks spread apart from each other in a random way. At the same time, both particles are moving horizontally with the wind in exactly the same way. This process simulates both turbulence and advection.

THE REST IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Stable plume simulation

Neutral plume simulation

Unstable plume simulation


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