Modelling of air pollution on a military airfield

The paper presents a numerical study of exhaust emission and pollutant dispersion of carbon monoxide on a military airfield. Investigations have been carried out for typical conditions of aircraft usage in the Polish Air Force Academy in Dęblin. Two different types of aircraft have been taken into account. One of them is an MI-2 helicopter, the second is a TS-11 plane. Both are used in military pilot education in Poland. Exhaust emission of CO from those aircrafts has been obtained in an experiment carried out on an engine test stand. CO concentrations have been calculated for different meteorological conditions (averaged from 5 years observations) and selected conditions of aircraft use. The finite volume method has been used to discretise the equation describing the process of pollutant dispersion. In addition, the two-cycle decomposition method has been employed to solve the set of ordinary differential equations of the first order obtained after discretisation of the advection–diffusion equation. A meteorological pre-processor, based on relationships resulting from the Monin–Obukhov theory, is used to define eddy diffusivity and the profile of air speed in the lower layer of the atmosphere. In the paper, the computer model and calculated average concentration of CO in the Dęblin airfield during typical flights are presented. The goal of the computational analysis is to predict CO pollution level in the workplace of aircraft service personnel.