Modeling subway air flow using CFD

• The immersed approach was successful in reproducing experimental data of a scaled subway car model.
• The new modeling approach was applied to a complex subway station with movement of multiple subway cars/trains.
• The new modeling approach coupled flow, thermal and dispersion using Large Eddy Simulation.
• We have extended previous work in simulating moving subway cars.

A more realistic Computational Fluid Dynamics approach has been developed to model air flow in subway tunnels and stations. This modeling incorporates the effects of multi-car trains as they arrive and depart in a network of interconnected stations at realistic speeds. It also includes thermal sources within the stations and a coupling to the street level through inlets and outlets. This new approach is validated against experimental data, and numerical simulations are carried out in realistic subway station geometries. The air flow dynamics in these stations are quantified in terms of their spatial complexity and temporal stability. The air flow dynamics correlate to the dispersion and transport of pollutants though the stations.