Assessment of a CFD model for short-range plume dispersion: Applications to the Fusion Field Trial 2007 (FFT-07) diffusion experiment

- A CFD model fluidyn-PANACHE is evaluated with the FFT-07 tracer field experiment.
- Statistical evaluation methods are used for performance analysis of simulated results.
- Fluidyn-PANACHE provides good agreement with concentration observations.
- Performing within acceptable bounds of statistical measures for air quality applications

Simulations of the short-range plume dispersion under different atmospheric conditions can provide essential information for the development of source reconstruction methodologies that allows to retrieve the location and intensity of an unknown hazardous pollutant source. This process required a comprehensive assessment of the atmospheric dispersion models with tracer diffusion experiments in various stability conditions. In this study, a comprehensive evaluation of a CFD model fluidyn-PANACHE is performed with the observations from available seven trials of single releases conducted in the Fusion Field Trail 2007 (FFT-07) tracer experiment. The CFD simulations are performed for each trial and it was observed that the CFD model fluidyn-PANACHE provides good agreement of the predicted concentrations with the observations in both stable and convective atmospheric conditions. A comprehensive analysis of the simulated results is performed by computing the statistical performance measures for the dispersion model evaluation. The CFD model predicts 65.4% of the overall concentration points within a factor of two to the observations. It was observed that the CFD model is predicting better in convective stability conditions in comparison to the trials conducted in stable stability. In convective conditions, 74.6% points were predicted within a factor of two to the observations which are higher than 59.3% concentration points predicted within a factor of two in the trials in stable atmospheric conditions.