Influence of Pedestrian Trajectories on School Children Exposure to PM10

• Main Authors: João Garcia, Rita Cerdeira, Luís Coelho, Prashant Kumar, Maria da Graça Carvalho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2014-01-01
• Series: Journal of Nanomaterials
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/505649

Three pedestrian trajectories are considered to study the influence of PM10 concentrations on children exposure, in a high-traffic street canyon. Two types of exposure were calculated: daily exposure for each wind condition and cumulative annual exposure considering all wind conditions. FLUENT was used to simulate the flow, turbulence, and PM10 dispersion in the street canyon. Our results indicate that exposure is influenced by the chosen walking trajectory and wind direction. When considering daily exposure, the highest value is achieved for the trajectory on the south side of the street, under westerly wind conditions, 13% higher than the baseline that assumes no traffic. The results indicate that a particular trajectory can be better for one specific wind direction but can represent the worst for a different wind direction. A difference of 3% to 13% higher exposure was achieved by choosing the best and worst trajectories. When computing cumulative annual exposure, trajectory on the north side of the street shows better results, 8.4% higher than the baseline value. Northerly and westerly winds result in the lowest and the highest exposure value for every studied trajectory. Careful selection of the best pedestrian paths can help reduce the exposure in busy street canyons.