Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5247e5253

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Atmospheric Environment
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/atmosenv

Impact of the installation scenario of porous fences on wind-blown particle

emission in open coal yards
X.C. Cong a, b, *, S.Q. Cao a, Z.L. Chen a, S.T. Peng b, S.L. Yang a
a
Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Civil Engineering Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266510, China
b
Laboratory of Environmental Protection in Water Transport Engineering, Tianjin Research Institute of Water Transport Engineering, Tianjin 300346, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: As a common solution, porous fences are used to reduce the fugitive particulate emission from store piles
Received 22 January 2011 aggregated in the open storage yards of harbor areas. The dust dispersion has caused heavy ecological
Received in revised form pollution and economic losses. In this paper, taking the open coal yard in Caofeidian Port as an example,
29 June 2011
CFD technology was employed and the flow characteristics over the surfaces of stockpiles were simulated
Accepted 4 July 2011
using the k
3 RNG turbulence closure model. To validate the boundary conditions defined in the
simulation, a field measurement campaign was carried out and the experimental results verified the
Keywords:
predicted ones. A more detailed formulation for dust emission compared to the EPA mode was developed
Porous fence
Numerical simulation
afterward to evaluate dust emissions by the CFD approach. The results confirmed the role of porous
Diffuse dust emissions fences in reducing the dust emissions by comparing the average emission coefficients of four possible
Industrial site installation scenarios proposed from the local wind flow characteristics. It was found that, for variable
wind conditions tested during a whole year, dust emissions reduction was approximately 85% in all
enclosure along the yard, and the value was 55% and 65% respectively when installing two-side and
three-side protection scenarios against the windward of dominant wind direction. This study may
suggest some meaningful implications to understand the shelter effect differences among the installation
scenarios of porous fences from the technical view.
Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction is to use porous fences to reduce the wind-blown particle emissions

Amounts of materials existing in the harbor areas are usually
stored and piled up on the ground in an open space (Santiago et al.,
2007). Exposed to variable winds, those materials (ore and coal)
are subject to erosion and, consequently, to the movement of
particles through the ejection, suspension, rolling, creeping as well
as rebounding phenomena (Bagnold, 1941). As a result, aeolian
erosion of solid particles occurs and emits large amount of particles
into the atmospheric environment. The particle emission from
aggregate piles not only results in the environmental problems (e.g.
degradation of air quality) and risks to human health, but also leads
to a loss of raw materials for industries. In order to solve these
issues, the emissions should be controlled with great efforts. One
applicable methodology of reducing the emission in industrial sites
* Corresponding author. Shandong University of Science and Technology, Civil
Engineering and Architecture College, 579 Qianwangang Road Economic &Technical
Development Zone, Qingdao, Shandong Province 266510, China. Tel.: þ86 532
88032871.
E-mail address: congxiaochun@126.com (X.C. Cong).
to the environment (Borges and Viegas, 1988; Dong et al., 2007).
In China, with the rapid development of port transportation,
a large amount of bulky materials (e.g. coal and mineral powders)
are stored and transported frequently in harbor areas. Thus, it
is necessary to build large storage yards. As an effective and
environmental-friendly approach, porous fences are erected
around the open yard. However, considering the large extension of
the area to be protected and the random behaviors of the wind, this
technique may sometimes bring unsatisfactory results, associating
with the cost arising from its shelter scenario in particular.
It is apparent that varied installed scenarios mean different
investments. How to install the porous fence and yield the optimal
protection with reasonable cost? How to assess its effectiveness in
reducing the total particle emission with variable winds? Both of
doubts motivate the effort to examine the aeolian transport
particularly for industrial sites. Therefore, we undertake this study
to investigate the quantitative effect of the constructed fences,
although a number of studies on dust emissions in industrial sites
have been conducted (Xuan and Robins, 1994; Badr and Harion,
2005, 2007; Lee and Park, 1998, 1999; Park and Lee, 2002).
Conventionally, this type of study can be executed in atmospheric

1352-2310/$ e see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.07.005
5248 X.C. Cong et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5247e5253

boundary layer wind tunnels and field experiments. However, such

approaches are always expensive and time consuming (Li et al.,
2007). So Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technology, as
a substitutional method, is introduced to conduct model simula-
tion. In this study, firstly, a complete picture of the flow structure
over the stockpiles that are protected by porous fences in Cao-
feidian Port (Hebei Province, China) is displayed using the CFD
method. As the process of wind erosion depends strongly on the
local wind flow characteristics and local terrain geometry, the field-
based measurements are carried out to validate the boundary
conditions of the simulation model. Thus we can learn accurately
the properties of wind close to the aggregate piles surface among
different shelter scenarios. Furthermore, the emissions under
different scenarios are estimated with porous fence protection. The
estimation is based on the emission factor formulations for fugitive
Fig. 1. Porous fence installed in the wind tunnel.
dust emissions proposed by the US EPA (United State Environ-
mental Protection Agency) (EPA, 1988). Then, the average emission
On condition that air dynamical viscosity m is 1.789  10
5
coefficient covering a full range of wind conditions within a whole
kg m
1 s
1, air density r is 1.209 kg m
3 and the porous fence
year is introduced to comprehensively evaluate the shelter effect of
thickness Dm is 1.2  10
3 m, the coefficients a
1 and Cr are
porous fences. Finally, the initial conclusions are drawn among the
determined as 1.787  109 m
2 and 608.33 m
1, respectively.
tested scenarios according to a technical opinion.
2.2. Numerical simulations descriptions
2. Numerical simulations
Many numerical studies have been carried out to assess the flow
2.1. Fence resistance coefficient
field with porous fences (Wilson, 1985; Patton et al., 1998). Santiago
et al. (2007) compare three variants of k
3 (standard, k
3 RNG
The physical effect at the presence of a porous fence inside of the
k
3 and realizable k
3) turbulence closure models using RANS
flow is a pressure drop through it, which creates a momentum sink.
simulations. They focus on the differences of the turbulence
This resistance can be introduced in the momentum equation in
performance based on identical numerical procedures and
terms of viscous and inertial resistance:
parameters. Their conclusion is that RNG and realizable turbulence

 models have better performance than standard model for the large
m 1
porosities (f > 0.35), especially in the far leeward field away from
Dp ¼
u þ Cr $ ru2 Dm (1)
a 2 the fences.
where Dp is the pressure change through porous fence in Because of the good applicability of RANS model, RNG turbu-
k gm
1 s
2, m is air dynamical viscosity in kg m
1 s
1, a
1 is the lence closure schedule is chosen in this study. Numerical calcula-
viscous resistance coefficient in m
2, u is the mean velocity normal tions are implemented and the FLUENT 6.3 (Fluent, 2006) steady
to porous surface in m s
1, Cr is the inertial resistance coefficient three-dimensional segregated solver is employed to simulate
caused by the windbreak in m
1, Dm is porous fence thickness in m. wind flow patterns around the porous fences. We choose second
The term m$u=a is Darcy’s law for porous medium, which order discretization scheme for the numerical solution to increase
calculates the resistance exerted by porous fence due to air the accuracy and reduce numerical diffusion. The QUICK (Quadratic
viscosity (Bird et al., 2002). The term Cr $ru2 =2 in Eq. (1) computes Upwind Interpolation of Convective Kinematics) scheme is used
the inertial loss of the air flowing through the porous fence which and the SIMPLEC (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked
varies over the height of the fences (Wang and Takle, 1995; Equation Consistent) algorithm is applied for pressureevelocity
Wilson, 1985). coupling to improve convergence. All residuals are set to 10
5.
In this study, the fence pressure-jump coefficient is needed for
the model simulations. Thus, the wind experiments are conducted 2.3. Geometry, mesh and boundary conditions
in the wind tunnel typed XNJD-1. It is a low-speed open-return
tunnel having a test section of 2.1 m high  2.4 m wide  16.0 m The calculation domain is materialized by a box of variable
long. Available measured speed ranges from1.0 to 45.0 m s
1. dimensions (function of the porous fence’s height h in m) with
A complete description of the wind tunnel and its operating char-
acteristics are given by Cong et al. (2010).
The experimented porous fence is installed in the wind tunnel
(Fig. 1). It is made of stainless-steel plate with 1.2 mm in thickness
and folded with an angle of 140 . The holes are distributed in the
whole plate to make up the porosity of 0.40, as shown in Fig. 2.
Velocity measurements behind the fences are performed by using
Dantec Streamline 90N10 Frame hot wire anemometer. The measure
plan and relative study are presented in Cong and Zhan (2009).
According to Eq. (1), the experimental data is fitted into an
empirical formulate in the expressing form of the pressure drop Dp
against the average velocity u, which is written as:

 
DP ¼
38:363u þ 0:438u2 (2)
Fig. 2. The geometry model of the porous fence (mm).
 X.C. Cong et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5247e5253 5249

681

125
Porous fence 28 27 26 25 7

24 23 22 21 6

20 19 18 17 5

1390
East

190 6
16 15 14 13 4
wind Reference Row number of
Fig. 3. Schematic representing the calculation domain and the boundary conditions. point 0 points
12 11 10 9 3
identical fences located in the computational volume presented by
8 7 6 5 2
Fig. 3. The geometries and meshes are constructed using the
GAMBIT (2006) and then exported to the Fluent software. An 4 3 2 1 1

125
irregular mesh is selected: the higher resolution tetrahedral hybrid
100 150 150 150
grid with the size of 11.5 m (Dx/h ¼ 0.5, Dy/h ¼ 0.5, Dz/h ¼ 0.5) is 681
applied in the vicinity of the fence; the coarser grid with the size of
4 3 2 1
23 m tetrahedral hybrid cells (Dx/h ¼ 1.0, Dy/h ¼ 1.0, Dz/h ¼ 1.0) is Column number of points
defined for the zone away from the fence. The whole study volume
Fig. 5. Locations of measurement points (m) (the value within every bracket indicates
is meshed into 1739, 2609 and 20 segments in the x, y and z
the point serial number).
directions, respectively, with 1,760,415 cells in total.
The stockpile surface is regarded as the solid wall with the
roughness of 5.0 mm and is meshed with triangular-based prism
where Cm is an empirical constant specified in the turbulence model
cells (Fig. 4(a)). Fig. 4(b) shows that a finer mesh scheme is selected
(0.09), l is the turbulence length scale (l ¼ 0.007h).
near the pile surfaces along the vertical direction. An adaption
The bottom surface of the domain is modeled as no-slip surface
function is applied to the first cells from the pile surface. The
with a specific roughness of z0 (0.3 m). Porous fences are repre-
adaption function consists in refining the mesh in the near wall
sented as a momentum sink (Section 2.1). We adopt symmetry
region by dividing each cell in four equal parts. Four cells are pro-
boundary conditions for the upper and lateral boundaries of the
grammed within 25 cm from the pile surface, which is used for the
domain. This condition is normally used when zero normal velocity
EPA mode. Additionally, a grid sensitivity test is performed to judge
and zero normal gradients of all variables are imposed at the upper
the robustness of the model. The grid resolution for each part of the
boundary. Since the exit flow is close to a fully developed condition,
domain is modified gradually until the difference of the flow
the outflow boundary condition is applied to model the flow exit.
prediction around the fences is within 2%.
The boundaries of the computed domain include the air inlet,
the air outlet, the walls of the computational volume and the 2.4. Numerical Validation
porous fences. The used incoming velocity profile is the logarithmic
law. The mechanism of wind erosion is difficult to understand
because the dispersion mechanism is complicated and depends on
u* z various topographic and meteorological factors. To ensure the
uðzÞ ¼ ln (3)
k z0 validity of the simulations, the field measurements are conducted
from March 24 to March 30, 2009 after the fence construction is
where u(z) is wind velocity at the height of z m in m s
1, u* is
completed. The huge single-layer artificial wind fences are installed
friction velocity in m s
1, z0 is ground roughness length of the
along three sides on the measurement site: both north and south
terrain in m, k is the von Karman constant (0.4).
sides of the yard are 681 m in length, and the east side is 1390 m.
The inlet boundary conditions for the turbulent kinetic energy
Previous studies have found that the fences, which are 1.2e1.5
and its dissipation rate have been obtained from the experimental
times higher than stockpile, have good shelter effect (Zhao, 2007).
study on the assumption of an equilibrium boundary layer (Bitog
Thus, in this industrial site, the fence height is set to 23.0 m, which
et al., 2009; Stunder and Arya, 1988). The specific dissipation rate
is 1.35 times higher than the standard height of coal piles. Out of the
3 profile is calculated from the k experimental values using a rela-
fences, two 15 m high auxiliary buildings used as machine opera-
tion proposed by FLUENT (Fluent, 2006) which reads,
tion rooms are adjacent to the north fence.
In the field campaign, 28 measured locations are positioned at
k1=2
3 ¼ 1=4
(4) a height of 2.0 m from the ground in the shelter zone protected by
cm l the porous fences. The reference point is located upstream outside

Fig. 4. Views mesh used for calculation domains.

5250 X.C. Cong et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5247e5253
Fig. 6. Top view of the velocity contours with porous fences (z ¼ 15 m).
the fences (Fig. 5). A sequential time series of instantaneous
incoming wind velocity is logged by the ZDR-1F automatic
recorders with a 1-s interval and consecutive 50 runs are
conducted.
Considering the random behavior of the wind, the data with the
smallest wind speed and direction fluctuation available is
employed for calibration. We found that the wind speed ranging
from 4.80 m s
1e5.20 m s
1 and east direction incidents are the
most stable. Thus, these measured data are chosen to validate the
model.
A CFD calculation is set up representing the real site configu-
ration (Fig. 6). Then, the predicted points are derived which coin-
cide with the location of measurements taken in the field
measurement. Then we make a comparison between experimental
and modeled flow velocity (Fig. 7). The efficiency in reducing wind
velocity at a given distance leeward from the fences is used in terms
of a dimensionless averaged reduction coefficient (Cornelis and
Gabriels, 2005):
uiDx
RciDx ¼ 1

u0
where Dx is the distance from the fences in m, uiDx is the ith point
1 min averaged wind speed at a downstream distance of Dx away
from the wind fence in m s
1, u0 is the corresponding speed in the
absence of wind fences in m s
1. Here, to ensure the synchroniza-
tion of measured results, the speed of reference point, taken as the
unprotected outside the fences, is measured as u0
Fig. 7 shows a very similar trend in all measurement points,
which strengthens the reliability of the simulation models. Consis-
tence is also observed between the measured and modeled values.
1.2
Measurement Simulation
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Measurement point number
Fig. 7. Reduction coefficient of wind velocity for each measured locations.
The reduction in wind velocity affected by the fences is demon-
strated evidently by the result that the coefficients of all points are
less than 1.0 except for measured values of 25th and 26th points.
The difference is due to the two buildings near these two points.
Turpin and Harion (2009) show that structures created by the
neighboring buildings can interfere with the stockpiles, and lead to
flow pattern reorganization. The nearby buildings acting as obsta-
cles to the free path of wind can cause the flow streamlines diverge
from the original speed and direction. Thus, the flow dynamics in
the flow field around fences that are adjacent to the buildings are
changed. The 25th and 26th points are subject to the instantaneous
flow acceleration from the lateral side of the nearby buildings.
Vortexes are created around the fences due to the wind fluctuation,
leading to higher measured values than that of airflow outside the
fence. Consequently, the measured reduction coefficients are larger
than 1.0. These results are consistent with those obtained in the
literature on adjacent obstacles (Martinuzzi and Tropea, 1993).
Nevertheless, the simulation is based on the steady flow, in which
the incoming wind profile remains unchanged with time. As
a consequence, the disturbed flow characteristics cannot be map-
ped accurately. And the predicted reduction coefficients of 25th and
26th points are still smaller than 1.0 despite the impact of nearby
buildings (black circle in Fig. 6). Apart from the 25th and 26th
points, the overall percentage difference between the observed and
predicted results is http://www.iciba.com/calculated/ calculated as
8.7% and thus validates the simulation model.
3. EPA emission factor
So far, a complete quantitative analysis on the shelter effect of
porous fences has not been performed yet, because wind erosion is
a very complicated phenomenon that is closely related to local
wind flow characteristics over the surfaces of piles. In particular, the
lift force that ejects dust particles from the coal pile surface is
relevant with the magnitude of the incoming wind speed and
friction velocity near the surface. However, the initial link between
flow processes and particles uplift has been established (Lee et al.,
2002) and the erosion conditions are reached when the friction
velocity u* acting over the surface of the pile is larger than the
threshold friction velocityu*t . Hence, EPA mode (EPA, 1988)
(5)
summarized an emission factor EF (gyr
1) for a wind-generated
particulate emission from granular materials subject to the
disturbance, which is expressed as follows:
XN
EF ¼ m i¼1 Pi Si (6)
where m is particle size multiplier in dimensionless, N is number of
disturbances per year, Pi is an erosion potential corresponding to
the observed (or probable) maximum wind speed during the ith
period between disturbances in gm
2, Si is pile surface area in m2.
The erosion potential function Pi for a dry exposed surface is:
 2  
Pi ¼ 58 u*
u*t þ25 u*
u*t for u* >u*t (7)
pi ¼ 0 for u*  u*t
where u*t is the threshold friction velocity of materials in m s
1, u* is
friction velocity over the surface of piles in m s
1 given by:


us
u* ¼ 0:1uþ
10 (8)
ur
where uþ10 is the maximum wind speed measured by an
28
anemometer at a reference height of 10 m in m s
1, us is the wind
speed measured at 25 cm from the pile’s surface in m s
1, ur is the
wind speed measured at a height of 10 m in m s
1.
 X.C. Cong et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5247e5253
EPA report provides sub-area distributions of normalized
velocity values us/ur for a flow over two representative pile shapes
(cone and flat top oval configurations) and for three flow angles
(0 , 20 , 40 ). These data are derived from wind tunnel studies. In
this study, coal particles are aggregated compact cubic configura-
tions in industrial sites, completely different from the EPA standard.
It is not possible to develop experimental measures to evaluate the
exposure level and dust erosion degree for the non-standard pile
shape. Numerical approach for the normalized velocity value us/ur
that has been studied by Badr and Harion (2005, 2007) is developed
here to provide detailed data of friction velocity with the fine
spatial resolution.
In the EPA mode, the aggregate pile surface is divided into sub-
areas of constant u* to represent the different degrees of wind
exposure over the pile. And the potential functions of each sub-area
are then treated independently because each sub-area is regarded
as a separate source. Then, the emission factor is estimated by the
sum of local erosion potentials corresponding to the same value of
friction velocity. Therefore, under the availability of the total
number of the element grid area, as well as detailed friction
velocity from numerical simulations, Eq. (6) can be changed as
follows:
Xm Xm h  i
EF ¼ m 58 u*
u*t Sij for u* >u*t
i¼1 j¼1
where M is the number of the element grid area when the friction
velocity u* is greater than the threshold friction velocity u*t ; Sij is the
jth element grid area of the erosion corresponding to ith distur-
bance in m2.
Eq. (9) provides spatially richer information than results from
published experiments to map the degree of wind exposure over
stockpiles. This allows a more accurate assessment to checking the
particulate emission for each considered scenario of the porous
fences, which plays a dominant role in the evaluation of the envi-
ronmental impact.
4. Application
The local meteorological observation during the whole year of
2008 in Caofeidian Port indicates that the predominant wind
direction is SSW and WWS following second with the frequency
of 10.10% and 8.67%, respectively. The frequency of zero wind
speed is 2.51%.
According to the construction program of this coal storage yard,
12 standard storage piles are arranged by 3 piles in row with 10 m
Fig. 8. Scenarios for wind fences (two-side against the windward of the dominant wind direction for the first and three-side for the second, three-side on the leeward of the
dominant wind direction for the third and all enclosure for the fourth).
5251
spacing and by 4 piles in column with 5 m spacing. The topography
of each stored pile is a compact trapezoid configuration with the
standard height of 17.0 m, corresponding to the capacity of a ship or
a train. The top and bottom surfaces of each stored piles are both
rectangular with areas of 113  10 m2, 254  51 m2, respectively.
Based on the practical operation requirements and local wind
direction characteristics, four scenarios of porous fences are
assumed representing the possible conditions for assessing the
fence construction (Fig. 8).
It should be noted that the aim of the present work is to evaluate
the effect of porous fences, rather than to predict absolute esti-
mation of emissions. The impact of nearby buildings on fugitive
emissions under the fence shelter is negligible in this section. The
first reason is that the auxiliary buildings which are adjacent to the
porous fences are usually much lower than the fence itself and are
not prominent in industrial sites. They do not significantly perturb
the dynamic flow structure over the stockpiles. Thus, the effect of
flow reorganization created by turbulent disturbances limits the
vicinity where the obstacles locate. Secondly, the porous fences are
installed along the dominate wind direction which implies the flow
first comes across the stockpiles and the flow field is not strongly
modified by the buildings (Turpin and Harion, 2010).
The simulations are conducted using the CFD approach (Section 2),
(9) taking the inflow speed 5.00 m s
1 and east direction as an example.
Data of normalized velocity value of us/ur are drawn at a normal
distance of 25 cm over the surfaces of piles. Then the friction velocity
u* over the piles for each scenario is achieved by assuminguþ 10 as
10 m s
1. In fact, the wind erosion process strongly depends on uþ 10
However, the subject of this study does not quantify the erosion
potential of a pile as a function of the wind speed. Instead, it discusses
the variation of dust emission for tested fences under identical wind
conditions. Qualitatively, the distribution of friction velocity over
stockpiles remains similar whatever the wind velocity. Therefore, the
analysis of flow structure over the piles under the function of porous
fences has been carried out in this study only when uþ 10 equals
10 m s
1. Meanwhile, a coal material is sampled from the Caofeidian
Port as a reference to the calculations. Its threshold friction velocity is
determined from a wind tunnel experiment and averages about
0.23 m s
1. Proportionally, it averages 4.4 m s
1 at the 10 m reference
height (Cong et al., 2010).
As expected, the presence of the piles exerts large perturbations
on the flow structure of the boundary layer. Among all scenarios,
the simulation predicts the flow deceleration at the base of the
pile, acceleration up the windward slope and toward to the sides,
followed by a region of flow separation on the crest. The top is
5252 X.C. Cong et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5247e5253

Fig. 9. Friction velocities over the surface of aggregated piles.

where the friction velocity is relatively greater than that over the
leeward slope, which implicates that there is higher erosion
potential over the crest than over the slip faces. These flow prop-
erties are illustrated by analyzing the friction velocity distribution
in Fig. 9. These predicted results are consistent with the literature
and published experimental data (Walker and Nickling, 2002;
Parsons et al., 2004).
The shelter effect of the porous fence on the flow field is
apparent. Without the fences, the friction velocity over the all piles
is larger than the ones with fences, and its maximum and averaged
values are 0.457 m s
1 and 0.329 m s
1, respectively. By contrast,
with the porous fences, the average friction velocity over the pro-
tected piles is decreased to 0.261 m s
1, 0.257 m s
1, 0.273 m s
1
herein, the emission becomes zero when the wind speed is less
than the threshold velocity at the 10 m height (4.4 m s
1), which
implies the incurrence of wind erosion.
In industrial sites, the wind is multi-directional in real condi-
tions. Turpin and Harion( 2009) show the evolution of the emission
factor of piles is a function of wind incidence angle. Consequently,
an average emission coefficient x is proposed based on the whole
year meteorology database. It fully considers the role of local wind
characteristics on dust emissions, and is described as follows:
X16 EF
x ¼ i¼1 EF
fi
 fi (10)
oi

and 0.250 m s
1 for each tested ones, accordingly.
EPA investigation shows that there is a pronounced influence of
wind directions on the velocity distribution over the piles, although
only three flow incident angles are experimented. Indeed, the used
porous fences exposed to the various wind conditions and flow
directions can drastically change flow patterns over the piles, hence
affecting emissions. Therefore, in this study, complementary
numerical simulations are carried out for other 15 different wind
direction segments and their velocity magnitude based on the site
wind flow characteristics. The results are presented in Table 1,
where x is average emission coefficient in dimensionless, EFfi and
EF0i are dust emission factors with and without the porous fences
under the ith wind direction in gyr
1, respectively fi is the ith wind
direction frequency according to the whole year meteorology
statistics, i is the wind direction segment within the whole year,
which amounts to 16 with respect to the wind rose.
Taking the emissions in the absence of porous fences as
benchmark, the emission coefficient is introduced to judge the
decreased magnitude of emissions under the shelter of porous
fences. By doing this, we can comprehensively assess the shelter

Table 1
Emissions under the various wind conditions during a whole year (kg).

Serial number Wind direction Wind Velocity (m/s) Wind direction frequency (%) No fence Scenario 1# Scenario 2# Scenario 3# Scenario 4#
1 N 3.7 3.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
2 NNE 3.4 4.54 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
3 NE 3.4 3.84 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
4 ENE 4.2 5.4 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
5 E 5.7 6.01 790.49 651.58 625.57 35.66 13.79
6 EES 5.3 7.15 596.47 540.11 493.16 82.22 30.72
7 ES 5.2 3.97 763.88 610.91 531.43 302.64 165.05
8 SSE 5.1 5.81 1149.41 553.47 499.46 390.22 341.64
9 S 5.0 6.66 1087.14 12.84 1.86 9.36 5.46
10 SSW 5.2 10.1 951.41 385.86 374.00 522.16 338.83
11 WS 4.7 7.52 488.61 160.05 104.02 340.53 77.96
12 WWS 4.6 8.67 373.48 22.68 17.93 297.51 6.52
13 W 3.9 4.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
14 WNW 4.6 6.87 367.81 33.39 17.76 287.34 8.48
15 NW 4.9 7.65 588.69 313.35 172.21 417.79 142.94
16 NNW 4.4 5.86 624.39 649.29 181.25 252.15 185.62
 X.C. Cong et al. / Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5247e5253
effect of the porous fences on dust emission quantification under
different wind conditions among the tested scenarios. It is obvious
that the closer x to 1, the worse the shelter effect provided by
porous fences, and vice versa. Thus, the coefficient can be used to
evaluate the effectiveness of fences under various wind conditions.
The emission coefficients for the four tested scenarios are 45.66%,
33.63%, 40.54% and 14.03%, respectively.
As for the shelter effect of fences, the fourth scenario is the most
favorable to reduce emissions. The reason is that all sides of open
yard are completely protected and stockpiles are not exposed
directly to the wind despite the wind variation. Its average emission
coefficient is only 14.03%, which means that more than 85% of wind
erosion possibility of dust particles is prevented by the fences. By
contrast, the first scenario with only two-side fences has the partial
protection. Its emission coefficient becomes 45.66% although the
fences are installed on the windward side against the dominant
wind direction. When one more fence is added along the north side,
it has better shelter effect with emission coefficient of 33.63%,
about 12% decrement than that of the first scenario.
Three-side fences are installed on the leeward of the dominant
wind direction in the third scenario. The average emission coeffi-
cient is 40.54% which was about 7.0% higher than the second one.
The result indicates that there is a difference in dust emission
reductions between the second and third scenarios. In other words,
it implies that the fences along the windward against the dominant
wind direction are more effective than that along the leeward.
As the wind erosion dependents largely on the local meteoro-
logical condition, the results are only available to Caofeidian harbor
areas. Due to specific meteorological characteristics in industrial
sites, each open yard has its particular flow properties representing
its wind exposure. This necessitates the development of a global
evaluation index for the shelter effect of porous fences. From this
point, the contribution of the present study is to put forward the
average emission coefficient x which considers whole year wind
conditions. Therefore, it offers a feasible approach to reasonable
installation of the porous fence from the technical view.
Among the four installation scenarios tested in the present
study, it is not easy to judge which one is the most cost-effective,
because adding one side fence means the increase of initial cost.
Hence, the feasible one is the compromising of environmental and
economic aspects. Due to the complexity of assessing impact of the
reduced dust particles on the environment from the economic
view, the balance between the satisfactory shelter effect and the
economic investment of fences requires more studies.
5. Conclusions
This paper is focused on the shelter effect of porous fences.
Numerical simulations are performed to investigate the flow
processes over surfaces of the aggregate stockpiles. Its use allows
fine and quick monitoring approaches to understanding the airflow
over stockpiles under various wind conditions. The emissions
decrease dramatically at the presence of porous fence compared
with the ones without the fence shelter. This study confirms the
findings of full-scale filed measurements conducted by Turpin and
Harion (2009) regarding the effectiveness of porous fence in
reducing dust emissions.
For four tested installation scenarios, it is possible to limit
aeolian erosion on coal yards by partial or overall sheltering
protection. This study offers an assessment index to evaluate the
shelter effect of porous fences exposed to various wind conditions
covering the whole year. In addition, it is complex to assess the
impact of the reduced dust particles on the atmospheric environ-
ment from the economic view. Therefore a further study is still
needed to balance the shelter effect and economic investment.
5253
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by the Nature Scientific Foundation
of P. R. China (NSFC) with the Number 50808115 and Nature
Scientific Foundation of Shandong Province, China with Number
2009ZRB01240.
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