Wind-Fence Efficiency Controling Particulate Matter Emissions from Coal Stockpiles in an Industrial Site

Fugitive emissions of particulate matter (PM) in stocks occur due to wind erosion, which carries over the material. This phenomenon represents a large part of the emissions from a pile yard in a coal industrial complex. To comply with legislation, air pollution control methods such as wind fences are used. This method aims to reduce wind speed, minimizing material dispersion.In order to evaluate wind’s barrier efficiency in an industrial park on the coast of Vitória, Espirito Santo, Brazil, the AIM software (Ansys) was applied and the simulation was performed using the standard k-ε model. The turbulence model and the computational grid were validated by comparing the velocity magnitude profiles of numerical simulations and the wind tunnel experiments developed by [1]. The simulations were carried out for East, Southeast, South, Southwest and West wind directions, from the period of 2015 - 2017, since those are intercepted by the wind fence before inciting the stock piles. Two different scenarios were studied: i) coal pile yard without the porous barrier and ii) coal stockpile yard with the porous barrier. The analysis were carried out in order to investigate the flow behavior in an industrial pile yard and also determine the efficiency of the wind fence, calculated by comparison of scenarios using the methodology proposed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA, 2006).The factors that influence the air flow were i) geometry and position of physical barriers in the low-pressure formation zones and intercepts; ii) wind barrier’s position and geometry in relation to the flow direction, causing a greater or lesser effect in the magnitude decrease of the flow velocity; and iii) incoming wind speed magnitude. It was concluded that porous barriers are a good method for PM controlling emissions, although the efficiency varies considering different wind directions and speeds. The efficiencies obtained in the simulations were 13% to East, 39% to Southeast, 33% to South, 59% to Southwest and 50% to the West direction, reaching an average of 42%.