Impact of vegetation on dustiness produced by surface coal mine in North Bohemia

Abstract

Abstract The contribution deals with the numerical simulation of the efficiency of the protective vegetative barriers close to an open coal mine. An assignment has come from the Czech mining company (Severoceske doly a.s.) requesting the assessment of the impact of a mine extension on the environment. The flow field and the concentrations are computed on 2D cuts with a real geometry of Bilina coal mine. System of the RANS equations for viscous incompressible flow with variable density in Boussinesq formulation is used for description of the flows. The two equations turbulence model is used for the closure of this set of equations. The transport equations for different diameters of pollutant are solved. The numerical solver is based on finite volume method and AUSM + up scheme. Advanced vegetation model which includes both influence of vegetation on the flow field as well as processes inside vegetation is adopted. For estimation of the efficiency of barrier several integral and point criteria are used.