Development of a Numerical Model for Predicting the Atmospheric Dispersion of Hydrogen-Sulfide Emitted from Geothermal Power Plants

Abstract

A numerical model for the environmental impact assessment of geothermal power plants was developed. The model was based on the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) that accurately takes into account the effects of plume rise, surrounding buildings and geophysical features. A new grid generation program for the LES was also included in the model. We carried out wind tunnel experiments to validate our numerical model. Based on the validation results, our numerical model represented the characteristics of the surface concentration obtained by the wind tunnel experiments. We concluded that our numerical model was applicable for the environmental impact assessment of geothermal power plants as an alternative to wind tunnel experiments.