Synergetics air quality services and practical management advice helps ensure both legal compliance and operational efficiency. We provide solutions for both common situations like modelling emission dispersion from point sources, and difficult problems such as fugitive building emissions for which standard methods are either inadequate or non-existent.
Figure 1: For modelling emissions and impacts in complex terrain, near buildings or where separation distances between sensitive receptors and sources are small, CFD is the preferred modelling tool.
Synergetics air quality services include:
- regulatory modelling of atmospheric pollutants from chimneys, roads and other simple sources utilising regulatory air dispersion models such as AUSPLUME, AUSROADS, AERMOD, CALPUFF and TAPM;
- dispersion modelling of complex air flow associated with vent emissions and fugitive emissions from road tunnels, stockpiles, industrial buildings and industrial complexes by application of sophisticated numerical modelling methods such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD);
- preparation and validation of meteorological data sets for use in dispersion modelling;
- classification of toxic and odourous emission sources, rates and background concentrations;
- determination of emission inventories;
- development and implementation of air quality management systems (AQMS), mitigation strategies and design of best practice emission controls to manage emissions and assure approval of development consent and ongoing compliance with environment protection licenses;
- meteorological forecasting to support implementation of air quality management systems;
- legal advice and expert witness representation;
- numerical modelling of air flows and pollutant dispersion around topographic features such as open pits, road canyons and building wakes;
- detailed risk assessments of health effects and potential environmental impacts associated with peak, short-term and long-term exposures;
- preparation of environmental impact statements (EIS) and air quality impact assessment reports to demonstrate compliance with relevant regulations; and
- monitoring of specialised environmental air quality indicators in accordance with applicable guidelines, standards and legislation.
Environmental and occupational air quality services have been employed by a wide range of industries and applications. Examples include mines, broiler chicken sheds, stacks from manufacturing and processing plants, construction activities, roads and road and rail tunnels. Each of these is an example of a facility with emissions that can impact surrounding sensitive receptors. During the approvals process, demonstrating the likely impacts often requires the use of dispersion modelling.
Figure 2: For long range air quality impacts, dispersion and ground level concentrations can be predicted using regulatory gaussian models. This plot shows the concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) at sensitive receptors near to a waste management facility.