Fume Flow Analysis Generated From Landfill Fire, A Case Study

Abstract

Toxic gasses generated as a result of landfill fire are a big concern to human health, especially in heavily populated urban areas. Such a situation occurred on September 25, 2020, at the country’s main landfill situated in Asuncion city, the most populated urban area in Paraguay. This is a recurrent situation, two days later; another fire started at the same landfill. It took 12 hours to control the fire. This event generated a plume of toxic smoke that spread through the urban area. This caused severe respiratory problems to the citizens living in the surrounding buildings. This work is a case study on the analysis of the smoke plume spreading from this landfill in an eventual fire in different wind directions. The main goal was to conduct computational fluid dynamics CFD simulation to be able to map the risk zone on this surrounding urban area. In order to validate this simulation, it was important to replicate this toxic cloud flow by conducting a computational fluid dynamics CFD simulation and comparing this result with actual data. For this purpose, a satellite image taken on the September 25 of the year 2020 fire event was utilized. A good agreement was observed in this comparison. This validated the boundary conditions of this computational tool. A mesh sensitivity analysis was also carried out to ensure a reliable result was obtained. The city hall as well as the fire departments from the city of Asuncion are now using this map as a guide to better prepare to deal with this toxic smoke by quickly evacuating or notifying residents in the risk zones. The national secretary of emergency is also provided with this map. Future work includes the analysis of not only other landfills but also warehouse or electric power substations where toxic fuel, such as askarel is present in a latent mode. A recent fire at community markets is also on the list of the potential smoke sources to be analyzed. This undergraduate student research paper is a work in progress. More data is being analyzed. The usefulness and practical use of this kind of computational tool are getting the interest of local authorities. This work helps to promote students’ motivation in the field of fluid dynamics. The impact on STEM education was noted in this case study. It is planned to compare other software and schemes to better understand computational tools. Finally, a result comparison between cases is expected to be presented.