SoundPLAN Air Manual

Air pollution modules page 17-1
Content
17 - AIR POLLUTION MODULES 2
Overview of news/modifications 2
News from the Geo-database 3
News from the libraries 3
News from the calculation core 3
News from the graphics 4
General considerations 5
Project considerations 5
Model 1: Gauss (TA Luft'86) 8
Model 2: Interface to AUSTAL2000 9
Model 3: MISKAM 13
Geo-database: Usable object types 16

Pollution sources (all modules) 16
MISKAM calculation area 18
Gauss (TA Luft 86) calculation area 19
AUSTAL2000 calculation area 20
Roughness areas (only MISKAM) 20
Receivers (only Gauss, AUSTAL2000) 20
Buildings (only Miskam, AUSTAL2000) 21
Objects to model the topography (only AUSTAL2000) 21
Libraries 21
Day histograms 21
Pollutants 22
Meteorological stations 22
Calculation core 26
Run properties: Selection of pollutants 26
Special run properties for Gauss (TA Luft'86) 26
Special run properties and control features for AUSTAL2000 27
Special run properties and control features for MISKAM 35
Special run properties for MISKAM Screening 39
Graphics 39
File selection - general 39
Grid pollution maps 40
Windfield Charts 42
File operations 43
Result tables 45
general hints 46
SoundPLAN manual last edit: 17.04.2007 13:37

page 17-2 Air-pollution-modules
17 - Air Pollution Modules

Overview of news/modifications
The MISKAM and Gauss (TA-Luft86) air pollution modules have been
greatly revised, and the documentation in the handbook completely rewritten.
New examples and practical hints for the modules will soon be available.
SoundPLAN AirPLAN modules now include an interface to AUSTAL2000
and a library for wind statistics.
AUSTAL2000 is not an integral part of SoundPLAN. AUSTAL2000 can be used in
accordance to GNU General Public License as freeware. Please read the license
conditions under www.austal2000.de. A copy of this text is also avialable on the
SoundPLAN CD. The program executables and description on the AUSTAL2000
website may be more recent than those on the SoundPLAN CD.
Some of the modifications in the air pollution modules are obvious. Others
were implemented for future expansion and to bring the program in line with
contemporary program development techniques. The modifications resulted
in major changes to the program and data structure. These modifications,
plus extensive testing and quality assurance caused version 6.4s release to
be delayed longer than had been anticipated.
The main components are tested and the software can be used. However, we
we would still like to optimize features in certain areas. These are identified
in the handbook with smiley faces having the following meanings:
means we are not sure we can leave the feature as it is, but time and expe-
rience with projects is needed to determine feasible alterations.
means there is a small glitch that will be fixed with one of the next inter-
net updates.
means it functions, but we have ideas how to improve it and upgrades will
be available soon.
This classification does not mean that everything marked will remain as
is; it means we can spend development time only once and we have already
blown the time budget for the air pollution modules!
As we may have unknowingly not included test cases for every potential use
of the modules, we advise the user to be critical of the new features such as
the libraries, the day histograms and the interface to AUSTAL2000. Please
report any handling problems and suspicious results to Klaus Wilhelm
Klaus.wilhelm@soundplan.de.
The AUSTAL2000 calculation core is freeware and not designed, coded or
tested by Braunstein + Berndt GmbH, we means we do not have much expe-
rience using this software. Braunstein + Berndt is only responsible for the
comfortable data entry, for the interface to and from AUSTAL2000, and for
the graphics. We are not responsible for the AUSTAL2000 core. We have no
knowledge how the program will cope with unexpected data and settings.
Feel free to share your experiences with us. We are especially interested in
understanding the limitations and boundary conditions of AUSTAL2000.
Integration of the help texts will commence end of September 2006.
Last edit: 17.04.2007 13:37 SoundPLAN manual

News from the Geo-database

Air pollution sources
SoundPLAN now supplies 4 different source types (point, line and area
sources, plus roads), with a revised air pollution tab. You can assigne emis-
sion day histograms to all the sources. Access to the day histograms helps
distribute the total day emissions according to the distribution of vehicles
over the course of the day. This is the means to correlate sources and weather
on an hourly basis.
Roughness areas
For MISKAM calculations, it is now possible to localize the roughness,
which means one can simulate situations where part of the study area has
slower air flow due to surface roughness (i.e., a forest upwind of a polluted
area). The Gauss (TA Luft '86) and AUSTAL2000 models do not allow this
localized roughness.
News from the libraries

The air pollution studies can now make use of three different libraries.
Day histograms
In the Geo-database, the total emission of an air pollution source can be con-
nected to a relative hourly distribution in order to set the hourly pollution
emission. The daily distribution can be derived from external programs such
as Mobilev and can be used for HBEFA type calculations.
Air pollutants
The pollutant library was revised. In the future, it must be decided which
percentile should be assessed for which pollutant. Pollutants to be calculated
using AUSTAL2000 must use the AUSTAL2000 naming convention. The
system library delivered with the software already contains the pollutants in
the correct naming convention.
Meteorological stations
As it has become more and more important to be able to increase the depth of
pollution studies stepwise, it has also become important to classify the wind
statistics. In order to simplify the classification and documentation, the li-
brary type "meteorological station" was introduced. Please do not confuse
this type with the wind statistics used in the noise propagation. These differ-
ent wind statistics libraries are incompatible.
News from the calculation core

Gauss TA Luft'86
The import functions for meteorological stations now allow you to process
annual wind statistics with an hourly resolution. If the wind statistics con-
tains the time of day, the source history will be correlated with the source
history of the meteorology. If no time of day is available for the wind statis-
tics, an average daily emission is used.
Because the calculation time can quickly increase to multiple hours for simu-
lations with a high resolution meteorological statistics, we optimized the al-
gorithm to section the road. Thanks to the new source types, the Gauss-
model can now be used to calculate the background pollution concentration
from city blocks close by with regard to the wind influence.

AUSTAL2000 Interface
Following the wishes of many users, SoundPLAN now offers an interface to
AUSTAL2000. This air pollution assessment software is available on the in-
ternet as freeware. SoundPLAN generates the management files and then
starts the programs TALdia (wind field) and AUSTAL2000 (propagation)
and offers a selection of the AUSTAL-results in the graphics. You can also
modify the AUSTAL-management files manually in order to experiment
with the program and try to simulate events that have not been foreseen in
the SoundPLAN adaptation.
Impulse related sources are not recognized as such
AUSTAL2000G for the assessment of smells is not yet supported
Emission day histograms are not yet supported
AUSTAL2000 offers some advantages that go beyond the capabilities of
MISKAM . For example, it is possible to calculate mildly undulating terrain
and the calculation can be calculated using high resolution wind statistics.
The fine time resolution calculation comes at a price of longer calculation
time for AUSTAL2000. It should also be stated that the model quality of
MISKAM in general is superior to that of AUSTAL2000.
MISKAM
The structure of the result files was changed; the data is organized more
clearly now and does not consume as much memory space as older versions.
In addition, it is now possible to calculate percentiles.
MISKAM, like Gauss and AUSTAL2000, can now process sources asso-
ciated with vertical impulses of the pollutants.
In the near future it will also be possible to associate sources with a time of day func-
tion so that MISKAM can correlate source history and wind conditions. This will of-
fer an interesting variation for worst-case assessments, but cannot be applied to cal-
culate the average annual conditions as it would clearly require too much calculation
time.
Standard MISKAM simulations without impulse related sources and with

neutral layering of the atmosphere (recommended settings for inner city an-
nual average calculations) have been accelerated greatly in version 6.4 as on-
ly the total number of wind directions and no longer the total number of me-
teorology cases determine the calculation time. If you have an on-going
project, we advise you to either postpone upgrading to the new version
of MISKAM or to redo all previous calculations as the results in version
6.4 are stored in a new format and older data cannot be read. For exam-
ple, it would not be possible to use wind fields calculated in version 6.3 for
propagation calculations in version 6.4.
MISKAM Screening
Starting with version 6.4, MISKAM Screening can simulate any pollutants
(not just the pollutants from the fixed list as in version 6.3).
News from the graphics

File selection
You cannot see most of the restructuring of the result files. The benefits of
the reorganization become apparent when the selection of the calculation
mode is automatically performed from the available data after the file selec-
tion menu is closed.
The NOx-conversion in the new version of MISKAM is no longer auto-
mated because it is not prudent to undertake this conversion without re-
garding the NOx-background pollution. You must now carry out this con-

version using the file operations. The number of operand files used is no
longer limited, and the formulas can now be edited freely.
The main reason we dropped the automatic NOx-conversion is because converting
the extra NOx pollution without regarding the background NOx concentration leads to
implausible results. It is much more sensible to add the background and the extra
pollution load with the file operations and then determine the amount of NO2. With
this procedure it is also sensible to gather results created with varying scope and by
different programs (for example, small scale extra pollution load calculated with
MISKAM combined with the local background concentration calculated with Gauss
or Austal2000 and big area background entered as a constant). A new function was
implemented for the conversion, but you can also implement any formula found in the
literature.
Background load handling will be the focus of future SoundPLAN air pollu-
tion development. Because the background concentration often depends on
wind directions and worst-case-scenarios, ignoring these direction dependen-
cies often leads to unrealistic results with excessive violations of the limits.
Literature
We would like to include all information available to us concerning air pollu-
tion on the SoundPLAN AirPLAN CD. Copyright laws state we can only
publish texts if we have consent from the authors. As a collection of web
links is not too helpful (links to conference papers often vanish after a short
time), we would appreciate comments and suggestions how to reach our goal
of including published air pollution texts.
General considerations
Project considerations
What are air pollution assessment studies useful for?
Since the European directive on ambient air quality and subsequent transla-
tion of the European law into national law (in Germany with 22 BImSchV
and TA Luft 02), the importance of air pollution prognosis has greatly in-
creased. In some countries with high transit traffic volume such as Switzer-
land, the air pollution concentration has long been identified as a serious
problem.
The focus in public approval procedures often is the comparison of simulated
pollution concentrations to concentration limits. The limits can vary depend-
ing on the standard and can be defined by the user in SoundPLAN (average
pollution concentration, percentile, threshold violations).
In the framework of clean air plans, the time sequence and correlation of the
emission scenarios can be of interest. Sometimes the emission balance is sufficient
to favor a variant, sometimes the area where a threshold value is exceeded is
important, and sometimes it is sensible to evaluate the pollution concentration in its
impact on residential dwellings. A program supporting more complex assessment
procedures is in the concept phase, but first the trend to predict future assessment
methods must be analyzed. This topic is high on the priority list of developements.
Rough-screening or fine-screening
It is common with air pollution prognosis to start with a rough screening
procedure and then refine the prognosis stepwise until it reaches the requir-
ments. This multiple step process must refine the prognosis of the ambient
background pollution level and also the extra pollution originating in the
study area.
With rough screening models such as MLuS (Merkblatt ber Luftverunreini-
gungen an Straen ohne oder mit lockerer Randbebauung Paper on air pol-
lution at roads without or with only few buildings) which are used in road
planning in Germany, the procedure is to estimate the emissions and then use

a distance decay function to calculate the pollution levels at receivers. The

calculation in this model is only a rough estimate as it disregards the influ-
ence of terrain, wind direction and wind speed. Therefore, the question with
a model such as this should not be, Are pollution limits violated? but ra-
ther, Is the pollution load low enough that we are sure no violation of the
limits can occur?
With rough screening models, it is paramount to ensure they estimate the
pollution concentrations on the safe side (i.e. over-predict the pollution con-
centrations). Each step of the emission prognosis to the dispersion should
yield answers higher than the pollution situation in reality. Prognosticated
pollution limit violations do not indicate a big problem exists, but rather
point to the need for further study using a more refined model for fine
screening with meteorology and buildings to better simulate reality. Only
when the rough screening indicates no problem exists can the rough screen-
ing phase of the air pollution study be completed.
Very accurate definitions of the scope of the air pollution investigation can
also be of importance with the fine screening. Clients most often want accu-
rate and exact results to compare with the pollution limit (what is the annual
average? How often does the concentration violate certain threshold val-
ues?). This seems very logical from the perspective of overseeing govern-
ment agencies. You do not have to have detailed knowledge of the field for
direct comparisons of limit and threshold values, and the question if some-
thing is ok or not can be solved quickly. The same tendency applies to the
public. Limit violations can be presented in the news easier than scientific
discussions about concentrations and their confidence intervals, but there are
reasons why one should not do this.
The current status of science cannot provide very precise forecasts. Mean,
and above all, the percentile calculations, not only require a precise calcula-
tion model, but they also need precise base data, which for the most part is
impossible to ascertain. The correlation between the emission day history
and the wind statistics alone cannot be prognosticated accurately. When the
input data are not completely reliable, the results of a fine screening proce-
dure are not as reliable as the fine screening requires, but fall into the catego-
ry of rough screening.
In order to produce an expertise that can withstand scientific scrutiny, it is
sometimes better to use a clearly defined worst case scenario rather than
create annual statistics from an uncertain input data base.
Hints for the project management
If an investigation needs to be organized as a multi-scope process, the ex-
penditure assessment is often extremely difficult. For example, what happens
if you have used a too extreme case for the worst case scenario and need to
recalculate the scenario with modified assumptions at a later stage? Are the
basic assumptions verified and backed by the client, or is the second simu-
lation taken from your profit? Do you have enough hardware and calculation
time available to finish all the required simulations within the given time-
frame?
For medium or big projects, allow at least 4 to 6 weeks from the time you re-
ceive the base data to finish the project.
We strongly advise you have a separate dedicated PC for calculating. Faster
and more reliable hardware means you can run more trials and can finish the
project more accurately and within budget.
How much knowledge is required to make successful prognosises of air
quality?
There is not one computation model available that automatically does every-
thing so correctly that you can believe the results without a doubt. This
statement is unfortunately true for models the authorities require and for
models of superior quality such as those integrated into SoundPLAN. Check-

ing and interpreting the results, verifying the consistency, finding implausi-
ble answers and defending the input data is always necessary and requires a
fair amount of knowledge about the subject. Your task is to assess how well
the model recreates the physical environment and to verify the geographical
scope is sufficient. Without background knowledge in the field of air quality,
it is impossible to state if a completed model is consistent and true in its enti-
rety. The technical knowledge concerning how the model is operated is not
sufficient. Aside from the immediate questions of air pollution dispersion, it
would also be very helpful if you understood the micro climate influences
that affect the air quality.
How can a consultant who has not studied about air quality acquire the
necessary knowledge?
Our first recommendation would be to study the urban climate booklet. It is
available on the internet in various on-line revisions.
German:
http://www.staedtebauliche-klimafibel.de/index-2.htm
English:
http://www.staedtebauliche-klimafibel.de/Climate_Booklet/index-2.htm
Next, you should learn what can be done with the different models, what
should not be attempted with the different models, and why you can or can-
not use a specific model for certain applications. We attempt to support you
in this quest.
Many a consultant is pressured into promising results that in the end cannot
be supported sufficiently. You should always be aware what your model is
capable of doing accurately and how long it takes to do that, and develop al-
ternate methods of solving problems to keep the time and cost of your
projects to a minimum. It is also paramount to know how reliable and rele-
vant the model input data is.
How can I recognize a good simulation model?
If a model was created and validated for the same type investigation you are
doing, then it can accurately simulate a real situation and if the correct para-
meters are used recreate the values measured. However, you would be very
lucky to easily achieve good results your first time.
In general, the critical parameters of dispersion calculations are not within
the models: Wind statistics from the nearest meteorological station often
dont fit very well at your location, the ambient pollution concentration can
only be estimated, and the emission values are often educated guesses (and
these are often based on guesses of traffic scenarios, etc.).
It is also very questionable to advertise a prognosis as truth, especially if it
cant be verified by measurement. Without the feedback of the measurements
the prognosis cannot be improved or refined; it can only be replaced with
another estimate based on different assumptions.
It is wise to combine multiple approaches to refine your model and make it
as close as possible to reality. The model geometry and wind statistics can be
calibrated with a series of simulations representing actual measurements be-
fore you enter the prognosis phase. Further refine this with adjustments of
the model parameters to increase the reliability of the derived prognosis.
Last but not least, even the best models have innate strengths and weaknesses
that cannot be ignored when generating the model and interpreting the re-
sults.
Usability of the SoundPLAN models
The air pollution models SoundPLAN integrated were developed by external
experts. The authors validated the models for the meteorological conditions
in Germany. If you want to apply these models in different climate zones, it
may be wise to contact the authors of the models and the local weather office

to assure the conditions can be modified to fit your climate conditions. An

internet search may also be helpful. There are many publications available
comparing the different models and you can read aboute different applica-
tions in various climate and topographical conditions.
Model 1: Gauss (TA Luft'86)

Development
TA Luft '86 is a German regulation TA Luft 02 replaced in 2002. The new
procedure calls for a Lagrange model (see AUSTAL2000) instead of the
older Gauss-model. Although the Gauss model has been replaced, it has its
merits. It is very useful for calculating rough screening cases and it has a big
advantage in its superior calculation speed. This is especially true for road
pollution investigations where the terrain is relatively level with few build-
ings where the pollutants can disperse unmitigated.
The detailed procedures for the Gauss model are printed in annex C of TA-
Luft86 provided in PDF-format on the SoundPLAN-CD.
SoundPLAN organizes the model generation and calculation management
and offers postprocessing of the results in the graphics components. The re-
sults of single location calculations are stored in SoundPLANs result tables.
The possibility of moving the single results from the result tables to the
spreadsheet has been prepared and will be implemented in the near future. In
the spreadsheet, it will be possible to execute the conversion between the
NOx components with the same flexibility as in the grid operations of the
graphics. However, we view single location results in air pollution calcula-
tions very critically. (See Result Tables)
Model description
The Gauss-model of TA Luft'86 was initially designed for sources high
above the ground with relatively big distances between sources and receivers
and with buildings not having a big influence on pollutant dispersion. As the
Gauss-model does not allow for the influence of buildings, the only coordi-
nate based information the model uses is the height of sources and receivers
above the ground and the distance between them. In the free field, the pollu-
tion concentrations are very plausible, even for road sources.
In these simple geometrical structures, the program can calculate the disper-
sion and transportation for any number of wind directions and speeds in a
steady state condition. The steady state condition describes the state the pol-
lution transportation and dispersion would generate if the wind speed and di-
rection were constant for a long time.
In contrast to more in depth models, the Gauss model does not calculate a
wind field and then subject the pollutants to it, but uses empirically validated
functions with the parameters for wind speed, wind direction and six
Klug/Manier type stability classes. When grid pollution maps are calculated,
the grid is only used to determine the location of the receivers.
Available object types

Thanks to the low geometrical requirements, the model only needs sources
(point, line and area pollution sources, plus roads) and receivers (receiv-
ers for single receiver calculations or a (noise) calculation area for grid pol-
lution maps).
The closer the sources are to the ground, the less the model can handle undu-
lating terrain or buildings. However, with well founded knowledge of local
climate conditions, you can use Gauss calculations in rougher terrain to find
hot spots showing where in depth investigations or preventative measures
are needed. For this, it is not sufficient to only simulate single point receivers

or extrapolate the values from a pollution map. You must also have a compe-
tent assessment and interpretation of the results.
Like other obstacles, the model does not evaluate noise protection walls
along roads. In the rough screening case, it is possible to simulate the walls
by placing the road (and thus the pollution source) at the same height as the
top of the noise protection wall (difference between h1 and h2 = wall height).
If the noise protection wall is not symmetrical on both sides of the road, you
must split the simulation in two, one for each direction.
The results are slightly on the high side as long as single buildings are not
closer than 30 m from the wall. If you are uncertain about the results, an ex-
emplary calculation with MISKAM may help support or modify the ap-
proach to the noise protection wall problem.
Application scope
Accuracy: The Gauss-model is a rough screening model for fast and rough
estimates of pollution concentrations.
The use of this model for road investigations with parallel calculations of
Gauss and MISKAM indicates that generally the results are more realistic
with the SoundPLAN Gauss approach than with the standard MLuS. As the
Gauss model produces acceptable results (pollution concentration maps) with
very short calculation times, it can be used as an alternative to the MLuS.
Nitrogen dioxide: The NOx concentration is automated, but we still advise
doing the conversion manually in the grid operations with the NOx result as
the input parameter. This allows you to select the criteria used in the conver-
sion from NOx to NO2 and to choose the ambient NOx concentration that was
not generated in the investigation area but carried into from. In contrast to
MLuS, the Gauss approach can easily model road intersections and entire
road networks.
Ambient pollution concentration: The ambient concentration can be added
to the pollution map via the grid operations either as a single value or as a
grid map. Add concentrations before the NOx NO2 conversion is started.
The difference between the simulated pollution level and the threshold value
is often less than the error occurring in too coarse an estimate of the ambient
pollution concentration. Even the ambient pollution concentration depends
on wind direction and speed. Especially for NO2, whose conversion speed
depends on the total NOx concentration, it depends on how the different
plumes are superimposed on one another. It is often not enough to work with
a single average background pollution level for the conversion of NOx within
the model.
Because of its fast calculations, the Gauss model is an ideal helper for simu-
lations using AUSTAL2000 or MISKAM as it can estimate the annual aver-
age ambient pollution concentration while regarding the influence of the
wind direction and speed. For calculations or percentiles, the procedure is
more complicated because the superposition of ambient and extra pollution
concentrations cannot be undertaken with individual results of episodes of
wind directions. If the direct way to correlate Gauss averages with episodes
for MISKAM or AUSTAL is not correct, a worst case assessment is needed
to find the average condition of the ambient concentrations that lead to sens-
ible results.
Model 2: Interface to AUSTAL2000

Development
AUSTAL2000 is an exemplary program for calculations in accordance to the
TA-Luft 2002. Dr. Janickes office, Dunum, developed the model (similar to

LASAT which they also developed) under contract of the German Umwelt-
bundesamt (German EPD). It can be downloaded as from the web.
The latest revision, the program description in German, the validation data
and additional information such as the licensing conditions, is available on
the authors website, http://www.austal2000.de/.
Excerpt from this website (translation):
TA Luft 86 (Technische Anleitung zur Reinhaltung der Luft=technical manual for
clean air) because of new technological developments and changes in the European
legislation was revised. The TA Luft 2002 was published on 30 July 2002 in the
publication Gemeinsames Ministerialblatt(Ministerial Bulletin) and became law
on October 1, 2002.
The annex 3 of the TA Luft 2002 the standard refers to the VDI 3945 sheet 3 with
its dispersion calculation according to a Lagrange particulate model (exemplary
implementation: IBJparticle). The calculation program AUSTAL2000 was generat-
ed as demonstrator to show the implementation of annex 3 in its new revision. The
program was implemented for the Umweltbundesamt (under the UFOPLAN project
ID 200 43 256 Development of a simulation based assessment system for installa-
tion specific environmental protection, Ing.-Bro Janicke under contract of
Umweltbundesamt).
Even in its earliest stages the Umweltbundesamt made the program package
AUSTAL2000 available to the public. This was understood as a service to aid the
quality of predictions. The implementation of annex 3 alone already enables the
correct execution of the guideline. With AUSTAL2000 a reference solution is made
available to check other programs claiming to solve the equations of annex in a
similar way.
SoundPLAN organizes the generation of model data and the calculation, and
it offers grid maps with the full functionality of SoundPLANs graphics for
presenting results. Additionally, it saves all the input data and results (re-
sults and protocol files) AUSTAL2000 generates.
Model description
AUSTAL2000 consists of 3 programs; TALdia for calculating the diagnostic
wind field, VDISP for assessing the rise of a plume from the chimney (in ac-
cordance to VDI 3784 sheet 2), and AUSTAL2000 for calculating the plume
dispersion (Lagrange model, based on VDI 3945 sheet 3). The model com-
putes the plume dispersion and transport in a three dimensional grid. This
model allows local refinement of the base grid with a finer mesh.
Stating the procedure very simply, one assumes a fixed number of particles
emitted in constant time steps with a random impulse from a source are fol-
lowed as they are transported with the wind. Eventually a steady state is
reached where the number of particles in each cell stops changing signifi-
cantly (particles leaving the cell are replaced by new ones at about the same
rate). When this stationary state is reached, the pollutant concentration can be
calculated from the number of particles in each cell.
The program core uses data in ASCII format with pollution data and a lot of
control characters. AUSTAL2000 writes the result data in ASCII files where
SoundPLAN can use it for grid pollution maps. To make it easier to generate
the input data and visualize the results, SoundPLANs calculation core con-
trols and supplies data to the program core of AUSTAL2000. SoundPLANs
graphics can read and visualize the result files AUSTAL2000 produces.
SoundPLAN fully automatically supports only the functionality deemed im-
portant for consulting jobs. SoundPLAN takes the model data from the Geo-
database and the calculation parameters defined in the calculation spread-
sheet, generates the control file AUSTAL2000.txt and fully automatically
starts the programs TALdia , VDISP and AUSTAL2000 in the right se-
quence and with the correct files and information. Before starting the auto-
mated sequence, SoundPLAN presents the control file for AUSTAL2000 so
you can customize the AUSTAL2000 control sequence if you want to.

AUSTAL2000 uses a calculation grid and references the input geometry to

this grid format. The input grid and the calculation grid do not have to con-
form to each other in the coordinate system or grid spacing. As we generate
the input grid ourselves, we try to match the different grids as much as poss-
ible. Translations between grids are possible, but they lead to a loss of
sharpness.
The following sequence is automatically started with the AUSTAL2000-
calculation run:
(Management details are described in the calculation run properties. To avoid confu-
sion, Geo-database objects are marked with SP)
1. Preparation of the terrain grid

To transfer the topography, SoundPLAN generates a terrain file named
dgmgrid.txt when AUSTAL2000 is called. The terrain is defined in a 2 di-
mensional grid with the elevation as the grid value. The areas border is de-
fined by the SP-calculation area. The topography for this area can either be a
constant elevation or can be produced from the SoundPLAN DGM.
No matter what, the AUSTAL2000 calculation run needs a SP calculation area even
if you allow AUSTAL2000 to generate its own grid.
The grid spacing can be selected as desired.
2. Pre-calculation of the building grid

Buildings are entered in AUSTAL2000 calculation runs as a three dimen-
sional grid via the file buildings.dmna. This file is automatically generated
when the SoundPLAN Geo-file contains a building. Buildings are modeled
in the grid structure with their relative height to the ground (similar to a set
of building blocks) In SoundPLAN the horizontal grid spacing can only be
an integer number acting as divisor of the terrain grid in order to minimize
diffuseness when generatng the calculation grid.
Too large a grid spaceing can, even with net nesting, lead to a situation
where all buildings are ignored!
3. Calculation of the AUSTAL2000 calculation grid

Size and grid spacing can be generated automatically or defined manually.
Either way, the terrain grid must completely encompass the calculation grid
or AUSTAL2000 will terminate the calculations. If your calculation grid is
generated automatically, the rule is always met because the SP calculation
area is used to generate the terrain grid.
Using the automatically generated grids might cause loss of sharpness if the
grid spacings of the different grids are not identical.
The physical basis of the dispersion model is defined in the VDI-standard
3945 sheet 3. Unfortunately, copyright law prevents use from reproducing
this (it can be obtained through the Beuth-publishing house: www.beuth.de,
there is an English entry on the main page and most newer standards are
written bilingual).
All AUSTAL2000 control and result files are in the folder RAUSxxxx (R
stands for result, AUS for AUSTAL2000, xxxx for the particular calcu-
lation number). Wind fields are stored in the folder lib.

AUSTAL2000 has imposed a geographical restriction on all model data be-
cause it is required to fit into the third stripe of the Gauss-Krger-
Coordinate-Systems (East-West x: 3279000 to 3957000 and in North-
South y: 5229000 to 6120000). If your coordinate system differs from this
value range, it is wise to make a coordinate transformation in the SP Geo-

database by adding the appropriate values to all marked x and y components

of the coordinates.
The coordinate correction has a slight disadvantage because the coordinates of
the result files do not conform to your local coordinate system. We will try to
correct this problem in a future version of the AUSTAL2000 interface.
AUSTAL2000 uses point, line and area type, plus road as pollution
sources. The grid is generated within the boundaries of the AUSTAL2000
calculation area. Important: All sources must be inside the calculation area!
It is possible to define up to 10 single point receivers (noise single receivers
with only a single floor). Currently the post processing is not implemented in
the documentation, but you can always do this directly from the ASCII result
files in the result folder. The German authorities prefer these results.
In order to process terrain information you must first run the base data
through the DGM and then attach the DGM to your AUSTAL2000 calcula-
tion run. SoundPLAN will generate the AUSTAL2000 input file dgmgrid.txt
with the grid elevations. Details are written in the description of the calcula-
tion properties.
If the Geo-file contains buildings, they will be incorporated in the AUS-
TAL2000 format. The buildings.dmna file is generated for this. Details are
written in the description of the calculation properties.
Model usage
Accuracy: On the first glimpse, AUSTAL2000 seems to be a universal mod-
el because it allows more model data than models like MISKAM while di-
viding the simulation area into equally fine grid cells. The possibility to
model the terrain is very positive as is the higher resolution of the wind sta-
tistics.
Diagnostic models are said to be faster than prognostic models, but this ad-
vantage disappears with a high resolution wind statistics. If terrain and build-
ings are modeled, you must budget a lot of time. We are currently making
comparisons of large projects using AUSTAL2000 and MISKAM and will
share our results when the comparisons are completed.
Model restrictions do occur, unfortunately, especially where you desire par-
ticular accuracy:
Very small grid spacing and nested calculation grids have an extremely nega-
tive effect on the calculation time. They also increase the statistical uncer-
tainty and sometimes make grid pollution maps difficult to interpret because
neighboring cells can experience relatively high fluctuations in the results. If
the task is to compare contour lines with pollution limits, the unpleasant
wobble in the lines makes it difficult to explain to lay people. Even an in-
crease in the number of particles does not always solve the problem.
In depth calculations of road pollutants within an urban area are obviously
not the main focus of AUSTAL2000 as they may lead to warnings in the
AUSTAL2000 protocol that the sources in the vicinity of the buildings are
too low to the ground. For the purpose of estimating the ambient pollution
load, a rough calculation of the situation above the roof of buildings can be
simulated without the buildings in the calculation by selecting proper rough-
ness length parameters. The pollution load, however, does not represent the
concentration within a street canyon and can only be used for the ambient
concentration to superimpose it to the extra concentration and to calculate the
rate of NOx conversion.
On the other hand, these maps with the variations in the contours indicate
much more prominently than other, more consistent models, how much un-
certainty air pollution simulations still contain.
Nitrogendioxide: We have not fully understood the conversion from NOx to
NO2 contained in AUSTAL2000 ! The grid maps under the label NOx al-

ready contain some sort of NOx-NO2-conversion, so it should not be sub-

jected to another manual conversion with the grid operations of the graphics.
In contrast to AUSTAL2000, we prefer to have the conversion of NOx-NO2
after the background (ambient) concentration has been added to the concen-
tration which is the result of the simulation. As a workaround to this defi-
ciency we recommend simulating the NOx under a new name xx to avoid
the automatic conversion. This allows you to control the conversion in the
grid operations manually and to incorporate the ambient pollution concentra-
tions derived from different simulations.
Ambient concentration: AUSTAL2000 allows you to enter an ambient
concentration for each hour contained in the wind statistics. In principle, this
is the most accurate method to obtain an accurate annual average pollution
concentration. In the case of a prognosis, it seems a little bit far fetched that
we should be able to come up with a database supporting the ambient con-
centration for each case in the wind statistics. Currently we do not support
this data entry, but we will have the procedures in mind in future develop-
ments.
In SoundPLAN, the ambient concentration can be added in the grid opera-
tions of the graphics. This should be undertaken before starting the NO2-
conversion.
Model 3: MISKAM
Development
MISKAM was developed and programmed by Dr. Joachim Eichhorn from
the University of Mainz and is maintained and improved by his office Giese-
Eichhorn, umweltmeteorologische Software, 55263 Wackernheim. To adapt
the most important features of MISKAM for the planning practice, it was in-
corporated into the SoundPLAN suite where the data preparation and post
processing are managed.
SoundPLAN organizes the model generation, controlls the calculations and
offers the full functionality of the SP-graphics for the presentation of grid
pollution maps. In addition to the concentrations, it is possible to depict the
wind field with wind vectors indicating the 3D direction and wind strength.
Model description
MISKAM is a prognostic fine screening model which converts the building
geometry into a 3 dimensional structure of building blocks and then simu-
lates the air movement through the area. Cells with buildings block the wind
and force air to move around or over the structures. To correctly simulate the
gaps between buildings, grid spacing must be selected that allows free cells
between buildings in order for the results to represent the reality.
Starting with the classified wind statistics, SoundPLAN generates an inflow
profile for each of the wind directions. The wind field simulation then simu-
lates how the inflowing air is pushed through the model. This process con-
tinues stepwise until the pressure differences in the model have equalized
and a stationary state is reached.
When the wind field has reached this stationary state, pollution concentra-
tions are subjected to the wind field in a similar manner. New pollution
masses are emitted stepwise and carried from cell to cell. Eventually a statio-
nary state is reached, after which the concentrations do no longer change.
Using the probability of each wind field occurance, SoundPLAN calculates
the mean, percentile and threshold infringements. You can plot the concen-
trations each wind field creates as well as the statistical parameters.
Moreover, a wind map can show the aerodynamic properties of the model
with wind direction, wind speed and the horizontal tilt of the wind vector,

making MISKAM an even more valuable tool. Decreased air supply to a

city block can be detected, and windows of buildings can be dimensioned for
a venturi effect between highrises.
Dr. Eichorn has written an indepth model description which is available in
German language on the SoundPLAN CD and our website.

MISKAM uses the objects types point, line and area pollution sources,
roads, MISKAM calculation areas, buildings and roughness areas. The
terrain is ignored, which means the terrain must be relatively level. In spite
of this, the usage in valley situations is possible if certain conditions are met:
- The individual investigation area is level.
- The wind statistics was generated for the topographical conditions of the
investigation area.
- Building can sufficiently simulate the terrain structure (for example, a
tunnel emerging from the face of a mountain).
Using buildings to further simulate the terrain does not make sense because the grid
maps follow the horizontal layering of the model and would only cover certain pieces
of the map.
Simulating the valley structures outside the immediate calculation area is possible by
adding buildings in the shape of the Valley slope. But this solution does not include
thermal effects like cold air flowing into valleys at night and warm air rising at the
edges of the valley. We recommend having an outside expert (i.e. meteorological ser-
vices) calculate the wind statistics for a point inside your investigation area.
The coordinates of all objects are used relative to the ground rather than us-
ing absolute coordinates.
Buildings are distributed amongst the grid cells in accordance to their height
as defined in the object properties of the Geo-database. The grid cells are ei-
ther empty or full so that it is best illustrated as a model of rectangular build-
ing blocks. SoundPLAN attempts to distribute the buildings in the block
structure, but also must snap to the upper edge of the next layer.
Schematic display of building cells after converting from the original building (taken
from the original description of MISKAM)
Before distributing the emissions to the grid cells the road emission is set to
0.5 meters above the terrain. The difference between h1 (height of the road
surface) and h2 (terrain height) is evaluated to accommodate roads on em-
bankments. Roads are viewed as bands. The road width defined in the object
properties in the Geo-database determines the source width in the grid. As
roads parallel to the coordinate system touch fewer cells than roads intersect-

ing the axis with 45 degrees, the emission for the diagonal road is distributed
on more grid cells than the parallel variant. The total emission remains un-
changed as the pollution each cell emits is computed exactly.
Roads on an incline are not built into the grid structure as a ramp; they are
considered a set of steps. In order to minimize the discontinuities, the thick-
ness of the layers should be selected appropriately (obviously not too thick).
All other sources are also placed on top of a flat area with the difference be-
tween h1 and h2 as the height above the terrain. The exact location of the
sources again depends of the height of the next layer in the grid system.
A cell can contain multiple sources; however, it is not possible to have a
source in a cell covered by a building. As the transformation to grid cells is
not completely foreseeable, the sources in cells with buildings are either ig-
nored (roads and line sources) or shifted to a higher, free cell (point sources
and area sources).
The rules concerning which source must be moved to which location may still
allow for more optimization and we cannot rule out that they will be modified in
the future. The problem is that modifications that seem sensible in one project type
might render the simulation useless in another, so caution is advised.
The best way to avoid problems is to think through the model carefully, and locate
the coordinate system and choose the grid size in a way that avoids the relocation of
sources as much as possible. Please make use of the control graphics in the calcula-
tion core to verify your model. (see run properties of MISKAM).
Model usage
Accuracy: MISKAM is recommended as one of most accurate models cur-
rently available that can solve simulations for air quality questions on a PC
with acceptable expenditure of time and standard hardware.
MISKAM demonstrates its strengths especially in built up urban areas
where road sources are embedded between buildings and a turbulent flow
must be modeled. However, the undisputable qualities of MISKAM should
not be jeopardized by selecting too course a grid as this would lead to devia-
tions with flows parallel or diagonal to the grid and would not correctly
model the flow in narrow gaps between buildings.
Even the best simulation program cannot deliver good results if the require-
ments of the model data are ignored. The grid defined for a MISKAM cal-
culation has significant influence on the results as it not only defines the lo-
cation of the receivers but also influences the spatial resolution of the wind
vectors.
The influence of the grid system is most prominently seen with point sources
as it requires a much finer grid and also a much finer resolution of the wind
field. For roads, the grid effects of many partial sources are superimposed
upon each other, especially when the building structures force the main wind
direction to be channeled close to the ground.
MISKAM is less suited for large scale areas with the pollutants emitted
from point sources high above the ground. For this case, the calculation
times of MISKAM compared with other models would be very high because
of the fine resolution of the grid and the wind statistic.
In general, consider if the desired results require the entire wind statistics to
be simulated or if a restriction to critical wind directions is sufficient.
Sometimes it is enough to use worst case scenarios to confirm the planning
doesnt violate any critical pollution thresholds or laws.
Nitrogendioxide: The file operations in the graphics allow you to freely
choose which criteria and formulas to use for converting NOx to NO2. This
NOx conversion for grid pollution maps is completed after the regular simu-
lation of the transport and dispersion equations.

As MISKAM saves the pollution concentrations for each wind direction,

there is a temptation to calculate the NOx concentrations for individual wind
directions with the grid operations, forgetting that the conversion formulas
were derived from a multitude of measurements made for very diverse me-
teorological situations and thus the concentrations of NO2 will result in cred-
ible results only for the assessment of an entire year.
For single events and scenarios, the formulas for the conversion are not suf-
ficient; NOx reacts very strongly to other photo oxidants in the air as well as
to solar radiation (especially UV) and temperature. Identical start concentra-
tions can result in very different conversion rates depending on the environ-
mental parameters. Therefore the NO2 concentrations can not be determined
for individual cases.
Ambient or background concentration: The ambient concentration can be
added via the grid operations of the graphics. This procedure should be done
before the NO2 concentration is simulated.
Geo-database: Usable object types

Pollution sources (all modules)
The four types of pollution sources are roads, point, line, and area sources.
The introduction of the new MISKAM and TA-Luft sources made the older
source definitions obsolete.
Data entry is basically the same for all types of source.
The data entry table at first only contains a single line for the pollution where
you can enter the emission rate. Use the button at the top of the table to
add new lines. Use the button to delete the line where the cursor is lo-
cated.
The POLLUTANT column contains a list showing all pollutants present in the
projects pollution library.
The DISTRIBUTION column determines if a pollutant is emitted at the same
rate throughout the day or if a day histogram for the emission rate should be
used. Click on the library button on top of the table to load the day histo-
gram, or enter the hourly data manually in the columns on the right side of
the table.

The day histogram data from the library do not have to be present for the ex-
act pollutant. If you enter a value in the SUM PER DAY column, the total
amount of pollutants are distributed over the day in accordance to the day
histogram. This means a uniform cocktail from a chimney with variable
hourly rates only needs a single day histogram. If no day histogram is
present, the total emission is distributed evenly over 24 hours.
The day histogram of the library is only used as a tool to distribute the days
emissions. It is possible to overtype individual hourly values without having
to return to the library. The daily total will adjust to changes in the hourly
values.
If you decide to change the value in the SUM PER DAY field, the hourly data is
adjusted wether or not the values came from the library or were entered ma-
nually.
The UNIT column defines the unit of the pollutant. Aside from the common
units mass per source, mass per length of source, or mass per square meter of
source, it is also possible to work with smell indicators. The GE (Geruchs
Einheiten = smell units) unit is defined as the multitude of the smell thre-
shold.
For point sources and roads, additional properties are evaluated that will in-
fluence the pollutant transport and dispersion.
Point sources can be emitted from a chimney with a start impulse because a
warm plume will rise faster against the surounding air. The extra rise of the
plume is added to the elevation to simulate the emission in the effective
source height. This parameter is evaluated by all propagation models.
For roads, the parameter road width (under tab CROSS SECTION in the road
properties) is evaluated differently for each of the calculation models. In
general, for emissions of roads with inclines, it is wise to model each of the
lanes as single lane roads.
The emissions must be simulated with external models. For Germany, Aus-
tria and Switzerland, a joint project has defined emission factors (HBEFA)
which are used to estimate pollutants from motor vehicles. The emission
considers driving modes, inclines, vehicle types, speed, etc. The HBEFA da-
ta are updated regularly to keep them in line with the changing vehicle fleet
and driving conditions. Various solutions are offered in the literature for the
emissions from tires, break dust, clutch and dust kicked up from the road, but
none of them have reached the practical stage.
Local environmental protection agencies must decide how the emission fac-
tors can be transposed for different countries.
Details to HBEFA:
http://www.hbefa.net (available in German and in English)

MISKAM calculation area
The MISKAM-calculation area defines how the investigation area is to be

converted into a 3D grid cell structure. The calculation is structured in an in-
ner area for which the pollutant concentrations are simulated (shown in the
Geo-database as a regular grid) and an outer area which extends the regular
grid by adding multiple cells on the outside. The outside cells increase in size
the farther they are from the inner area. This outside is added to mitigate non
steady effects as they occur at the boundary of the calculation area where no
pollutants can be found. The outside area is depicted in the Geo-database on-
ly as a frame.
The calculation area is always a rectangle and is hinged with a definition

point in the lower left side of the calculation area. This point contains the de-
finitions of the MISKAM calculation area and is requested automatically
when you enter this reference point.
Beneath the GRID tab, the grid definitions for inner calculation are defined.
On the right side, the extra area for the outside is defined; in this case, 5 cells
wide with the cells increasing in size by a factor of 1.1.
Grid spacing for results (inner grid definition):
NUMBER: Number of grid cells in x and y directions.
SIZE: Length/width of each grid cell. The cells are the same size,but

the sizes can differ between x and y directions.

LENGTH: Total calculation area size in meters in x and y directions
(calculated cell size times the number of cells).
It is advisable to rotate the grid so the building structures are aligned with the
grid. When selecting the cell size, it is important that the model is fine
enough to simulate the wind flow within the street canyon. In general, 8-10
cells are sufficient for this task. Only the consultant however can determine
if each small side street should be treated in this manner for his specific
project.
The counter clockwise rotation angle is entered when rotating the calculation
area.
Grid spacing for the extended area (OUTSIDE CELLS):
NUMBER: Number of extra grid cells in lines and columns
FACTOR: Width/height of the extra cells (they increase successively in

size; width = width of the next cell towards the center times a
factor. This factor can be between 1.0 and 1.99; only the digits
after the decimal are user definable).
Define the cell layers (z component of the cells) under the LAYERS tab:
NUMBER: Number of layers.
HEIGHT: Can be selected equidistant for all layers and then extended
manually for the higher layers (hook for equidistant first, then
deactivate the hook and correct manually).
When defining the layers, please remember that a realistic transport and dis-
persion can only be expected if the vertical transport is uninhibited. The top
layers of the model reach well above the ridges of the roofs of the building in
the area. Between the buildings, the layers should remain fine enough to be
able to represent the different heights found in the building block structure.
However, a too fine resolution will increase calculation time. When viewing
the model data in the SoundPLAN calculation core, the program will dis-
patch an error message if the calculation area needs to reach a higher eleva-
tion (cell height) or if the number of layers is insufficient:
The top of the highest building must not exceed 33% of the total height of the
model (top of highest layer).
The highest building must be within the lower half of the layers!
Sources cannot be located in the lowest layer. Because the roads place their
source height at 0.5 meters, the lowest layer must be less than that. Follow-
ing is an example of common layering for road pollution simulations (this is
not a rule but common practice, and in some case it makes sense to define
the layers differntly):
0-0.33-0.66-1-2-3-4-5-7-9-11-13-15-20-25-30-50-100-150-200
Please remember when positioning the sources that the sources always move
to the middle of the cell and to the middle of the layer.
Gauss (TA Luft 86) calculation area

There is no special Gauss (TA Luft 86) calculation area, please use the
noise calculation area.

AUSTAL2000 calculation area
For the time being, please use the same calculation area as for noise
calculations!
At the moment AUSTAL2000 calculates the pollutant concentrations for the area de-
fined as a noise calculation area. The grid spacing is defined as one of the calcula-
tion parameters (see the calculation core chapter).
In the future we will assign some of the parameters directly to the calculation area in
order to define both an inner calculation area which will be displayed later, and an
outer area as it is used for MISKAM that is used only to cover the transition area en-
sure the inner area always reaches the steady state.
Because AUSTAL2000 can only use rectangular calculation areas with the
sides aligned with the coordinate system, you must initially enter the calcula-
tion area by clicking in the upper left corner of the calculation area, pressing
the mouse button and moving to a position in the lower right corner. If you
dont do this, the program will generate a rectangular north oriented calcula-
tion area which fully encompasses the original area.
Roughness areas
(only MISKAM)
Along with the explicitly calculated objects like buildings, it is also possible
to estimate the influence of smaller, scattered obstacle with the roughness pa-
rameter. Of the models in SoundPLAN, only MISKAM is capable of eva-
luating the roughness with spatial differentiation. Use the roughness areas
provided as an object type in the Geo-database to mark areas of equal rough-
ness. Roughness is defined as ROUGHNESS LENGTH Z0 in cm. MISKAM
has 6 different classes:
0 (roof of a building)
1 (z0 = 1 cm) Asphalt or equal without obstacles
2 (z0 = 5 cm) Meadow
3 (z0 = 10 cm) Meadow with single trees, bushes
4 (z0 = 25 cm) Dense, low vegetation
5 (z0 = 50 cm) Low, scattered, but not explicitly entered, buildings
6 (z0 = 100 cm) Higher, scattered, but not explicitly entered buildings
Values not defined in the above table are assigned to the next class defini-
tion. We do not invision a more direct area type selection because the rough-
ness parameter is more universal and other models may use it in the future.
Areas that are not defined default to the roughness set in the calculation
properties.
The use of inhomogeneous roughness length increases the calculation time
significantly. The parameter for the maximum number of time steps (see cal-
culation core) needs to be increased significantly (depending on the calcula-
tion area size).
Receivers
(only Gauss, AUSTAL2000)

Receivers (noise single point receivers) are evaluated for Gauss (TA Luft
'86) and for AUSTAL2000. Only the x, y location and the terrain elevation
(h2) and object elevation (h1) are evaluated. For Gauss calculations, the re-
ceiver name is also passed on to the result tables. AUSTAL2000 does not
keep track of the receiver name, so it is lost in transition between
SoundPLAN and AUSTAL2000. As this is not satisfactory, we will try to
find a solution for the problem.
Buildings
(only Miskam, AUSTAL2000)
The Gauss model ignores buildings. MISKAM and AUSTAL2000 eva-

luate the wall heights and snap them up or down to the boundary of the next
layer in the block structure.
Objects to model the topography

(only AUSTAL2000)
The Gauss model and MISKAM generally disregard topography and project
all objects onto a plane.
AUSTAL2000 can use the topography if it was prepared in the SoundPLAN
DGM. The topographical information from the Geofiles is ignored. Topo-
graphical structures with inclines greater than 1:5 can lead to a stall of the
flow which AUSTAL2000 cannot manage.
Libraries
Day histograms
Use the day histogram library to distribute the average daily pollution emis-
sion over the course of a day. This library details the emission entries made
for the source objects in the Geo-database. The air pollution day histogram
library is the same as for noise. Day histories for a road can be adapted
quickly to other roads with the same profile. Changes in the course of the
road due to inclines and different driving speeds are defined very quickly us-
ing the day histogram. As the values from the library can be copied via the
Excel clipboard, using the library means substantial savings in work time for
big projects.
When pasting data, the relative distribution of the day histogram is applied to
the daily pollution emission, yielding hourly values of the pollution emis-
sions. Please observe that the emission day histories can not be extrapolated
linearly from the daily traffic because the rate of emission for the different
pollutants depends on the driving speed and mode which also depends on the
number of vehicles per hour.
Day histograms are only evaluated under the conditions described in the cal-
culation run properties.

Pollutants
The pollution library supplies the pollutant definitions used in projects.

Aside from the abbreviations needed for generating the control and result
files, you must also define how the pollutants behave with regard to the se-
dimentation and deposition speeds.
You must also decide the percentile value to use for the percentile calcula-
tions. (Use a percentage number between 0 and 100 describing the number of
hours a set threshold value should not exceed. The portion is always a per-
centage of the entire investigation time frame, so 18 hours where the thre-
shold value is exceeded in a year corresponds to 99.8%; 35 days a year cor-
responds to roughly 90% ).
When simulating smell, define what concentration corresponds to one unit of
smell [GE] (1 is the average smell threshold). If you cannot define the smell-
pollutants as a mass stream of different components but only via smell units
[GE], generate a new entry in the library for the mixture, give it a name and
define it as 1 GE equals 1 g/m. Under the comment tab you can explain the
cocktail, etc.
SoundPLAN takes for the AUSTAL2000 command file only the short cuts
out of the library. All attributs are already fixed in the AUSTAL2000 Pro-
gram and cannot be changed..
Meteorological stations
MISKAM and Gauss (TA Luft'86) use meteorological stations. AUS-
TAL2000 uses a format of its own (*.AKS, *.AKT and *.AKTerm).
The SoundPLAN Meteorological Station Library will soon be able to
feed AUSTAL2000 with additional file formats. For format description con-
tact bbgmbh@soundplan.de
The librarys main advantage is that it provides tools to make it easier to
document and classify wind statistics.
It is also possible to import the AUSTAL2000 formats to use the data for
MISKAM calculations.
Tab Raw Data

Use FILEIMPORT to import the .AKS, .AKT and .AKTerm formats of the
weather service. The older SoundPLAN format .MET can also be imported
and processed further. For single case calculations you can enter the data

manually. Importing via the Excel clipboard also works as long as the
column placement conforms to our raw data format.
First, enter the number (#) of SECTORS NEEDED TO DESCRIBE A COMPLETE

WIND DIAGRAM so SoundPLAN can set the sector width. Without this para-
meter, a future classification would be interpolated or extrapolated incorrect-
ly. Most of the data is available with a sector size of 10, so the number of
sectors in this case would need to be set to 36. 24 sectors would yield sectors
with a width of 15 and 12 would yield sectors with a widthe of 30. For
worst case calculations where single cases are simulated instead of complete
wind diagrams, it is still sensible to define the sector width so SoundPLAN
can generate a sensible diagram. You must also enter the temperature and
wind speed units.
The parameters defining the atmospheric stability for Gauss (TA Luft '86)
and AUSTAL2000 must be entered in the KLUG/MANIER CLASS column. For
the time being, the Monin/Obukhov length is not evaluated by any program
and is therefore reserved as a future option. For MISKAM, the stability is
defined directly via the vertical gradient (K/100m) of the potential tempera-
ture GRAD. POT. TEMP (caution, this is not the atmospheric laps rate (de-
crease in temperature per 100)! See details in the calculation core chapter).
Unfortunately, the vertical gradient can not be derived from the propagation
classes according to Klug/Manier because the conversion requires additional
weather factors.
If the wind statistics contain the hours of the day for the measurement inter-
vals, the day histograms of wind statistics and the emission can be correlated
(see the calculation core chapter). If the hours of the day are not present, only
the day histogram for the sources is evaluated.
A right click on the table copies data from the table to the clipboard and from
the clipboard to the table. The following screen shows the copy options.
Tab Classified View

This allows you to present the data organized by class without modifying the
raw data (SoundPLAN always uses the raw data for the calculations!) If you
want to use the classified data for calculations, use the button GENERATE

RAW DATA to generate a new raw data record that gathers the data in ac-
cordance to the classification settings.
The classification is completed in accordance to the classification of 3 tabs:
turbulence classes, wind speed classes and wind directions. In the tables be-
low, the raw data are displayed with the variation of the wind speed in the
horizontal lines and the wind direction in the vertical columns. Each turbu-
lence class has its own table.
A right click in this table transfers the data from the table to the clipboard.
The TURBULENCE CLASSES can be set up as Klug/Manier-classes or in ac-
cordance to the gradient of the potential temperature. There is also a selec-
tion for neutral atmosphere where all temperature potentials are set to zero.
SPEED CLASSES are defined according to the TA Luft suggestions or user de-
fined in equidistant spacing. To distribute calm or variable winds, choose be-
tween the following:
- Egnore them.
- Distribute them evenly in the first class of all sectors.
- Distribute them to the first class of each wind direction in accordance to
the proportion of its class.
When definfing the WIND DIRECTION SECTORS, use the number of sectors
and the angle of the middle of the start sector in [].
Tab Station Characteristics

In order to maintain a better overview of the data after classification, all im-
portant information is gathered and supplemented with extra geographical
parameters.

Here are the facilities to assign location information to each element (in geo-
graphical and Cartesian coordinates). At the moment, this information is for
information purposes only and is not evaluated. The only relevant parameter
is the RELATIVE ANEMOMETER HEIGHT which is an input parameter in
the program!
You can also load up to 3 graphics further describing the station (i.e.scanned
maps and photos).
SoundPLAN shows the selected classification in individual diagrams with an
extra synopis for each stability class. Use the copy button to copy the dia-
gram to the clipboard to insert it in your report:
Windrose anno95akt .met

(Klug/Manier-Klasse alle - kumuliert e Hufigkeit )
315 45
Windklassen [m/s]
< 1,4
1,4 - 1,8
1,9 - 2,3
2,4 - 3,8
3,9 - 5,4
5,5 - 6,9
2.000 7,0 - 8,4
8,5 - 10,0
4.000 > 10,0
6.000
8.000
225 1.000 135
1.200
This wind diagram was copied from SoundPLAN and inserted via the clipboard...
Enter descriptive texts in tab comments & import remarks. This field is al-
so used in the import procedure to extract information texts from the import
file and to dispatch messages (for example, a problem importing lines).
Make new records in the library the same way as with all the libraries.

Calculation core
Run properties: Selection of pollutants
For the calculations, the run parpameters of each of the different pollution
modules use the same screen to select individual pollutants from the library.
You may also define missing pollutants using the project library. It is sensi-
ble to include only the pollutants you plan to use in the project library. Oth-
erwise the selection screen will become overwhelming very quickly.
Caution: If you want to calculate PM10 concentrations for roads or other
ground sources with the Gauss (TA Luft 86) model you should define a sep-
arate pollutant PM10 with a grain size class of 0.
The pollutants can be moved from one window to another using the arrow
keys. The right window shows the pollutants in the project library. The left
window shows the pollutants in your project that will be evaluated in the
next calculation. If you use pollutant mixtures a lot, it is wise to generate an
extra entry for the cocktail (mix) and store it under a name of your choice
Use key [+]) to load the pollutant mixture from a pick list of another project.
Use key [] to delete the mixture from your table. Deleting has no repercus-
sions on other calculation runs because the group name is not used in the cal-
culation run but rather the raw data of the pollutants included in the cocktail.
Special run properties for Gauss (TA Luft'86)

Tab: General
First, select the AIR POLLUTION calculation type in the calculation properties.
There are 2 sub-types available, Gauss single point calculations and Gauss
grid maps. The CONTINUE IF POSSIBLE field has no function at the moment.

Tab Gauss (TA Luft '86)

Define the receiver height in the HEIGHT ABOVE GROUND field and define
the receiver grid spacing in the GRID SPACE field under TAB GAUSS (TA
LUFT86) in the variant for grid maps.
In the POLLUTANT SELECTION field, use to move to the window where

the available pollutant definitions are activated for your calculation. It is not
necessary to select all the pollutants defined with the sources.
The last step is to select the METEOROLOGY from the project library. If you
want to check or edit the meteorology, click to move to the library.
Day histogram. If the selected wind statistic contains times of the day and the
sources are associated with a day histogram, the emission day histograms are eva-
luated automatically. In this way local phenomena (i.e. a terrain induced main wind
direction in the morning rush hour) are evaluated more precisely.
Special run properties and control features for

AUSTAL2000
Model consistency check
The commands translated into the AUSTAL2000 format and the AUS-
TAL2000 protocol files are presented under the tab for AUSTAL2000 files.
This allows you to check the files for errors and inconsistencies (control files
AUSTAL2000.txt, dgmgrid.txt and the protocol files TALdia.log and AUS-
TAL2000.log).
Files produced by AUSTAL2000 suitable for a visual model check are not
visualized within SoundPLAN at the moment.
You still do not have to forego the model check because the AUSTAL2000 files
are ASCII files present in the result folder and viewable with a regular text editor:
z00.dmna Elevation information of the terrain grid
(created by AUSTAL2000 from the file dgmgrid.txt)
buildings.dmna Building grid with the number of filled cell layers as a grid
value
volout.dmna AUSTAL2000 calculation grid, shows layer by layer as a matrix
of free and filled cells

Tab General
First, select the AIR POLLUTION calculation type in the calculation properties.
Then select the AUSTAL2000 file type.
The tab has a checkbox to CONTINUE CALCULATION IF POSSIBLE. As long as

it is activated, AUSTAL2000 starts without overwriting the command file. If
it is not activated, you can manually edit the AUSTAL2000.txt control file
automatically generated when the calculation began. The controls are fitted
with a time delay as can be seen below.
To avoid overwriting the manually edited control file Austal2000.txt in the

batch mode, mark the box CONTINUE CALCULATION IF POSSIBLE.
Modify control files: Before starting the calculation of multiple calculations, you
could start the calculation without the continue calculation checkbox and then inter-
rupt the calculation. SoundPLAN would prepare the control files according to the da-
ta entry and calculation parameters. Then you could edit the file AUSTAL2000.txt
in the appropriate result file folder. The last step would be to check the box CONTIN-
UE CALCULATION, store the run file and start the entire batch.
It is not a catastrophy if you forgot to check the box to continue as SoundPLAN saves
a copy of your control file.
Tab AUSTAL2000
This controls some of the basic parameters that influence the form and quali-
ty of your results. Set the parameters for generating the terrain and the build-
ing grids.
Results
When starting AUSTAL2000, the program automatically searches the folder
to see if the wind field was already calculated. If an existing wind field
needs to be redone, check the REGENERATE WIND FIELD LIBRARY in the RE-
SULTS box.
Hint about calculations speed: If there is no terrain and buildings in your model, the
wind field library is generated with 2 wind directions per stability class. AUS-
TAL2000 is capable of generating all missing wind directions from this information.
If there is terrain information or buildings, the wind field library is generated with 36
wind directions per stability class which will take a lot more calculation time than the
format without terrain and buildings.

The number in the LEVEL FOR TALDIA-PROTOCOL field influences the grade
of detail in the protocol. Usually a setting of 1 is used, but increasing the
number increases the detail.
If you want the pollutant simulation to take place, mark the EXECUTE POL-
LUTION PROPAGATION CALCULATION box.
AUSTAL2000 normally stores only the results of the lowest layer. As this
layer generally includes 0-3 meters of height, the results are the concentra-
tion at 1.5 m above ground. If you want to select a lower magnitude for the
layers, the height of 1.5 meters might not be in the lowest layer, but in the
second or third. The parameter SAVE GRID RESULTS UP TO HEIGHT forces
AUSTAL2000 to store grid maps for multiple layers. To do this,
SoundPLAN creates a Monitor point (receiver) with the desired height above
the ground. This auxiliary receiver is only set if the height for the grid result
storage is > 0.
Background: When AUSTAL2000 finds Monitor points in the control file AUS-
TAL2000.txt (commands xp, yp, hp), all calculation layers up to the height of the
highest Monitor-point are stored. AUSTAL2000 limits the number of Monitor-points
(receivers) to 10. If the parameters call for storing multiple layers, the number of re-
ceivers defined in the Geo-Database is reduced to 9.
The number of particles the model releases determines the quality of the re-
sults. The rule of thumb is, the bigger the calculation area, the bigger the
number of particles. AUSTAL2000s default setting uses 43 Mio. Particles
for AKS-wind statistics and 63 Mio. Particles for AKT-simulations. The pa-
rameter entered in the QUALITY LEVEL FOR PARTICLE EMISSION
field corresponds to a factor (positive numbers) or a divisor (for negative
numbers) that corresponds to this default number of particles. This factor
scales the number of particles up and down from the default value.
Grid nesting can be used to avoid excessive calculation times for big calcula-
tion areas. When grid nesting is enabled, the program uses a multip step op-
eration with multiple stacked up calculation areas for the simulation. From
the biggest calculation area to the smallest, the grid spacing is halved so only
the center is calculated with the highest resolution.

The nested calculation areas can be generated manually or automatically

when AUSTAL2000 deems this necessary.
If the automatic grid spacing for the highest resolution grid is selected, the
spacing can be influenced with the AUSTAL2000 parameter qb. The value
of the Quality level for buildings (qb) field controls the parameter.
This parameter controls the grid spacing and the height of the calculation
layers for automatically nested calculations in built up urban areas. The val-
ues for the finest automatically generated mesh are as follows:
qb -3 -2 -1 0 1
horizontal grid spacing of 32 16 8 4 2
the finest mesh (m) used
Vertical grid spacing 6 4 3 3 2
(valid to a top height of
twice the height of the
highest building)
The manual nesting definition is not yet implemented. At the moment, only
automatically generated calculation grids can be nested. The automatic nesting has
been verified in extensive program tests. In a few cases, the program TALdia
aborted and we have not been able to trace the error.
Pre-calculating the terrain grid

Define the terrain grid spacing in the GRID SIZE field. The same grid spacing
is used for the calculation grid unless AUSTAL2000 generates it automati-
cally (see below).
Marking the USE CONSTANT GROUND ELEVATION box activates the field for
entering the elevation. Alternatively, you could choose a SoundPLAN DGM
when markeing the USE DGM NO. box. AUSTAL2000 generates the terrain
profile file zg00.dmna from the elevation information. If the wind field is to
be recalculated, SoundPLAN will delete an existing file of this type and
force AUSTAL2000 to generate a new one.
Please make sure the elevation supply is available and plausible in the entire
calculation area or AUSTAL2000 will not calculate any air pollution concen-
trations.
The terrain grid with the automatically generated file dgmgrid.txt is given to
AUSTAL2000.
Pre-calculating the building/terrain grid
Theoretically, one could use the AUSTAL2000 control file to define indi-
vidual buildings. A better method is to have SoundPLAN generate a grid of
elevation points where each grid cells elevation represents the top of the
building. Cells are stacked in block form to the height of the obstacle. The
results are saved in the file referenced in the AUSTAL2000.txt file.
Enter the GRID SPACING: DIVISOR OF THE TERRAIN GRID SPACING field as
an integer value where the terrain grid is finer than the building grid.
The reason the building grid has a finer resolution than the terrain grid is best ex-
plained using an example of the automatically generated grid calculation and the
nesting of grids with a different resolution.
With a grid spacing of 50 m and a divisor of 1, the building grid would be defined as
a grid of 50 x 50 m. In general, no buildings would be generated because it would be
too small in comparison to the grid cell size. As a result, the next finer resolution of
grid nesting would also not contain buildings.

With a grid spacing of 50 m and a divisor of 50, the building grid would be scaled to
1 x 1 m. Even with a grid nesting, an optimal resolution is assured with this resolu-
tion.
The vertical resolution of building geometry is defined in the VERTICAL

GRID SPACING field. The entry for the heights of obstacles must be per-
formed in equidistant spacing similar to a child stacking building blocks of
equal height on top of the horizontal grid until the height of the buildings has
been reached. If the upper edge of the buildings is within the height of a
layer, the upper edge is rounded to coincide with the next layer (up or down).
Tabs Settings
Use these settings to define the parameters for the calculation grd, pollutant
selection and wind statistics.
AUSTAL Calculation grid

First, decide if AUSTAL2000 should use the AUTOMATICALLY CALCULATE
function for the calculation grid or if you prefer the USE TERRAIN GRID to fit
the calculation grid.
If the edge of the calculation area (in contrast to reality) does not contain
buildings, the propagation will be different than if neighboring buildings
were included in the model. If you pre-set the size of the calculation area,
you should use the CALCULATION AREA EXTENDE COVERAGE field to ex-
tend the investigation area by a transient area and enter the number or grid
cells. The extension is also applied when generating the terrain grid to assure
the correct definition of the grid cells elevations.

Here is the reason you dont initially define a larger calculation area.
Generally the results in the transient area should not be presented afterwards; they
are only needed during the calculation. Analog to MISKAM we want you to
define the size of a transient area where the results are not displayed in the graph-
ics. Perhaps in the future the dimensions of the transient area will be shifted to the
Geo-Database (change the object type definition in the AUSTAL calculation area).
At the moment, the graphical presentation of results within the transient area is not
suppressed. The developers are working on this problem not only for current jobs
but also for older calculations.
After defining the horizontal structure of the calculation grid, define the ver-
tical structure. (These settings will also migrate to the AUSTAL2000 calcu-
lation area).
Either you accept the pre-settings of AUSTAL2000 (in this case the DEFINE
VERTICAL GRID field will remain empty), or you mark the box and enter the
layers border heights (separated by a space).
Pollutant selection
When the calculation grid selection is finished, select the pollutants. The
button in the POLLUTANT-SELECTION box opens the selection window.
AUSTAL2000 requires you to use the AUSTAL standard abbreviations for
the pollutants. Use only the pollutants from the following list as the abbrev-
iations are sent to AUSTAL via the AUSTAL2000.txt file and are interpreted
as keywords within AUSTAL2000.
Gases:
so2 sulphur dioxide, SO2
no nitrogen monoxide, NO
no2 nitrogen dioxide, NO2
nox nitroxide, NOx
bzl benzol
tce tetrachloroethene
f hydrogen fluoride, entered as F
nh3 ammonia, NH3
hg mercury, Hg
xx unknown
odor odor
According to convention, the NO emission must be defined with the molecu-
lar weight for NO2. The weight of the NO component must be multiplied
with the factor of 1.53 before adding it to the NO2 component.
Caution: AUSTAL2000 simulates the NOx component independent of the NO

and NO2 components. In contrast to the normal SoundPLAN procedures, AUS-
TAL2000 does not save the NOx concentrations, but converts them in accordance to
TA Luft.
At the moment, the results are found under the nitroxidelabel instead of nitrogen
dioxide. This will soon be corrected.
Use the component xx if you need to simulate a component not found on the
list (for example, if you want to retain the NOx concentrations without run-
ning the automatic conversion).

For the gas type components of xx and the odor part, no depositions are cal-
culated.
Dust:
pm-x dust-general
as-x arsenic, As
pb-x lead, Pb
cd-x cadmium, Cd
ni-x nickel, Ni
hg-x mercury, Hg
tl-x thallium, Tl
xx-x unknown
(x represents the particle size class)
For dusts, SoundPLAN distinguishes between different particle size classes

(1 to 4). The complete component identifier consists of the component name,
a - sign and the particle size class number.
Examples for valid dust identifiers:
pm-1, pm-2, pm-3, pm-4, cd-1, cd-2, .
Dust with an aerodynamic particle size bigger than 10 m not directly as-
signed to class 3 and 4 is labeled u,
Example: pm-u
Floating dust (behaving like a gass) (PM10) is represented by the compo-
nents pm-1 and pm-2. Use only pm-2 if pm-1 is unknown
Meteorology
Three parameters are used for declaring the METEOROLOGIE. Either supply
the wind statistic in the *.AKT / *.AKTerm (time series) or *.AKS (classi-
fied statistics) formats, or copy it into the project folder. The German Meteo-
rological Service (DWD) supplies statistics in these formats.
For users outside Germany, the program authors will soon supply a AKT and
AKS export function in the meteorological station library.
Hint: If you want to do test calculations with shortened AKT-time series, you should
simulate a continuous series with hourly values with only complete days. Please ob-
serve that the directions are only accepted in steps of 10 degrees without any digits
after the decimal. AUSTAL2000 rejects angles such as 45.
To simulate an equally distributed wind statistics with uniform layering, you need a
statistics for 3 days (= 2 sets of angles with steps of 10), otherwise a single rotation
would require 36 hours. The 12 hours of the second day would be regarded as only
partial and would be suppressed in the calculation. 2 runs with 36 hours each result
in 3 full days and thus work well with the statistics. There is a good description of the
AKT-format in the AUSTAL2000.pdf file.
When the wind hits obstacles, it slows down due to turbulent mixing. Some
air is forced over the obstacle and some around it. AUSTAL2000 expects pa-
rameters for the ROUGHNESS LENGTH and the DISPLACEMENT HEIGHT.
The ROUGHNESS LENGTH can only be defined for the entire calculation area.
If no roughness length is supplied, in Germany AUSTAL2000 will use an
appropriate value from the library (file RL.DAT) delivered with
SoundPLAN.

z0 in m CORINE-Class
0,01 beaches, dunes and sandy areas (331); bodies of water (512)
0,02 dumps and overburden deposits (132); meadows and pastures(231);
natural green vegetation (321); areas with sparse vegetation (333); salt
marshes (421); tide flats (423); rivers (511); estuaries (522)
0,05 agricultural areas (131); sports and leisure facilities (142); non
irrigated farmland (211); glaciers and permanent snow fields (335);
laguna (521)
0,10 airports (124); swamps (411); peat meadows (412); oceans (523)
0,20 roads, railways (122); urban parks (141); vineyards (221); complex
parcel structure (242); agricultural and natural ground cover (243);
heathers (322); rocky areas without vegetation (332)
0,50 harbors (123); orchards (222);
1,00 non continuous urban building structure (112); industry- and business
areas (121); construction sites (133); forests with conifer trees (312)
1,50 deciduous forests (311); mixed forests (313)
2,00 Continuous urban settlements (111)
Examples of roughness length
Methods to determine the DISPLACEMENT HEIGHT are described in the stan-

dard TA Luft '02, annex 3, Chapter 8.6 as follows.
The displacement height d0 indicates by what margin of height the theoretical me-
teorological profile must be adjusted upwards due to the foliage or buildings on the
ground. The displacement height is normally set to be 6 times the roughness length z0
(chapter 5 of this annex), for densely built up areas it is also equivalent to coincide
with 0.8 times the average height of buildings. Below the elevation 6z0 + d0 the wind
speed is derived by linear interpolation between the wind speed at the top of the layer
and zero at the bottom. All other meteorological parameters remain constant.
If the displacement height is 0, AUSTAL2000s default setting assumes

the roughness length times six.
Additional hints
Error messages
The TALdia.log files and AUSTAL2000.log are displayed on the tab AUS-
TAL2000-FILES (on the main level of the calculation core) depending on the
calculations and options executed. You will find comments and error mes-
sages in the two files if any AUSTAL2000 rules have been violated.
Calculation grid size
If AUSTAL2000 determines the setting for the calculation grid size (see be-
low), it will generally require a very big area with relevant elevations (de-
pending on the height of the source above the terrain, see TA Luft 02). To
estimate the size of the calculation area, draw a circle around every source
where the radius of the circle is 50 times the source height.
Problems will occur in the calculations if the elevation supply does not cover
the entire area, so it is paramount that you determine the area correctly and
ensure it is completely covered.
AUSTAL2000 only allows a maximum calculation grid of 300 x 300 cells.
This restriction can usually be circumnavigated using nested calculations.
Grid spacing of the terrain and the calculation grid
Small scale fluctuations of the flow can not be represented with rough and
wide calculation grids! In spite of this, a superfine resolution is not always
needed. If the simulation is to attain answers far from the sources, and the
pollutants for the most part are introduced from above to seep between build-
ings, then the pollutant concentration distribution becomes irrelevant.

Even the source representation depends on the grid. It is always good prac-
tice to generate test calculations with different grid spacing, look at the re-
sults and select a spacing that doesnt have irregularities.
If a Geo-file contains buildings, AUSTAL2000 will use net nesting for the
automatic generation of the calculation grid. By default SoundPLAN sup-
presses this nesting unless you explicitly mark the NET NESTING ALLOWED
box.
Grid spacing for automatically generated calculation grids
As long as no buildings are present, AUSTAL2000 uses the following crite-
rion to determine the grid spacing.
[Smallest mean source height] + 0.5 * [vertical size of the source]
(minimum 15 m)
Border zone
The outer border (column/row) of the calculation grid may not contain build-
ings or sources, but this is no concern to you as SoundPLAN will simply ig-
nore these objects in the border zone. You do not need to actively remove
them, but you need to know these objects will be ignored.
Special run properties and control features for

MISKAM
Model consistency check
To see how the basic data are represented by the rasterized abstracted version
MISKAM uses, you can step through the different layers in the Calculation
core graphics.
The control graphics show both the raw data and the rasterized version so
you can confirm that the resolution of the rasterization process is sufficient.
Layer 0 shows all objects in top view; all other layers show only the objects
present in that very layer.
Tab General
Select the air pollution calculation type. In the field to the right, select the
calculation sub-type MISKAM.
If the CONTINUE CALCULATION IF POSSIBLE box is marked, MISKAM

checks at start time to determine if the windfield/pollution concentrations
have already been calculated and stored. If they have been calculation,
MISKAM can use them or amend them in its calculations.

Tab settings
Pollutant selection
Select the pollutants to use in the plume dispersion calculation. If no pollu-
tants are listed (or the selected pollutants are not emitted by the sources
loaded) the program only generates the wind fields.
Meteorology
To calculate the wind fields, select one of the meteorological stations from
the library (in the meteorology box). Use to open the library to enter new
stations or view/edit existing ones.
For the pollution dispersion, you can also use wind fields already generated
for other calculations. Mark the WIND FIELDS FROM RUN NO box and enter
the calculation run number you want to use.
SoundPLAN uses the rasterized geometry to check if the wind field is suita-
ble for this dispersion calculation (wind cannot blow within a raster cell cov-
ered by a building). If the flow relevant geometries do not match, a notice is
written in the logbook and the calculation is terminated.

Tab MISKAM
Roughness
The ROUGHNESS LENGTH GROUND (z0) is entered in cm. The buildings de-
fined in the Geo-database are not considered this time because the wind field
was calculated using the buildings as obstacles. With the roughness length,
the conditions between the buildings are simulated, taking into account vege-
tation and smaller obstacles (parked cars, garbage cans, etc.). As default val-
ue for street canyons we set roughness length to 0,01.
z0 in m CORINE-Class
0,01 beaches, dunes and sandy areas (331); bodies of water (512)
0,02 dumps and overburden deposits (132); meadows and pastures(231);
natural green vegetation (321); areas with sparse vegetation (333); salt
marshes (421); tide flats (423); rivers (511); estuaries (522)
0,05 agricultural areas (131); sports and leisure facilities (142); non
irrigated farmland (211); glaciers and permanent snow fields (335);
laguna (521)
0,10 airports (124); swamps (411); peat meadows (412); oceans (523)
0,20 roads, railways (122); urban parks (141); vineyards (221); complex
parcel structure (242); agricultural and natural ground cover (243);
heathers (322); rocky areas without vegetation (332)
0,50 harbors (123); orchards (222);
1,00 non continuous urban building structure (112); industry- and business
areas (121); construction sites (133); forests with conifer trees (312)
1,50 deciduous forests (311); mixed forests (313)
2,00 Continuous urban settlements (111)
If you want to define areas with different roughnesses, use the object for
ROUGHNESS AREA to describe local variance of the flow resistance.
The ROUGHNESS LENGTH FOR WALLS is the same for the entire calculation
and the default setting of 1 cm should be used.

The 1-D-INITIALIZATION OF THE WIND FIELD should correspond to the con-

ditions of the roughness length on the ground. This data is used for the single
dimensional windfield which is applied to the 3dimensional model area after
scaling to the local conditions.
The three outer border columns/rows of the calculation area are assigned the
z0-value from the 1D-initialiazation. The next two inner grid cells are inter-
polations of the roughness length for the ground or a value defined by a ter-
rain roughness area will influence the flow.
Propagation
To calculate the mass advection in the dispersion model, use either the sim-
plified upstream model or the scheme Smolarkiewicz and Grabowski (1989)
describe where the numerical diffusion effects can be undone by one or mul-
tiple correction steps. When 0 is entered in the CORRECTION STEPS FOR AD-
VECTION field, the upstream scheme is used. Other options in this field call
for 1 or 2 correction steps.
For traffic caused air pollutants (general line emissions), in general the up-
stream scheme is justified. If it is not possible to align the roads parallel to
the grid axis, it is advisable to use two correction steps here. Observe that
each Smolarkiewicz correction step will increase the calculation time for the
plume dispersion by roughly 80 %.
Sometimes the model never reaches a steady state. To avoid never ending
loops, limit the MAXIMAL NO. OF TIME STEPS. Normally the model produces
sufficiently accurate results without grave inaccuracies using a mere 2000
time steps. The number of time steps directly influence the calculation time.
The calculation protocol shows wether or not the model of each meteorologi-
cal case has reached a steady state. The MISKAM protocol files *.prs and
*.pra show the magnitude of rest divergence for each time step.
Save each situation
In order to keep the file size manageable, SoundPLANs default setting saves
only the mean and average values. If you want to use the wind fields in dif-
ferent calculation runs and display the wind fields in the graphics for each
meteorological case, then you must mark the WIND FIELDS boxes in the SAVE
FOR EACH SITUATION E SITUATION box. If you also want to be able to
present the pollutant concentrations for each flow case, you must mark the
IMMISSIONS box.
Important hints
day histograms. In the near future the program will be able to automatically
evaluate the emission day histograms if the times of the day are contained in the
wind statistics. At the moment, this causes a program error ().
Phenomena originating in terrain caused preferred wind directions at rush hour can
be described better using a correlation between the time of the day and the wind
and pollution source strength. If no times of the day are present, the program will
calculate using a daily average.
Calculations with day histograms should be completed only for selected critical
days because a new wind field must be calculated for each time interval!
Atmospheric layering
In MISKAM, the atmosphere layering is entered in the table for the meteo-
rological station in the column for the vertical gradient of the potential tem-
perature (K/100m). This temperature is not the absolute temperature reduc-
tion per 100 m, but the difference between the adiabatic laps rate for neutral
atmospheres and the rate found in the atmosphere.
Vertical gradient = 0: Corresponds to a neutral atmosphere

Vertical gradient > 0: Stable layering

(The expanding, rising air cools faster than the
layering of the atmosphere the vertical movement
slows down)
Vertical gradient < 0: Instable layering
(The rising air does not cool as fast as the layering
the vertical movement accelerates)
Negative values are reset to a neutral layering
because the combination of an unstable layering with
a stationary state is not sensible
A neutral layering can be assumed for the plume dispersion calculation be-
tween buildings. This procedure can increase the calculation time significant-
ly because the program must calculate each wind direction with a standar-
dized wind speed. Windfields with higher wind speeds are derived from the
standardized case using a less demanding extrapolation.
When a non neutral layering is assumed, it is paramount to work with care to
define only physically possible combinations of wind speed and layering.
Problems can arise if stable thermal layering is combined with relatively high
wind speeds close to the ground (for example > 1 m/s in 2 m height) because
the program will assume unrealisticly high wind speeds for higher eleva-
tions. Therefore it is sensible to assume low ground wind speeds or to force
the model into a lower wind speed for higher elevations by manually enter-
ing a wind speed in one of the higher wind layers. The gradient of the poten-
tial temperature should not exceed 1 K/100m.
Special run properties for MISKAM Screening

MISKAM Screening was designed as an entry level package for
MISKAM for the rough screening cases in road planning and to analyze hot
spots. This version functions nearly the same as the full version of
MISKAM but has limited wind statistics and a restricted result reporting.
The calculation core is identical.
The wind statistics can not be loaded from the library but are defined within
the calculation run settings. The wind is restricted to the directions 0,
60,120,180,240,300 with a freely definable wind speed and wind mea-
surement height.
The results are grid pollution maps for mean and maximum values. Percen-
tiles do not make sense using the rough wind statistics of MISKAM Screen-
ing. The wind fields results are not saved.
This smaller version of MISKAM should not tempt you to select too wide a
grid mesh because the physical processes simulation is the same as for
MISKAM.
Graphics
File selection - general
The file selection in the graphics enables you to select wind fields and grid
pollution maps and couple them with geometrical information. After entering
the file number, the program automatically detects which pollution module
was used for the results and will request additional information according to
the rules of that air pollution propagation module.
The pollution maps and wind fields can be combined with other result maps
and geometrical information from Situations and Geo-files. Grid operations

play an important role as the background concentration and maybe even a

freely defined NOx conversion is defined here.
The file selection will also ask if it should re-use one of the existing legends
or scales, or if you want to generate new ones. In plans with multiple scales,
you maintain a better overview if you use the object settings to assign names
to the existing scales and legends. If they have extra names, you will find
these extra names in the scale/legend generation of the file selection manag-
er.
Grid pollution maps

Gauss TA Luft86
Mean values and percentiles can be requested for all simulated pollution
concentrations. The percentile base cannot be altered after the calculation be-
cause no intermediate information is saved for individual meteorological
cases. The results for the percentiles are generated during the calculations
according to the settings requested in the pollution library.
AUSTAL2000
For pollutants simulated with AUSTAL2000, only the CONZENTRATIONS

field with the calculated values is available. Percentiles are not simulated for
each pollutant, and the percentile threshold is generated from AUSTAL2000
itself rather than derived from the pollution library.
A result layer can only be selected if the calculation run definition contained
a minimum height for the results, forcing the program to save more than just
the lowest layer. If no definition was found, the program saves only the low-
est layer (for automatically generated calculation grids 0-3 m).
The NESTING field is active only if AUSTAL2000 calculated a nested grid. If
it has, you may select results for the finer calculated areas as a superimposi-
tion of the rough one. (For threefold nesting, the grids are addressed as
alle, 01, 02, 03)

The enlargement from a nested calculation shows how grid size influences the pollu-
tant dispersion. By averaging the pollutant concentration in the bigger cells, you can
see the average concentration is diluted.
Aside from pollutant concentrations, it is possible to depict the statistical

confidence in the calculation by changing the setting from POLLUTANT to
STATISTICS.
MISKAM
For each pollutant, you can choose which result you want presented, by re-
questing one of the following options in the VALUE field.
Mean concentration: The mean concentration is averaged for all wind and
meteorological scenarios. The average concentration is weighted in accor-
dance to the occurrence of the meteorological case. What the mean value de-
picts depends on what input data were used in the meteorological library.
Maximum concentration: For each grid cell, the highest value occurring in
the cell is recorded as the maximum concentration. The maximum concentra-
tion for a Worst-Case-Scenario is often more meaningful than the 99.8 per-
centile of the regular calculation!
If the calculation settings are marked to save individual pollution scenarios,
additional results are available.

Concentration of individual meteorological cases: The pollution concen-

tration for each wind direction scenario can be displayed.
Percentile: For the percentile entered in the pollutant library the values are
calculated and displayed (for example P90: Which concentration is not ex-
ceeded in 90% of all cases) Please keep in mind that a wind statistics with an
hourly time resolution does not generate sensible hourly results if the emis-
sions are based on daily values (for example, the average daily traffic)!
Percentage/absolute frequency of limit violation. This selection does not
yield the concentration values, but shows how often the pollution limit (or
any threshold value) has been violated. The suggested threshold value is
from the pollution library and can be replaced any time in the LIMIT VALUE
field.
MISKAM saves the results of all the calculation layers, so you must use the
selection field to designate where the results are to be located. For gases, the
Deposition selection does not produce results. This field is only for particle
deposition on the ground and buildings.
Windfield Charts
MISKAM
Only MISKAM produces windfield charts for each meteorological situa-
tion. They are structured like pollution concentration maps, but contain grid
values and vectors. The multitude of options in the object types invites expe-
rimentation. You can show the wind direction, the horizontal component
and strength of the wind vectors. By combining grid and contour maps with
added symbols, these three components can be depicted in a single map.
In the file selection, choose the scale color for the 3rd dimension of the wind
vector (up or down) or the wind speed. When grid or contour lines are to be
depicted, the wind vectors are displayed using the color of the objects. If no
grids or contours are selected, the scale color is used to fill the arrows.
When scale colors are assigned to represent to 3rd dimension of the wind vec-
tor (up and down), the wind speed is proportional to the length of the wind
vector. The length of the wind vector represents the wind speed on 1 m/s as
selected in the object types.
If scale colors were assigned to represent the wind speed, the length of the
arrows from a birds-eye view uses this formula:
Displayed length = (cos [wind inclination in degrees] * symbol size

Examples of wind vector maps:
Left: Shows the wind direction, speed (arrow length) and incline (scale color on the
arrows)
Right: Shows the wind direction, speed (scale color on the contour map) and incline
(2 arrow colors indicating 3rd dimension of the wind up/down)
File operations
Use arithmetic formulas with grid and triangulated result maps to generate
new content and display the results.
The first MISKAM file found determines the grid resolution. If no MISKAM file
is found, the program looks for AUSTAL2000 files. If no AUSTAL2000 files are
found, then the first Gauss file will determine the grid spacing.
Example: You use MISKAM to generate a calculation to assess the extra

pollution load and then make a second calculation using the Gauss model to
assess the background concentration for the urban area under specific wind
directions. You also know the regional background concentration. Because
your models cannot cope with all influencing factors optimally, to be con-
servative you choose to introduce correction factors in the area of a cold air
flow. The resulting pollution map should be created using the following op-
erations to generate each raster cell.
Additional concen- *grid pollution map

tration (local)* MISKAM
+ Background **grid pollution map

concentration** Gauss (TA Luft '86)
+ Background (possibly) ***static value

(regional value)***
= Total concentration x safety factor**** ****for example,
measurement map
= Conservative result map of raster
estimate of the total operations
concentration
The file operations are user definable, allowing any custom formulas and
procedures. First, select the first file which will determine the grid size and
mark the EXTENDED box.
The fields for the file selection are still on the left side. The field on the right
side has changed to allow you to enter and customize formulas to manipulate
the grid values of the operand files. Look for the EDIT FORMULA field where
you define the formulas. The syntax is very similar to the syntax used in the
SoundPLAN Spreadsheet; please follow the description from the spread-
sheet. Instead of the spreadsheet columns, the results of the grid pollution

maps are used. You should always begin with the grid map with the smallest
grid spacing because the first map determines the size and spacing of the fi-
nal pollution map.
Insert formulas by typing them in or by selecting them from the list of field
functions. Before inserting a formula, position the cursor on the exact loca-
tion where the formula is to be used.
Above the field functions there is an arrow to load files marked in the left
half of the screen. Again, do not forget to position the cursor at the place
where the file needs to be inserted. The structure of the entry files varies, so
we recommend loading all files. After gaining some experience you should
be able to simply type in the file references.
Problems can occur when attempting to divide by a mapping result if any of
the map cells had 0 as the result. This could occur, for example, if you use a
MISKAM file with buildings, because the values inside the buildings are set
to 0. Situations like these can be circumvented if you use case branching
such as, if...then...else, to ensure no division by zero can occur.
Aside from the regular spreadsheet functions, you can find some formulas
specifically designed for the air pollution calculations. As an example, you
see below two alternative ways to calculate the NOx conversion.
1. Example using built-in SoundPLAN functions
The content of the field EDIT FORMULA:
VDI_NO2_M(RKTAL6:1:1);
The formula contains 3 important elements:

1. The function VDI_NO2_M(), called from the function list (converts the
NOx mean value according to VDI 3782-8E into NO2),
2. The file reference RKTAL6:1:1 , is automatically generated loading the

grid air pollution map (Gauss (TA Luft '86)-calculation, calculation run No.
0006, 1. component, 1. result type)

3. The end of command marker (as always, the semicolon(!!!)).
Description of the available special air pollution functions:
VDI_NO2_M Converts the NOx mean value according to VDI 3782-8E

into NO2 concentrations, replaces the rombergM
function
VDI_NO2_P Converts the NOx-98-percentile according to VDI 3782-
8E into NO2, replaces the romberg98P function
VDI_NOX_M Reverse function of VDI_NO2_M, replaces urombergM
VDI_NOX_P Reverse function of VDI_NO2_P, replaces uromberg98P
nomo98P Addition of NO2 percentile maps/values according to

Gauss (TA Luft '86) (obsolete)
2. Example how you could do the same without the standard air pollu-
tion functions.
This SoundPLAN formula represents the following conversion formula:
[NO2] = [NOx] * (103 / ([NOx]+130)+0,005)
Only the arguments on the reight hand side of the equal sign must be entered.
The grid map is used as the source for the concentrations:
RKTAL6:1:1 * (103 / ( RKTAL6:1:1+130) + 0,005) CAUTION: Error!
This formula shows an error often found:
The dimension of the concentrations was ignored.
The SoundPLAN pollution concentrations feed their values in grams in-
to the formula. The constants in the VDI formula are calibrated to work
with concentrations set for Microgram. Therefore the map results must be
adjusted using the formula (RKTAL6:1:1*10^+6).
Afterwards, the total results is converted back to the range SoundPLAN ex-
pects (grams) (.... *10^-6) as you see in the formula screenshot above!!!
Result tables
In the Result Table Documentation we are planning more extensions. As all
calculation types generate grid maps, the main emphasis will be on documenting
calculation runs and emission data.

We strongly discourage using single point calculations without having access

to a control calculation of grid air pollution maps. Grid maps are needed to
understand and interpret the results. Only the grid calculations show prob-
lems generating a model with insufficient data and wind statistics!
Example showing the sensitivity of the simulation with an insufficient number of wind
sectors when the pollution is a point type source. This effect would not have been
recognized in single point simulations; only the grid calculations make it obvious.
If you still want to use the Gauss model with single receiver calculations,
you can access the results in the documentation. The formatting is analog to
the noise result files.
AUSTAL2000 allows you to simulate concentrations at specific receiver lo-
cations. However, this mode is not supported in the SoundPLAN implemen-
tation.
The concentrations at the receiver locations are detailed in the AUSTAL2000.log file
beneath the label AUSTAL2000: Monitorpunkte. If additional time series were en-
tered as a wind statistics (.AKT), the moniotor points contain the time variant results.
However, the prerequisite of short time values for the components must be met. For
the component odor the probability of having a smell-hour is marked as a percentage
value (100 or 0).
The AUSTAL2000 result files are named [pollution abbreviation]-zbpz.dmna. for
time series results at single receivers.
general hints
This air pollution description will be amended with the following topics:
Interdependencies between grid and meteorology
Hints for the single receiver calculation using Gauss (TA Luft '86) and
AUSTAL2000
Difficulties generating percentiles
Coping with nitroxide
Estimating the background concentration

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Air pollution modules page 17-1

17 - AIR POLLUTION MODULES 2

Geo-database: Usable object types 16

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17 - Air Pollution Modules

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News from the Geo-database

News from the libraries

News from the calculation core

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Standard MISKAM simulations without impulse related sources and with

News from the graphics

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SoundPLAN manual last edit: 17.04.2007 13:37

a distance decay function to calculate the pollution levels at receivers. The

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SoundPLAN manual last edit: 17.04.2007 13:37

to assure the conditions can be modified to fit your climate conditions. An

Model 1: Gauss (TA Luft'86)

Available object types

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Model 2: Interface to AUSTAL2000

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AUSTAL2000 uses a calculation grid and references the input geometry to

1. Preparation of the terrain grid

The grid spacing can be selected as desired.

2. Pre-calculation of the building grid

3. Calculation of the AUSTAL2000 calculation grid

Available object types

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database by adding the appropriate values to all marked x and y components

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ready contain some sort of NOx-NO2-conversion, so it should not be sub-

SoundPLAN manual last edit: 17.04.2007 13:37

making MISKAM an even more valuable tool. Decreased air supply to a

Available object types

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SoundPLAN manual last edit: 17.04.2007 13:37

As MISKAM saves the pollution concentrations for each wind direction,

Geo-database: Usable object types

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SoundPLAN manual last edit: 17.04.2007 13:37

MISKAM calculation area

The MISKAM-calculation area defines how the investigation area is to be

The calculation area is always a rectangle and is hinged with a definition

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the sizes can differ between x and y directions.

FACTOR: Width/height of the extra cells (they increase successively in

Gauss (TA Luft 86) calculation area

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AUSTAL2000 calculation area

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The Gauss model ignores buildings. MISKAM and AUSTAL2000 eva-

Objects to model the topography

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The pollution library supplies the pollutant definitions used in projects.

Tab Raw Data

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First, enter the number (#) of SECTORS NEEDED TO DESCRIBE A COMPLETE

Tab Classified View

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Tab Station Characteristics

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