Wake vortex transport of ultrafine particle emissions from the glide path to the ground

Abstract

Ultrafine particle (UFP) emissions of aircraft may cause serious adverse health effects. The current study considers the transport of UFP emissions via the wake vortices generated by aircraft approaching Frankfurt airport down to the ground. For this purpose, the fast-time Probabilistic Two-Phase wake vortex prediction model P2P has been enhanced for the prediction of the transport of a passive tracer with the descending wake vortex oval. The study considers the year 2019 with the prevailing wind conditions and the respective traffic mix. The presented results comprise the distributions of the numbers of wake vortices reaching down to the ground and the corresponding UFP number concentrations.