Development of a particle-tracking model for explosive release and its coupling with the atmospheric dispersion model

This study develops an Explosive-release Particle Tracking Model (EPTM) and couples it with the Worldwide version of System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (WSPEEDI) to explicitly represent the explosion-induced initial condition in atmospheric dispersion simulation. The developed model is designed to resolve the particle dynamics immediately after an explosive release and to provide a physically based initial condition for subsequent atmospheric transport simulations. To demonstrate the capability and impact of EPTM, numerical experiments were conducted under the idealized meteorological field. The results show that the impact of explosion-induced initial motion on concentration and surface deposition is substantial near the explosion point but diminishes with transport distance. Immediately after explosive release, the explosive case produces a rapid vertical redistribution of radioactive materials. This vertical redistribution increases concentration near the surface and increases surface deposition near the release point compared with the non-explosive case. As a result, air concentration maxima and surface deposition patterns near the explosion point are controlled by the explosion-driven initial conditions represented by EPTM. In contrast, in the downwind area, differences in air concentration and surface deposition between the explosive and non-explosive cases become small because horizontal advection and turbulent diffusion govern the spatial distribution of the concentration and deposition, reducing the relative influence of the initial explosion as the plume evolves. Consequently, increasing explosive energy amplifies the contrast of air concentration and surface deposition near the explosion point while exerting limited influence on downwind concentration and deposition distributions.