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This paper aims to study turbulent dispersion of a passive plume emitting from a single elevated line source of different elevations in a plane channel flow by using direct numerical simulation (DNS).

The investigation was conducted in both physical and spectral spaces, which includes an analysis of statistical moments and pre-multiplied spectra of the velocity and concentration fields. The pre-multiplied power spectra of the velocity and concentration fields are compared to identify the transition of the plume development from the turbulent convective stage to the turbulent diffusive stage.

It is observed that due to the presence of wall shear, the mean plume drifts toward the wall for the near-wall source release case. It is also observed that streamwise development of the plume is sensitive to both the source elevation and the downstream distance from the source. For the line source placed near the center of the channel, the plume development is dominated by the bulk meandering effects. However, for the plume emitting from the near-wall line source, it hits the ground soon after its release and becomes dominated by the wall shear. As the downstream distance from the line source increases, the streamwise development of the plume released from the near-wall line source transitions from a turbulent convective stage to a turbulent diffusive stage.

This paper represents an original DNS study of turbulent mixing and dispersion of a passive plume emitting from a line source of different elevations in a wall-bounded flow. This paper proposes a practical method to identify the transition of the plume development from the turbulent convective to the turbulent diffusive stages.