Testing of an adaptive puff model for regulatory purposes around As Pontespower plant

A new version, Adaptive Puff Model 2 (APM2) of the Lagrangian adaptive plum e model, APM, (Ludwig et al., 1989) has been tested around As Pontes power plant, an elevated single source over complex terrain, during four represen tative emission and meteorological dates in 1996. This 'closed-eyes' experi ment has been performed in order to test APM2 around the As Pontes power pl ant environment. Four dates were chosen by the power plant staff, and APM2 was run using the available emission and meteorological measurements. After running the simulations, a specific comparison based on the available grou nd-level concentration data was planned and applied, in order to obtain an evaluation of the new features included in the model, specifically new plum e rise and plume growth equations. The observed maximum plume impact distan ce from the source and maximum ground-level concentration, calculated by in terpolation from the concentration measurements, are the evaluation paramet ers. Final results show that the difference between estimated and observed maximum impact distance reaches 10 km in some cases. In addition, APM2 over estimates the maximum ground-level concentration in all dates tested.