Hanford-64 S-Series
WHEN:
May 13, 1964 through September 10, 1964
LOCATION: The experimental site was on the Hanford reservation, located in a semiarid region of Southeastern Washington. This site has a roughness length that is on the order of 3cm. To better see the area where these experiments were conducted see Green Glow Volume I Figure II-1 and Figure VI-1.
If someone has latitude and longitude coordinates for the release position, I would like to provide such via this web site.
TRACER: Zinc Sulfide was used for all 14 S-Series experiments.
Zinc Sulfide ( U.S. Radian Corporation designation No. 2210) . Nickola (1977) characterized the Zinc Sulfide tracer as having specific gravity of 4.1, and a lognormal distribution with a geometric average diameter of 4.1 micrometers and a geometric standard deviation of 1.6 micrometers.
RELEASE:
The Zinc Sulfide was dispensed through commercially available insecticide sprayers.
The attached file provides a summary of which tracers where released and how many towers were active for each of the 14 experiments. There were 11 experiments with a release height of 56m and 3 experiments with a release height of 111m. [Hanford64-S-SeriesOverview, 13KB]
SAMPLING:
Horizontal Sampling: Total dosages at a height of 1.5m above ground, along six arcs (200, 800, 1600, 3200, 12,800 and 25,600m) downwind of the release. Generally speaking, the receptors were spaced at 2 degree intervals on the 200 and 800m arcs; at 1 degree intervals on the 1600, 3200m, and 12,800m arcs).
Vertical Sampling: Total dosages at 19 heights on 5 posts along the first four arcs. The 5 posts were located at 98, 106, 114, 122, and 130 degrees along the arcs. The vertical sampling varied being higher as downwind distance increased: 27m (200m arc), 42m (800m arc), and 62m (1600m arc), and 62m (3200m arc).
METEOROLOGY
1. Micrometeorological tower 80ft in height provided data for three experiments. Average wind speeds, wind directions, horizontal wind direction standard deviations, and temperature are reported for 6 levels (2.5. 5. 10.0, 20, 40, and 80ft).
2. A 400ft meteorological tower provided data for all 14 experiments. Average wind speeds, wind directions, horizontal wind direction standard deviations, and temperature are reported for 7 levels (7, 50.0, 1000, 1500, 200, 300 and 400ft).
3. I used the 400m tower temperatures from 7 and 50ft, and the 400ft tower wind speed at 50ft to make my estimates of the Monin-Obukhov lengths and frictions velocities for each experiment.
DISCUSSION
In 1985, Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories was contracted by the U.S. EPA to develop and demonstrate a data archival format. The archival format was designed to make the results of extensive field tests readily accessible for model testing, development, and verification efforts.
Battelle demonstrated the archival format on two tracer dispersion data sets and one meteorological field data set, which are provided via this web site with the respective data sets. The Battelle report for the Hanford-64 archive is [Hanford64-S-SeriesOverview.txt, 13KB], and the archived data file is [Hanford64Archivev003.txt, 330KB].
Over the years, a great number of tracer experiments were conducted on the Hanford reservation, as can be seen from the various data sets listed. What has hampered use of this vast collection of data, has been characterizing the deposition, which is disappointing, given the need for data to evaluate atmospheric transport and diffusion models. For this reason, I listed the tracer's characteristics, when I defined the tracer (above).
The releases were made in a shallow broad valley at nighttime - hence the drainage wind flow is following the curvature of the valley floor. It would be interesting to apply modern mesoscale (or microscale) meteorological models to this area to see if better characterizations of the vertical and horizontal dosage values can be obtained, by this means.
Observations of the time of first arrival of the tracer near ground level at distances of 8 and 16 miles from the source indicate that the tracer material which first arrives has traveled with a wind speed greater than the surf ace wind (about 15 ft). It would be necessary to have wind speed measurements between S0 and 100 ft above ground in order to estimate the time of first arrival at these distance even though the source Is no higher than 15 ft. [See Discussion in Elliott et al., (1961), reference and link provided below.]
The experiments presented in the data volume (Nikola et al., 1983) were conducted on 128 days during a eight and one-half year period from January 1960 through 1967. The data were collected in nine experimental series. Of these series, four were primary series i.e., the 30-Series, the U-Series, the 63-Series and the 64-Series. These series contributed data for 117 experiments. The remaining five series were secondary, and contributed data for 17 experiments. So the S-64-Series presented here is a very small portion of the data documented in the data volume.
DIGITAL DATA FILES:
Tracer Observations
In the following two data files, I have listed the emission rate, the wind speed at release height, the wind speed at 15.2m the temperature difference between 15.2m and 0.91m, and my estimated values for the Monin-Obukhov length and friction velocity.
1. Horizontal sampling array concentration value for 14 experiments. [H64HorizontalSamplingResults.txt, 71KB]
2. Vertical sampling array concentration values. [H64VerticalSamplingResults.txt, 38KB]
Meteorological Observations
1. Wind speed, wind direction and temperatures reported from the 122m tower and the 24.4m micrometeorological tower are listed in subsection 3 of the Hanford-67 data archive. [Hanford64Archivev003.txt, 330KB]
REFERENCES:
Barad, M.L., and Fuquay, J.J., (1962a): The Green Glow Diffusion Program Volume I. AFCRL-62-251(1). HANFORD Doc. No. HW-71400-Vol. I. Geophysical Research Papers No. 73, Geophysics Research Directorate, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Office of Aerospace Research, United States Air Force, Bedford, Massachusetts, 84 pages. [GreenGlowDataVolumeOne.pdf, 4.2MB]
Droppo Jr., J.G., (1985): The Hanford 1964 Atmospheric Dispersion Experiment, Micrometeorological and Tracer Data Archive Set 002 Documentation Report. Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Contract Number 68-02-4063, Contract Report. [Hanford64-S-SeriesOverview.txt, 13KB]
Elliott, W.P., Eagelmann, R.J., Nickola, P.W., (1961): Area-dosage relationships and time of arrival in the Green Glow program. ARCRL-468, Air Force Surveys in Geophysics No. 134, Geophysics Research Directorate, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Office of Aerospace Research, United States Air Force, Bedford, Massachusetts, 42 pages. [GreenGlowDosage.pdf, 2.5MB]
Nickola, P.W., J.V. Ramsdell, C.S. Glantz, and R.E. Kerns (1983): Hanford Atmospheric Dispersion Data: 1960 Through June 1967. Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, 683 pages. [NTIS PNL-4814].