1. BPIPPRM Hands-on Course #423 Day 2 Afternoon
Air Pollution Dispersion Models:
Applications with the AERMOD Modeling System
BPIPPRM Hands-on
Course #423
Day 2 Afternoon

2. Day 2 Afternoon: BPIPPRM Hands-On

3. Learning Objectives At the end of this session, you will understand:
The input required to run BPIPPRM
How to run the BPIPPRM program
How to interpret the results
How to include it in an AERMOD run

4. Structure Diagram N
For this hands-on activity, we will represent a single building comprised of two rectangular tiers of different heights as shown.
Tier 1: 180m by 90m, 60m high
Tier 2: 80m by 60m, 100m high (40m above the roof of tier 1)
The stack is about 40m from the front face of building and 150m high.
The building orientation relative to north is also shown.

5. BPIPPRM – Hands-on Develop the BPIPPRM control file for the following
Model Type: Prime Downwash
Number of Buildings: 1
Number of Tiers: 2
Base Elevation: 0 meters
Tier 1 coordinates (in meters):
Tier 1 height: 60 meters
Tier 2 coordinates (in meters):
Tier 2 height: 100 meters
Source Information:
Source ID: MC12
Stack elevation: 0 meters
Stack height: meters
Location:
This slide lists the parameters that will be needed to prepare the BPIP control file. Digitizing or deriving coordinates for the buildings/tiers and setting up the BPIP control file manually, can be painstaking and time consuming. Therefore, much of the control file is completed but with some obvious omissions that you will need to complete.

6. BPIPPRM – Hands-on Files
The BPIPPRM executable file and control file are the only files needed to complete this hands-on activity, located in the following directory:
APTI423\Hands-on\BPIPPRM\
Bpipprm.exe: BPIPPRM program executable file
MC_bpipprm.inp: control file
To complete this hands-on activity, the only two files needed are the BPIPPRM executable and the control file. There are no additional input data other than what are specified in the control file.
These files are located in the directory “APTI423\Hands-on\BPIPPRM\”.
The names of these files are identified on the slide.
BPIPPRM is another program for which the control file name is not dictated by the program, i.e., BPIPPRM does not expect a particular name for the control file. You will specify the filename on the command line at the command prompt when you execute BPIPPRM.

7. BPIPPRM – Control File MC_bpipprm.inp ‘ ’  Title ‘ ’  MODEL TYPE:
‘ ’  INPUT UNITS, CONVERSION FACTOR TO METERS
‘ ’  UTM FLAG, PLANT NORTH ANGLE
 NUMBER OF BUILDINGS
‘BLDG1’  FIRST BLDG NAME, NUMBER OF TIERS,
BASE ELEVATION
 NUMBER OF CORNERS, TIER HEIGHT
 X AND Y-COORDINATES OF CORNERS
FOR FIRST BUILDING TIER
FOR SECOND BUILDING TIER
 NUMBER OF STACKS
STACKID STACK ELEV. STACK HEIGHT STACK X-COORD STACK Y-COORD
‘MC12'
This slide displays the BPIPPRM control used for the hands-on activity. The blue text is annotations to identify the different inputs and not actually included in the control file.
Title: Up to 78 characters (in quotes)
Model Type (in quotes):
‘P’ for Prime for AERMOD - get the building height, projected building width, projected building length, and x- and y-adjustments for stack location.
‘NP’ for noPRIME - only get the building height and projected building width.
‘ST’ for ISCST (no longer the preferred model) - only get the building height and projected building width.
‘LT’ for ISC2LT (a model no longer in use).
Units and Conversion Factor:
Units: Input units (up to 10 characters in quotes)
Conversion Factor: Factor to convert to meters; if units are meters, the factor is 1.00 (as shown) (real value)
UTM Flag and North Angle:
UTM Flag (in quotes): UTMN: no UTM coordinate processing; UTMY: UTM coordinate processing.
North Angle: Orientation of plant north with respect to true north (real value). For example, if plant north is to the southeast, then the angle to enter is 135.

8. Running BPIPPRM Must be run from command prompt or batch file
To run BPIPPRIM for this hands-on activity, open a command prompt and set the working directory to the folder where the control file is located
The command line entry is of the following format:
bpipprm control_file output_file summary_file
At the command prompt type the following:
bpipprm MC_bpipprm.inp MC_bpipprm.out MC_bpipprm.sum
As with the other programs discussed to this point, BPIPPRM can be run from the command prompt or via a batch file. We will run BPIPPRM directly from the command prompt for this activity.
Regardless how you run BPIPPRM, the command-line entry requires several arguments. Arguments are the individual items that must be included on the command-line following the name of the executable program. The executable and arguments are shown in the slide. The entry after the command prompt is the name of the BPIPPRM program executable (bpipprm or you can include the extension, i.e., bpipprm.exe). The first argument is the name of the control file. (Remember, BPIPPRM does not dictate the name of the control file as do many of the programs discussed in this course.) The second argument is the file name you want BPIPPRM to assign to the output file that contains the results that will be input to AERMOD. In addition, the output file contains the processing information, EPA formula height, and GEP height. The third argument is the file name you want assigned to the summary file, also created by BPIPPRM. The summary file contains a summary of the input and details of the processing by flow vector for each stack.

9. BPIPPRM Results buildwid
All parameters are output as a function of flow direction for 36 directions every 10 degrees beginning with 10 degrees.
This slide shows the relationship between the building downwash distance parameters derived by BPIPPRM and the projected building based on the flow direction. These parameters are required by the PRIME downwash algorithm in AERMOD. Note that this graphic is a recreation of the example in the BPIPPRM User’s Guide and is not meant to depict the building and stack relationship in our hands-on. It is just a visual aid to describe the relationship between the parameters output by BPIPPRM. Here, we want to again define these parameters. The format of the output file is shown in the next slide. The values correspond to the tier that BPIPPRM determined to be the controlling tier by flow direction.
BUILDHGT: Height of controlling building/tier – height is out of the page toward you in this figure.
BUILDWID: Projected building width relative to the flow vector.
BUILDLEN: Projected building length relative to the flow vector.
XBADJ: Adjustment in the x-direction (alongwind flow) for which the stack location is referenced to centerline of upwind edge of building/tier.
YBADJ: Adjustment in the y-direction (crosswind flow) for which the stack location is referenced to centerline of upwind edge of building/tier.
The first three are fairly straight forward to understand. XBADJ and YBADJ are more difficult to understand. These two parameters are used to input direction-specific along-flow and across-flow distances, respectively, from the stack to the center of the upwind face of the projected building. In other words, for each flow direction, BPIPPRM repositions the stack as though it were located on the center of the upwind face of the projected building.

10. BPIPPRM – Hands-on Output
SO BUILDHGT MC
SO BUILDHGT MC
SO BUILDHGT MC
SO BUILDWID MC
SO BUILDWID MC
SO BUILDWID MC
SO BUILDLEN MC
SO BUILDLEN MC
SO BUILDLEN MC
SO XBADJ MC
SO XBADJ MC
SO XBADJ MC
SO XBADJ MC
SO XBADJ MC
SO XBADJ MC
SO YBADJ MC
SO YBADJ MC
SO YBADJ MC
SO YBADJ MC
SO YBADJ MC
SO YBADJ MC
This slide displays the bottom portion of the output file, MC_bpipprm.out, which includes the direction-specific distances input to AERMOD.
Looking at the BUILDWID, the first three value are (meters) and represents the FLOW VECTOR of 10, 20, and 30 degrees, the fourth is and represents the FLOW VECTOR of 40 degrees – does everyone understand flow vector and how it differs from wind direction?
The last two entries for BUILDWID are and for 350 and 360 degrees, respectively.

11. Incorporating Results into AERMOD
The necessary records in the output file begin after the processing information
This is the only portion used in AERMOD and must be pasted into a separate file or into the control file
The records meet all the AERMOD requirements except one
In the output file, the SO pathway records start in column six, whereas AERMOD requires that SO appear in the first two columns:
SO BUILDHGT Stk
The extra leading spaces must be deleted before using the AERMOD control file
The records in the output file that contain the building downwash parameters required by AERMOD are found at the bottom of the file, beneath the processing information.
The exact line where the building parameters used by AERMOD can be found will depend on the number of stacks; for a single stack it is around line 65.
The contents of the BPIPPRM output file cannot be INCLUDED or pasted directly into the AERMOD control file as-is. The top portion of the file that is not needed by AERMOD is not formatted as comments and the bottom portion, the building downwash parameters, are not formatted quite right for AERMOD and must be edited prior to use with AERMOD. For these reasons, it is advised that you either copy/paste the block of text containing the building downwash parameters into a separate file and use the “INCLUDED” keyword in the AERMOD control file or paste the block of text directly into the AERMOD control file. Either way, the format must be edited as indicated on the slide. The SO pathway records start in column 6, whereas AERMOD requires that SO appear in the first two columns.