Richardson's Law in Large-Eddy Simulations of Boundary-Layer Flows

Relative dispersion in a neutrally stratified planetary boundary layer (PBL) is investigated by means of large-eddy simulations (LES). Despite the small extension of the inertial range of scales in the simulated PBL, our Lagrangian statistics turn out to be compatible with the Richardson t3 law for the average of square particle separation, where t is time. This emerges from the application of non-standard methods of analysis through which a precise measure of the Richardson constant was also possible. Its value is estimated as C2≈ 0.5, in close agreement with recent experiments and three-dimensional direct numerical simulations.