Numerical Experiments on Critical Ventilation Velocity and Back-layer in Tunnel Fire

Full-scale numerical experiments were carried out on the vehicular fire in a long tunnel to study the critical ventilation velocity and back-layer distance with heat release rate of 5, 20 and 100 MW respectively. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow FDS(Fire Dynamics Simulator) was used to solve numerically a form of the Navier-Stokes equations for fire. The results were compared with the expressions proposed in the literature. A modified equation for the critical ventilation velocity was given to better fit the experimental results. A bi-exponential model that well fitted the numerical experimental results was proposed to describe the relationship between back-layer distance and ventilation velocity.

Numerical and experimental study on the critical velocity and smoke maximum temperature in the connected area of branch tunnel

The objective of this study is to investigate critical velocity and smoke maximum temperature beneath the ceiling in the connected area of branch tunnel with varying fire locations.The fire sources were located in the divergent connected area of the branch tunnel,to imitate traffic accidents near the branch point.A 1/20 scale model branch tunnel was built including main line before branch,main line after branch,and ramp.Experimental tests and numerical simulations were performed to explore smoke movement characteristics with longitudinal ventilation.The results showed that the enlarged cross-sectional area in branch tunnel caused the shortening of the back-layering length,and a modified model of back-layering length was proposed.The higher tunnel height in this work affected the critical condition of large fire;it caused a larger transition point of dimensionless critical velocity.A revised model was proposed for the maximum temperature rise of tunnel fires in the connected area of branch tunnel.The critical velocity kept unchanged when the branch angle increased from 0°to 20°because there is little change in the longitudinal smoke temperature.As the local tunnel width of fire source was increased,the required critical velocity was increased while the local effective velocity kept nearly the same.

A numerical study on smoke behaviors in inclined tunnel fires under natural ventilation

To investigate the effect of tunnel slope on hot gas movement and smoke distribution in a slopping tunnel fire,a series of tunnel fire models are built by fire dynamics simulator(FDS),with a slope varies from 0 to 10%.Parameters such as ceiling temperature and airflow velocity are measured.The results indicate that the relationship between smoke back-layering length and tunnel slope can be described as an exponential function.The smoke temperature at the downstream exit first increased and then decreased with a higher slope.The airflow velocity at downstream outlet increased nonlinearity when tunnel slope was less than 8%.In the slope tunnel,the fire smoke spread process can be divided into three stages.Fire smoke spreads upstream to the peak distance,subsequently,the upstream smoke layer decreases gradually,the tunnel fire reaches a quasi-steady state.The backflow characteristics of smoke in sloped tunnels are coupled with the downstream length and outlet smoke temperature.In the initial stage of a slope tunnel fire,smoke spreads upstream for a long distance,endangering human health.