Scale modelling experiments on the effect of longitudinal ventilation on fire spread and fire properties in tunnel

J. Li, W. Liu, Y.F. Li, W.K. Chow*, C.L. Chow, C.H. Cheng

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Fire spread between vehicles is of a great concern in a tunnel fire. Longitudinal ventilation, which is commonly used for the smoke control in tunnel fire, would inevitably affect fire properties and fire spread in tunnel at the same time. Such effects were studied using model-scale experiments in this paper. The results show that fire spread mostly occur due to the flame touching arising from flame tilting under longitudinal flow. Safety spacing should be kept for preventing fire spread between vehicles. The effect of longitudinal ventilation on the temperature distribution in the downstream area of the fire source is found mainly limited to the vicinity of the fire source. Maximum ceiling temperature, flame tilt angle and downwind flame temperature under longitudinal ventilation are found to be heavily dependent on Fr (Froude number) and dimensionless Q* (Dimensionless heat release rate). The formulas of flame tilt angle and mean downwind flame temperature were developed and predicted results were compared with those in modelling experiments.
Original languageEnglish
Article number104725
JournalTunnelling and Underground Space Technology
Volume130
Online published30 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022

Funding

This work described in this paper was supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 8222002), Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant No. 51278018); and by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China for the Theme-Based Research Scheme Project “Safety, Reliability, and Disruption Management of High Speed Rail and Metro Systems” (Project Number: T32-101/15-R) with account number 3-RBAC.

Research Keywords

  • Fire properties
  • Fire spread
  • Model-scale experiment
  • Tunnel fire
  • Ventilation

RGC Funding Information

  • RGC-funded

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  • TBRS: Safety, Reliability, and Disruption Management of High Speed Rail and Metro Systems

    XIE, M. (Principal Investigator / Project Coordinator), BENSOUSSAN, A. (Co-Principal Investigator), LO, S. M. (Co-Principal Investigator), SHOU, B. (Co-Principal Investigator), SINGPURWALLA, N. D. (Co-Principal Investigator), TSE, W. T. P. (Co-Principal Investigator), TSUI, K. L. (Co-Principal Investigator), YU, Y. (Co-Principal Investigator), YUEN, K. K. R. (Co-Principal Investigator), CHAN, A. B. (Co-Investigator), CHAN, N.-H. (Co-Investigator), CHIN, K. S. (Co-Investigator), CHOW, H. A. (Co-Investigator), Chow, W. K. (Co-Investigator), EDESESS, M. (Co-Investigator), GOLDSMAN, D. M. (Co-Investigator), Huang, J. (Co-Investigator), LEE, W. M. (Co-Investigator), LI, L. (Co-Investigator), LI, C. L. (Co-Investigator), LING, M. H. A. (Co-Investigator), LIU, S. (Co-Investigator), MURAKAMI, J. (Co-Investigator), NG, S. Y. S. (Co-Investigator), NI, M. C. (Co-Investigator), TAN, M.H.-Y. (Co-Investigator), Wang, W. (Co-Investigator), Wang, J. (Co-Investigator), WONG, C. K. (Co-Investigator), WONG, S. Y. Z. (Co-Investigator), WONG, S. C. (Co-Investigator), Xu, Z. (Co-Investigator), ZHANG, Z. (Co-Investigator), Zhang, D. (Co-Investigator), ZHAO, J. L. (Co-Investigator) & Zhou, Q. (Co-Investigator)

    1/01/1631/12/21

    Project: Research

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