Critical ventilation velocity for tunnel fires occurring near tunnel exits

Ventilation is an effective method for controlling smoke during a tunnel fire. The “critical ventilation velocity” u_cr is generally defined as the minimum velocity at which smoke is prevented from spreading against the longitudinal ventilation flow in tunnel fire situations. This study conducted small-scale experiments to investigate u_cr for situations when tunnel fire occurs near tunnel exits. The model tunnel was 4 m long, 0.6 m wide and 0.6 m tall, and the fires were located at 0.5 m, 1.0 m and 1.5 m from the tunnel exit. 6.3×6.3 cm² and 9.0×9.0 cm² square asoline fuel pans were used as fire source. Results show that u_cr decreases as the fire approaches the tunnel exit.     

The critical ventilation velocity in tunnel fires—a computer simulation

In ventilated tunnel fires, smoke and hot combustion products may form a layer near the ceiling and flow in the direction opposite to the ventilation stream. The existence of this reverse stratified flow has an important bearing on fire fighting and evacuation of underground mine roadways, tunnels and building corridors. In the present study, conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a CFD program (fire dynamics simulator) based on large eddy simulations (LES) is used to model floor-level fires in a ventilated tunnel. Specifically, the critical ventilation velocity that is just sufficient to prevent the formation of a reverse stratified layer is simulated for two tunnels of different size. The computer code is verified by checking the computed velocity profile against experimental measurements. The CFD results show the leveling-off of the critical ventilation velocity as the heat release rate surpasses a certain value. At this critical ventilation, the ceiling temperature above the fire reaches a maximum for both tunnels. The velocity leveling-off can be explained from this observation. An extended correlation of Newman (Combust. Flame 57 (1984) 33) is applied to the temperature profiles obtained by CFD. At the critical ventilation, temperature stratification exists downstream from the fire. The computed critical ventilation velocity shows fair agreement with available experimental data taken from both horizontal and inclined fire tunnels. The CFD simulations indicate that the Froude modeling is an approximation for tunnel fires. The Froude-scaling law does not apply to two geometrically similar fire tunnels. The CFD results are compared with two simple theories of critical ventilation by Kennedy et al. (ASHRAE Trans. Res. 102(2) (1996) 40) and Kunsch (Fire safety J. 37 (2002) 67).     

Wind tunnel tests on compartment fires with crossflow ventilation

When a fire occurs in a room at ground level or a compartment located in the higher floors of a very tall building , the strong ambient wind will play an important role in fire spreading and smoke movement behavior. However, wind effect on compartment fire in cross ventilation condition has not been fully studied so far. In the present study, an effort has been made to study the wind effect on compartment fire in cross ventilation condition through experimental investigations. The experimental fire was generated by 250 ml n-heptane on the floor center of a cube enclosure with two opposite vents on the walls. The inside and outside gas temperature profiles at different vertical and horizontal locations were recorded by two thermocouple matrixes. The ambient wind velocity was set to 0, 1.5 and 3 m s⁻¹. It is observed that the ambient wind would enhance the fire severity by increasing the compartment fire temperature and reducing the time to flashover. The spilled-out flame/plume would extend horizontally farther with the increase of wind speed. Simple theoretical analysis shows that there is a critical wind velocity, or a dimensional number, to differentiate whether the gas flow across the vents is bidirectional or unidirectional, which is believed to influence enclosure fire behavior greatly.     

Effects of buoyancy induced roof ventilation systems for smoke removal in tunnel fires

The present article highlights the performance of natural roof ventilation systems and its effects on tunnel fire flow characteristics. Numerical analysis is performed using Large Eddy Simulations (LES) to predict fire growth rate and smoke movement in tunnel with single and multiple roof openings. The smoke venting performance of ceiling vents are investigated by varying the vent size and fire source locations. The critical parameters such as mass flow rate through ceiling openings, smoke traveling time and fire growth patterns are presented. The ceiling openings are effective in transferring hot gases and reduces the longitudinal smoke velocity. The heat source and ceiling vent locations significantly affects the vent performance and smoke behavior in tunnel. The present results are in good agreement with the experimental results available in literature.     

Control of smoke flow in tunnel fires using longitudinal ventilation systems – a study of the critical velocity

The “critical velocity” is the minimum air velocity required to suppress the smoke spreading against the longitudinal ventilation flow during tunnel fire situations. The current techniques for prediction of the values of the critical velocity for various tunnels were mainly based on semi-empirical equations obtained from the Froude number preservation combining with some experimental data. There are a few uncertainties in the current methods of prediction of the critical ventilation velocity. The first is the influence of the fire power on the critical ventilation velocity. The second is the effect of the tunnel geometry on the critical velocity. Both problems lead to the issues of the scaling techniques in tunnel fires. This study addressed these problems by carrying out a series of experimental tests in five model tunnels having the same height but different cross-sectional geometry. Detailed temperature and velocity distributions in the tunnels have been carried out. The experimental results showed that the critical velocity did vary with the tunnel cross-sectional geometry. It was also shown clearly that there are two regimes of variation of critical velocity against fire heat release rate. At low rates of heat release the critical velocity varies as the one-third power of the heat release rate, however at higher rates of heat release, the critical velocity becomes independent of fire heat release rate. Analysis of the distribution of temperature within the fire plumes showed that there were two fire plume distributions at the critical ventilation conditions. The change of the fire plume distribution coincided with the change of the regime in the curves of the critical velocity against fire heat release rate. The study used dimensionless velocity and dimensionless heat release rate with the tunnel hydraulic height (tunnel mean hydraulic diameter) as the characteristic length in the experimental data analysis. It was shown that the experimental data for the five tunnels can be correlated into simple formulae which can be used for scaling. The new scaling techniques are examined by applying the scaling techniques to the present experimental results and three large-scale experimental results available in the public literature. A good agreement has been obtained. This suggests that the scaling techniques can be used with confidence to predict the critical ventilation velocity for larger-scale tunnels in any cross-sectional geometry. Comprehensive CFD simulations have been carried out to examine the flow behaviour inside the tunnels. Validation against the experimental results showed that the CFD gave slightly lower but satisfactory prediction of the flow velocity. However the temperature prediction in the fire region was too high. The findings from the CFD simulations supported the ones from experimental tests.     

The influence of vehicular obstacles on longitudinal ventilation control in tunnel fires

The effect of the vehicular blockage in a tunnel under longitudinal ventilation smoke control was systematically studied using a small-scale tunnel (1:30 of a standard tunnel section) with a helium-air mixture as the buoyant plume. The experimental results showed excellent agreement with full-scale data and reference correlations from former studies. When there are vehicular obstacles in the tunnel, the critical velocity decreased as a function of the blockage ratio. Notwithstanding, it was found that the relative size of the vehicular obstacle and the relative location of the fire source can have a reversed effect, inasmuch as the presence vehicular obstacle exerted an influence on the critical and confinement velocities. Moreover, the backlayering distance was evidently affected by the vehicular blockage. A parallel analysis was carried out for the backlayering distance for lower and upper regimes of the dimensionless heat release rate, where the current data was compared against data from other studies. The method and experimental set-up proved their ability to reproduce several phenomena and thus also their capability to supply relevant and valuable information on the effect of the vehicular blockage on tunnel fire dynamics.     

Effect of cross section on critical velocity in longitudinally ventilated tunnel fires

Numerical and theoretical work was conducted to investigate the effect of tunnel cross section on critical velocity for smoke control in longitudinally ventilated tunnel fires. The results show that for small fires, the critical velocity decreases with both the increasing tunnel height and tunnel width. For large fires, the critical velocity significantly increases with the increasing tunnel height but is independent of tunnel width. Different calculation models are compared with a focus on effect of tunnel cross section. A new correlation is proposed to account for the effect of tunnel width based on the previous model.     

隧道火灾临界风速的理论计算与数值模拟

对比分析了国内外的相关文献资料,数值模拟了不同风速下火灾烟气的扩散情况,根据不同风速下烟雾的回流距离确定临界风速,对其取值提出了建议.     

Study of critical velocity and backlayering length in longitudinally ventilated tunnel fires

Experimental tests and theoretical analyses were conducted to investigate the critical velocity together with the backlayering length in tunnel fires. The experiments were performed in two longitudinally ventilated model tunnels. The proposed correlations for critical velocity are found to comply well with experimental data in both tunnels. The critical Froude number and the critical Richardson number were analyzed using the experimental data. The backlayering length was related to the ratio of longitudinal ventilation velocity to critical velocity. Experimental data show that the relation between the ratio of ventilation velocity to critical velocity and the dimensionless backlayering length follows an exponential relation. A correlation based on experimental data to predict the backlayering length is proposed. Further, comparison of experimental data of critical velocity and backlayering length with results from large-scale tests shows that there is a good agreement in both scales. The effect of accident vehicle obstruction on critical velocity and backlayering length was also analyzed. Experimental data show that the decrease in rate of critical velocity due to obstruction is slightly greater than the ratio of cross-sectional area of the model vehicle to tunnel cross-sectional area, and the backlayering length with an accident vehicle set inside the tunnel gets smaller.     

A numerical study on smoke movement in longitudinal ventilation tunnel fires for different aspect ratio

In this study, numerical simulation was carried out to analyze the effect of the aspect ratio on smoke movement in tunnel fires using FDS 3.0. Temperature distribution under the ceiling showed a relatively good agreement with experimental results within 10 °C. It confirmed the possibility of application of FDS code to tunnel fires. Results from varying of the aspect ratio showed good agreement with experimental data. Temperature near the fire source decreased with the increase of the aspect ratio. But, the rate of the temperature decrease was reduced by the decrease of the heat loss in the spanwise direction. Clear height of the simulation by the analysis of the velocity distribution was about 3% higher than that of the experimental result. Numerical results predicted the back-layering distance and the critical velocity reasonably.     

Investigation of the effect of tunnel ventilation on crib fires through small-scale experiments

This paper adopts a series of 1:20 scale tunnel experiments based on a series of large-scale tunnel experiments to study the influence of forced ventilation on fires. The small-scale tunnel has dimensions of 0.365 m (W)×0.26 m (H)×11.9 m (L). Cribs using a wood-based material provide the fuel source and forced ventilation velocities from 0.23 to 1.90 m/s are used. From the study of the measured heat release rate (HRR) and mass loss rate data it is found that the forced air velocity affects the fire spread rate and burning efficiency and further affects peak HRR values at different air velocities. A simple model to describe these influences is proposed. This model is used to reproduce the enhancement of peak HRR for cribs with different porosity factors noted by Ingason [1] and to assess the effects of using different length of cribs on peak HRR. The results from these analyses suggest that different porosity fuels result different involvement of burning surface area and result different changes in peak HRR. However, no significant difference to the enhancement on fire size is found when the burning surface area is similar. It is also found that the trend in the enhancement on fire size by using sufficiently long crib and available ventilation conditions matches the predictions of Carvel and Beard [2] for two-lane tunnel heavy goods vehicle fires.     

Effect of cross section and ventilation on heat release rates in tunnel fires

Model scale fire tests were performed in tunnels with varying tunnel widths and heights in order to study the effect of tunnel cross-section and ventilation velocity on the heat release rate (HRR) for both liquid pool fires and solid fuel fires. The results showed that for well ventilated heptane pool fires, the tunnel width nearly has no influence on the HRR whilst a lower tunnel height clearly increases the HRR. For well ventilated solid fuel fires, the HRR increases by approximately 25% relative to a free burn test but the HRR is not sensitive to either tunnel width, tunnel height or ventilation velocity. For solid fuel fires that were not well ventilated, the HRRs could be less than those in free burn laboratory tests. In the case of ventilation controlled fires the HRRs approximately lie at the same level as for cases with natural ventilation.     

Full-scale experimental study on smoke flow in natural ventilation road tunnel fires with shafts

Three full-scale burning tests were conducted in a natural ventilation city road tunnel with shafts. Fire sources were placed to be at different locations but its peak release heats were all around 5 MW. Results showed that large amounts of smoke and heat were released through shafts. The maximum smoke temperatures under the ceiling were below than 100 °C, and being lower than 110 °C at the safe height farther 3 m away from fires. The maximum smoke spreading horizontal lengths were less than 240 m both in the upwind and downwind. During the late stages, many smoke particles descended from the ceiling and downdraught occurred at shafts due to low smoke temperatures, but the visibility was not very bad and people needn’t evacuate. All These results are valuable for fire protection and construction of natural ventilation road tunnel with shafts.     

Definition and experimental evaluation of the smoke “confinement velocity” in tunnel fires

An experimental study is carried out on a reduced scale tunnel model (scale reduction is 1:20). The main objective is to evaluate the longitudinal velocity induced into a tunnel when a fire plume continuously released is confined and extracted between two exhaust vents located on both sides of the fire source. For the experimental simulations, fire-induced smoke is simulated by an air and helium mix release. Smoke flow is symmetrical as regards the fire location and experiments are realized for an half tunnel with only one vent activated downstream the source. The vent extraction flow rate is step by step increased and the length of the stratified smoke layer downstream the vent as well as the longitudinal fresh air flow induced, are measured. A confinement velocity is then associated to the minimum value of the longitudinal air flow needed to prevent the smoke layer propagation downstream the vent. This velocity is evaluated for several values of the fire heat release rate and finally compared with the corresponding critical velocity obtained for a longitudinal ventilation system.     

Characteristic length scale of critical ventilation velocity in tunnel smoke control

This paper investigates the characteristic length scale in an analytical correlation of critical ventilation velocity. The critical ventilation velocity is defined as the minimum airflow velocity to prevent smoke backlayering and is often used for smoke control in tunnels. Using a one-dimensional assumption of uniform mixing, the correlation of critical ventilation velocity was derived from the Froude number, which considered tunnel height as the characteristic length scale. Using numerical modelling, this study examines the effects of enclosure blockage ratio and tunnel width or aspect ratio on critical ventilation velocity. In particular, the results suggest that the correlation with tunnel hydraulic diameter may provide a better characterization of critical ventilation velocity. This is supported from the experimental data reported by others on the effect of tunnel width. The practical implications of using hydraulic diameter in determining critical ventilation velocity are discussed.     

Critical velocity and burning rate in pool fire during longitudinal ventilation

Since the prediction of ‘critical velocity’ is important to control the smoke in tunnel fires, many researches have been carried out to predict critical velocity with various fire sizes, tunnel shape, tunnel slope, and so forth. But few researches have been conducted to estimate critical ventilation velocity for varied burning rate by longitudinal ventilation, although burning rate of fuel is influenced by ventilation conditions. Therefore, there is a need to investigate the difference of upstream smoke layer (e.g., backlayering) between naturally ventilated heat release rate and varied heat release rate by longitudinal ventilation.In this study, the 1/20 reduced-scale experiments using Froude scaling are conducted to examine the difference of backlayering between naturally ventilated heat release rate and varied heat release rate by longitudinal ventilation. And the experimental results obtained are compared with numerical ones. Three-dimensional simulations of smoke flow in the tunnel fire with the measured burning rates have been carried out using Fire Dynamics Simulator; Ver. 406 code, which is developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology. They show a good degree of agreement, even if some deviation in temperature downstream of the fire is evident. Since ventilation velocity had a greater enhancing effect on the burning rate of fuel due to oxygen supply effect, the critical ventilation velocity should be calculated on the basis of varied HRR by ventilation velocity.     

论公路隧道火灾的探测

1引言从广义上说,公路隧道火灾可能与隧道的建筑和内部安装的设施或通过的车辆有关。由于隧道建筑材料的不燃性,至今尚未发现仅涉及隧道结构或设施的火灾证据,这就说明所有的公路隧道火灾均源于车辆和其燃料、货物及陈设品。隧道系统和灭火战斗如果不能控制这些车辆带来的火灾危险性和发生在一个狭窄的、往往拥挤的隧道内的火灾,就会对隧道结构造成破坏和对人员生命造成损失。虽然车辆设计的改进已减少了一些车辆火灾的火源,但却又增添了一些新的火灾隐患。在过去的几年中,设计改进带来的最重要的结果却是车辆火灾比以前更加严重和危险。其…     

浅谈公路隧道火灾及其结构防火保护措施

公路隧道火灾发生的原因及频率 ,对公路隧道火灾特点作了初步探讨 ,对公路隧道的结构防火保护措施进行了初步的理论研究     

Control of smoke flow in tunnel fires

This paper concerns the specification of the longitudinal ventilation necessary to prevent upstream movement of combustion products in a tunnel fire. Experiments carried out in a model tunnel have revealed significant limitations on the utility of existing empirical expressions for the critical velocity. Simple formulae with a wider range of applicability are presented. The method of scaling model results has been tested by comparison with large-scale test data. The effects of changes in the shape, size and location of the fire on the critical velocity have been investigated.