Abstract
Traffic force induced by the piston effect of moving vehicles is a major driving force to the airflow in road tunnels. To ensure an adequate flow rate in the tunnel, an accurate estimation to the traffic force is necessary. This work investigates the influence of jet fans to the traffic force of a large vehicle in a long highway tunnel. A numerical model of airflow in the tunnel is established based on RANS (Reynolds Averaged Narvier-Stokes) equations, and dynamic mesh method is utilized to simulate the moving vehicle. Results show that, traffic force is significantly amplified when the vehicle passes the jet fans, which can be explained by the non-uniform velocity profile under the entrainment of high-speed jets. A parametric analysis is conducted to the effects of initial jet velocity, vehicle speed and ventilating velocity of tunnel. Finally, an improved correlation is proposed to evaluate the drag coefficient and traffic force of the vehicle within the affecting range of air jets.
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