Designing Fire Scenarios for Subway Stations and Tunnels Based on Regional Approach

Abstract

Development of cities as well as population growth causes to development of public transportation especially subway lines. The high capacity besides the high speed in transportation makes them the popular transportation system. Fire is the one of the most important issues that may occur in subways. The difference in flame size, emissionheat, smoke and pollutants generation of subway fires attracts an especial attention of fire investigators. The emergency ventilation of subways in the case of fire should have the ability of discharging heat, smoke and pollutants from passenger escape route and preparing a safe place for a specific duration. The optimal performance of emergency ventilation system has a close relation with fire scenarios. In this research the fire scenarios of Tehran subway are designed based on regional approach. In order to show the performance of ventilation systems in emergency mode, the fire scenarios are simulated using computational fluid dynamics. Simulations are conducted for steady and unsteady modes. In transient simulations, a fast t2 growth curve is used for the heat and smoke release rate. Simulation results show that new regional scenarios could provide safe escape routes to evacuate passengers during the fire.