Evaluation of Fire Risk at Highway Tunnels

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to prevent and reduce fire at highway tunnels. This paper systematically analyzes the influence factors for the safety system of highway tunnels, establishes a risk assessment model for tunnel fire based on analytic hierarchy process and multi-grade fuzzy evaluation, and introduces a risk factors assessment system for tunnel fire in details. Using this model, the risk of a specific highway tunnel fire has been assessed. The research results show that this evaluation method is in accordance with the actual situation. Therefore the model is recommended to put into practical applications. 1 PREFACE With the rapid development of Chinese economy and improvement of people’s daily lives, all sorts of highway tunnels have been built and China has become a country which owns the world's top highway tunnels both in scales and in distance. Consequently the numbers and frequencies of tunnel fire accidents appear to rise yearly, resulting in huge losses of life and property. In order to prevent and reduce the occurrence of fire, risk analysis and evaluation are essential to identify the potential hazards and take corresponding measures to improve the safety levels of these traffic tunnels. Due to the diversities of the hazards which may lead to a fire and the ambiguous interactions among them, Analytical Hierarchy Process(AHP) and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method are introduced for comprehensive risk evaluation on the highway tunnel fire, to facilitate a quantitative description of the impacts of these factors on tunnel safety.