Experimental and numerical study of maximum ceiling temperature in a tunnel

Abstract

Maximum ceiling temperatures in a tunnel with different ventilation velocities with three heat release fires are studied experimentally and theoretically. This article investigates the ventilation velocity effects on maximum ceiling temperature combustible materials around ignition source in tunnel fires. Several fire experimental tests are conducted with longitudinal ventilation velocity changes in a small-scale tunnel (23 m in length, 2 m in width, and 0.98 m in height), where three heat release fires (237, 340, and 567 kW) and their corresponding values in the real tunnel are 20, 30, and 50 MW, respectively. This article modifies the current temperature prediction model taking the ignition materials near the fire source into account in tunnels. Results show that the ceiling maximum temperature increases, corresponding to the burn time when other experimental conditions remain unchanged for a given fire heat level source. The ceiling temperature reduces quickly when the ventilation velocity is increased from 0.5 to 2.0 m/s. Moreover, this article proposes an equation that can be used to estimate the ceiling maximum temperature variation value with three heat release fires in tunnels. Finally, experimental results are also compared with the tunnel ceiling temperature attenuation equations established by Alpert, Heskestad, and Ingason. The equation proposed in this article appears to provide better estimates of ceiling temperature variation than the Kurioka model developed in their scaled experiments. The prediction agrees well with the experimental and measured data by the modified equations of this article.