Investigation of road tunnel fires: challenges and findings

Abstract

Numerical simulations have widely been used in the past to perform various complex engineering problems and phenomena. Most of the time the main objective of numerical modelling was to validate the outcome of experimental findings. However, it’s not always possible to replicate the exact conditions of experiments while doing a numerical simulation. There are various obstacles in modelling complex engineering problems such as the capability of a program, computational resources, time, understanding the real physics, modelling of components etc. This study will focus on the road tunnel fires with a heavy goods vehicle. A full-scale experiment of road tunnel fires is not always feasible because of very high cost and legal procedures. This motivates alternative techniques such as numerical modelling to study such phenomena. A numerical analysis of road tunnel fire involving heavy goods vehicle is undertaken in this study using FDS (Fire dynamic simulator) program. The study will discuss the challenges associated with the numerical modelling of road tunnel fires. A comprehensive summary of real problems encountered in such modelling, their possible causes, alternative ways, their impact of overall results and few solutions will be presented in this study. This paper reviews the similar work done by other researchers worldwide and provides a benchmarking.