Abstract
Fires caused by cables occur frequently in mines, which endanger the safety of workers. To explore the characteristics of a multilayer cable fire in a mine tunnel, multilayer cable fire simulations were carried out using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). The influence of cable tray spacing, ignition position, and tunnel ventilation speed on the characteristics of the fire were studied. The results showed that these factors change the amount of contact between the cable and air, the heat accumulation, and the heat transfer by the flame interaction between the cables. It was also noted that increasing the spacing or wind speed both made the peak of heat release rate (PHRR) initially increase and then decrease. The influence of wind speed on the cable burnout rate in the upstream and downstream sides of the fire source was not consistent, and the wind speed had a sensitive effect on the cable burn out rate in the upstream side of the fire source. The higher the ignition position was, the longer the arrival time of PHRR was and the slower the fire developed. There was a higher burn velocity close to the ceiling. The cable hooks obstructed the cable fire. This study provides a theoretical basis for cable fire prevention and control in mine tunnels.
Highlights
Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow jointly developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Technology Research Center of Finland [27]
The heat generated by combustion causes the ambient temperature to rise continuously, which endangers life when the temperature exceeds the limit that escaping personnel can bear, and it ignites wood, pipes, and other combustible materials in the mine tunnel
The spread of a cable fire is mainly transverse, so the fire expansion rate can reflect the velocity of expansion of the fire hazard area and determine the trends in fire development and fire intensity
Summary
Coal is the main energy source in the world. There are many disasters in coal mines that affect the safety of workers [1]. Cables are widely used in mine tunnels for electrical equipment in underground mines. Cable fires are caused by circuit overloads, short circuits, interface failure, and other fire sources, leading to enormous casualties [3,4]. The cables are usually laid in the way of multiple layers along the walls of the tunnels. The other layers may quickly ignite if one layer of the cable tray burns, leading to a catastrophic fire event [5,6]. It is necessary to study the combustion characteristics of multilayer cables in mine tunnels
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