The characteristics of ventilated pool fires of Daegok-Sosa subway lines using Model-Scale tunnels and stations

Abstract

The characteristics of ventilated pool fires for Daegok-Sosa subway lines with a length of 15.12 km in Seoul, South Korea were studied. The model-scale tunnels and stations were built in scale 1:50 and temperature distribution, smoke (Carbon Monoxide (CO)) spreading, back-layering phenomenon and longitudinal ventilated flow velocity were systematically investigated. Present subscale model was based on the Froude number similitude and a heptane pool fire was used as the heat source. Heat release rate of pool fire in model-scale tunnel was 1.13 kW corresponding to an equivalent 20 MW in full scale. The occurrence of smoke back-layering phenomenon could be observed by whether the upstream temperature rose at a certain position during the whole process of the fire test. In the single line parallel tunnel, the smoke was restricted to downstream of fire source, however, in the double track tunnel the smoke back layering slightly occurred in upstream region of fire source and then it soon disappeared. The smoke propagated far downstream side and the tunnel safety measures should be taken for passenger’s safe evacuation from the CO toxic gas. The longitudinal air velocities in upstream side near the fire source were accelerated and were about 11% higher than the downstream velocities in single line parallel tunnel and more than 20% higher in double track tunnel caused by the blocking effect of fire source. A generalized quasi one-dimensional flow network solver was employed to calculate the longitudinal air velocity in tunnels using the finite volume Ghost Junction Method (GJM) which were compared with the present experimental data. The required minimum longitudinal air velocities (2.0 m/sec for single line parallel tunnel and 2.5 m/sec for double track tunnel) specified in the Korean railway facility technical standards were well satisfied in this experiment.