Water spray effects on fire smoke temperature distribution beneath a symmetrical V-shaped tunnel ceiling

Abstract

The coupling effects of the double-slope stack effect, the thermal buoyancy induced by the V-shaped tunnel fire and the drag force generated by the water spray system alter fire smoke flow regulation compared to fire smoke flow in a horizontal tunnel. By numerical simulation, this work investigates the effect of water spray flow rate (0 L/min – 600 L/min), atomization angle (0–150°) and the length within fire source and the grade change point (0–120 m) on smoke temperature distribution beneath a symmetrical V-shaped ceiling. The findings indicate that the cooling effect on smoke temperature can be significantly improved by increasing the rate of water spray flow, while water spray increasing angle and tunnel slope have little contribution to the cooling smoke temperature. Thus an improved ceiling smoke temperature distribution model is proposed by importing the flow rate, angle coefficients and tunnel slope. As the fire source distance from the grade change point increases, stack effect on fire smoke flow could be categorized into three zones, which are the double-slope control zone, the transition zone and the single-slope control zone, which causes that downstream smoke temperature become higher gradually than the upstream one, while the smoke temperature difference tends to stabilize at the single-slope control stage. Finally, a global ceiling smoke temperature distribution in the symmetrical V-shaped tunnel installed a water spray system is established by introducing fire source distance coefficients.