Fire Size in Tunnels
dc.contributor.advisor
Beard, Alan
en
dc.contributor.author
Carvel, Ricky O
en
dc.date.accessioned
2007-02-05T12:02:31Z
dc.date.available
2007-02-05T12:02:31Z
dc.date.issued
2004-09
dc.description.abstract
In recent years, a number of high profile accidental fires have occurred in several road
and rail tunnels throughout the world. Many of these fires grew rapidly to catastrophic
size and claimed many lives. The processes involved in the rapid growth and
extremely severe of these fires are not adequately understood as yet.
The introduction to this thesis reviews a number of these accidental fires and describes
much of the previous experimental research which has brought about the current
understanding of tunnel fire behaviour. A detailed review of the relevant parts of
elementary fire dynamics is also presented.
This thesis addresses two main questions:
1. What is the influence of longitudinal ventilation on fire size in tunnels?
and
2. What is the influence of tunnel geometry on fire size?
The answers to both these questions are determined using a probabilistic method
called Bayes Theorem. This provides a method of answering the above two questions
using the handful of experimental data which are available.
It is found that the heat release rate (HRR) of a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) fire may
be greatly increased in magnitude by longitudinal ventilation, for example by about a
factor of 5 with a longitudinal ventilation velocity of 3ms-1. It is also found that
longitudinal ventilation may cause a significant increase in the HRR of large pool
fires, but may cause a decrease in the HRR of small pool fires and car fires. An equation is derived to predict the influence of tunnel geometry on HRR. It is found
that HRR varies principally with the width of the tunnel and the width of the fire object.
The HRR of a fire in a tunnel my be increased up to four times due to the geometry of
the tunnel.
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dc.format.extent
3788924 bytes
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dc.format.mimetype
application/pdf
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dc.identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/1484
dc.language.iso
en
dc.publisher
School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University
en
dc.subject.other
tunnel
en
dc.subject.other
transport
en
dc.subject.other
flame
en
dc.subject.other
heavy goods vehicle
en
dc.subject.other
heat release rate
en
dc.subject.other
pool
en
dc.subject.other
ventilation
en
dc.subject.other
probabilistic
en
dc.subject.other
Bayes
en
dc.subject.other
tunnel fire behaviour
en
dc.title
Fire Size in Tunnels
en
dc.type
Thesis or Dissertation
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dc.type.qualificationlevel
Doctoral
en
dc.type.qualificationname
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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