Numerical study on overall smoke control using naturally ventilated shafts during fires in a road tunnel

This paper studies the overall smoke control of natural ventilation systems with vertical shafts during fires in a common road tunnel by numerical modelling. The variables studied include the heat release rate, longitudinal fire location along the tunnel, length of shafts and the interval between two shafts. Simulation results indicate that the total smoke spread length on both sides of fire source is closely independent of the heat release rate and longitudinal fire locations. For a given dimensionless shaft interval (the ratio of the shaft interval to shaft length), with the increase of shaft length, the smoke spread length firstly increases, reaching a maximum at 12 m, and then decreases significantly until 18 m. For a fire less than 30 MW, the first shaft pair on both sides of fire source prevents the critical-temperature smoke (270 degrees C) from spreading beyond this shaft. For a 100 MW fire, in the cases with shorter shaft lengths (L-shaft < 9 m), the critical-temperature smoke can't be controlled between the first shaft pair. The gas temperature at human height (1.8 m) is less than 60 degrees C in all cases with shafts. Downdraught occurs when the smoke front stabilizes at the bottom of a shaft and the buoyancy force could be too low to overcome the kinetic pressure of the air flow flowing into this shaft, consequently destroying the structure of smoke layer. In most scenarios, the total exhaust area of shafts that is required to exhaust all the smoke is about 100 m(2). The first shaft pair plays a critical role to exhaust the smoke, and its exhaust efficiency is also affected significantly by the shaft length. This study investigates how to control the smoke by using vertical shafts in a road tunnel fire and the conclusions are useful to tunnel fire protection engineering.