Proposed Idealized Design Fire Curves for Road Tunnels

Abstract

In designing tunnels for fires, the design fire needs to be quantified. Design fires form the base input for emergency ventilation, evacuation, and structural design analyses. A design fire is the idealization of a real fire that may occur in a tunnel. It describes, quantitatively, the characteristics of a particular fire with respect to time and space, e.g. fuel state (solid, liquid, or gas), fuel type and quantity, fuel configuration and location, heat release rate, rate of growth, production rate of combustion products (smoke, CO, CO2, etc.). A design fire is in general defined in terms of heat release rate, and species output as functions of time. This paper summarizes the efforts to develop a set of idealized design fire curves as a useful tool for road tunnel fire risk assessment. The developed idealized design fire curves include the following phases: (1) incubation phase, (2) growth phase, (3) fully-developed phase, and (4) decay phase.