Design Fires for Road Tunnels Safety Design

Abstract

Design fires are an intrinsic part in designing tunnels for fires. They provide, quantitatively, the fire characteristics that are used to establish the sizing of equipment in tunnels and the scenarios to consider when developing emergency response plans. They are also used, indirectly, when considering the impact of fires on the structure. As such, design fires form the base input for emergency ventilation, evacuation, and structural design analyses. A design fire is generally defined in terms of heat release rate, and species output as functions of time. This paper summarizes the efforts to develop a set of design fire curves as a useful tool for road tunnel fire risk assessment. The developed design fire curves include the following phases: (1) incubation phase, (2) growth phase, (3) fully-developed phase, and (4) decay phase.