Numerical Modelling of Air Movement in Road Tunnels

摘要

The objective of the Mechanical Ventilation Systems (MVS) in highway tunnels is to provide tunnel patrons with a reasonable degree of comfort during normal operation and to assist in keeping tunnels safe during emergencies. Temperature, humidity, and air velocity are among the parameters that determine the tunnel environment and indicate the level of MVS performance. To investigate the performance of the current emergency ventilation strategies for an existing tunnel system in the event of a fire, a research project is being conducted at the National Research Council of Canada. The primary objectives of the study are: a) to assess and validate the ability of in-place emergency ventilation strategies to control smoke spread and minimize the impact of smoke on tunnel users; and b) to recommend guidelines for improving ventilation operation to maximize intervention effectiveness. This will allow future development of an intelligent ventilation system based on a pre-established scenario of ventilation activated using automatic fire detection. The research study includes two phases, numerical and experimental phases. The numerical phase will use a CFD model (Solvent) to study smoke ventilation in the tunnel. The experimental phase will be used to calibrate and validate the CFD model and to establish the boundary conditions for the numerical model. Solvent was used to model a ventilation scenario using existing data. The current paper presents the initial efforts to validate the CFD model against onsite flow measurements conducted in the tunnel. The CFD model included aerody-namically significant physical features of the tunnel.