BSE5511 Occupational Health and Ergonomics

MSc Lecture 4B:

Tunnel Ventilation
Dr. Gigi C.H. Lui (with reference to
papers, PhD thesis and lecture notes
by Dr. Jojo S.M. Li)
Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong, China
MScOHE-04B-TV.ppt 1
 Content
1. Introduction
2. Design parameters
3. Operation modes of railway tunnels
4. Safety requirements and regulations for tunnels
5. Ventilation design
6. Case study
7. Application of CFD
8. Numerical experiment of vehicle fire in tunnel
9. Sensitivity analysis
10. References
2
 1. Introduction
• Transportation network
• Many tunnels (railway tunnel/ road tunnel)
are constructed.
• Design criteria
• Vehicle emissions: carbon monoxide (CO)

3
 2. Design parameters

Petrol and diesel engines

Natural or mechanical ventilation systems are required for

transit systems.

- Air temperature
- Velocity
- Air pressure
- Smoke control

4
3. Operation Modes of Railway Tunnels

Environmental control system:

Normal operation
- trains are moving through the system according to schedule
and passengers are travelling smoothly through stations to
and from the trains

 design shall focus on the ventilation and air conditioning

required to achieve design conditions

5
 Operation Modes of Railway Tunnels

Congested operation
- trains stop at a station for an extended period of time due to
delays or operational problems and may wait at
predetermined locations in tunnels

 design shall focus on the ventilation required to support

the continued operation of train A/C units
 maintain passenger comfort and aspiration

6
 Operation Modes of Railway Tunnels

Incident operation
- trains stop inside a section of tunnel due to defective track,
track circuit failure, signalling failure or defective track, etc.
- passenger evacuation may be required after the train is
stopped for a prolonged period

 design shall focus on the ventilation required to support

the continued operation of train A/C units
 maintain passenger comfort and aspiration before
evacuation
7
 Operation Modes of Railway Tunnels

Emergency operation
- train fire in a tunnel
- passenger evacuation required

 design to blow the smoke and hot gases in the desired

direction
 maintain an evacuation path from the train
 avoid smoke leakage to adjacent tunnel through tunnel
cross passages

8
 Operation Modes of Road Tunnels

Normal operation
- vehicles are moving through the tunnel from portal to portal
smoothly

Congested operation
- traffic speed will be as low as 10km/hr or 0km/hr under
standstill traffic conditions

 design to limit the concentration of air pollutants from

vehicle exhausts to acceptable levels
9
 Operation Modes of Road Tunnels

Emergency operation
- fire occurring in the tunnel that requires evacuation of
tunnel users

 design to control spread of smoke, and to extract smoke

to provide an evacuation path for tunnel users

10
4. Safety requirements and regulations for
tunnels
Vehicle emissions
International CO level standards
Regulations on smoke control
Parameters related to environmental control
- Air temperature control
- Air velocity control
- Air pressure control
Problems related to the requirements and design of tunnels

11
 Problems related to
the requirements and design of tunnels
a. Relatively little specific regulatory guidance on use of
combustible construction materials by railways.
b. Heating device that can ignite combustible materials
should be covered properly or installed in metal cases.
c. Automatic or semi-automatic gas protection systems
actuated by heat detection system are required.
d. Limit traffic density in a tunnel and assign safety distance
between each vehicle.
e. Work out proper fire safety management.
f. Consider different operation modes of ventilation fan for
different traffic conditions. 12
13
14
15
16
17
18
 Design standards
Railway Tunnel Road Tunnel
 FSD Code of Practice FSD Code of Practice
 NFPA 130 Standard for Fixed NFPA502 Standard for Road
Guideway Transit and Tunnels, Bridges, and Other
Passenger Limited Access Highways
 Rail Systems PIARC Technical Committee
 HMRI Safety Principles and on Road Tunnels, Report to
Guidance World road Congress
PIARC Fire and Smoke
Control in Road Tunnels
 ProPECC PN/95,
Environmental Protection
Department
19
 5. Ventilation design
Natural means/ Traffic-induced piston effect/ Mechanical equipment

20
 6. Case study
Tunnel – Kowloon and Shatin

Full transverse ventilation

- Supply duct
- Exhaust duct
- Uniform distribution of supply air
- Uniform collection of vitiated air

Longitudinal ventilation – additional axial fans at ceiling

Dispersion models – evaluate the potential air quality effects of
mobile emission sources (CO)
21
 7. Application of CFD
- Designed with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

22
CO concentration will increase from ambient level at the
entering portal to a maximum at the exiting portal.

Effective when traffic is unidirectional.

Cars at spend less than the limit of 70 km/hr.

Very low airflow induced by the piston effect.

23
 Longitudinal ventilation system
- 38MW fire of size 7.3 m x 7.3 m x 1m

24
- Depending on ventilation conditions
- 3 m/s longitudinal ventilation
- Heat release rate to 61 MW

- To create longitudinal tunnel airflow and prevent

propagation of smoke and heat to the trapped traffic, the
back-layering phenomenon, 6 m/s longitudinal
ventilation was applied.

25
Longitudinal ventilation system

26
Longitudinal ventilation system

27
 8. Numerical experiment of
vehicle fire in tunnel
- PHOENICS v.3.2

28
Numerical experiment of
vehicle fire in tunnel

29
Numerical experiment of
vehicle fire in tunnel

30
31
32
 9. Sensitivity analysis
- Number of grids
- Number of iterations
- Computing time

33
34
35
 10. References

• Jojo S.M. Li and W.K. Chow, Vehicular Tunnel Ventilation

Design and Application of CFD, Air Distribution in
Rooms, Ventilation for Health and Sustainable
Environment (ROOMVENT 2000), Vol. 2, pp. 1171-1176
(2000).
• Jojo S.M. Li, Application of CFD and Numerical Studies
on Tunnel Fire Simulation, International Journal on
Engineering Performance-based Fire Codes, Vol. 6, No. 4,
pp. 215-222 (2004).
• Jojo S.M. Li, PhD thesis on “Analysis on the fire safety
aspects for tunnels in Hong Kong with mathematical
models”, October (2004)
36