Study and Improvement of Road Tunnels Fire Behavior Using Pyrosim

Abstract

Nowadays the world is facing an increasingly traffic, especially in the road. In order to short the distances and cross various road areas, road tunnels are built frequently and longest as possible. One of the greatest emergency situations that can occur in road tunnels, is represented by fire, involving all conditions relating to the nature and density of combustible materials existing, smoke, toxic gases and the combustion debris from fire fighting and action in order to minimize the negative consequences of it. Also, road tunnels represent semi-closed and closed spaces, with high fire risk, so no easy fire safety management opportunities can be used. Road tunnels can be framed in the category above mentioned, being exposed to a high traffic, because most of them are 20-30 years old and were built for the traffic estimated of those times. A simulation using Pyrosim software is based on the physical model in which one electrical fault accident involving a car appear. The accident, consisting in a fire event at one stationary car, is modeled at 1.5 m height. Considering an electrical fault followed by a fire, temperature and smoke spreading depending on time in this tunnel were obtained. Also, sprinklers have been used in the simulation time, in order to give an accurate firefighting simulation. There were obtained important values which allow us to realize an appropriate impact on the event in aim of minimizing the time for a promptly intervention and to limit the damages.