A Multi-Scale Analysis of the Fire Problems in an Urban Utility Tunnel

Autor: Kai Ye, Xiaodong Zhou, Lizhong Yang, Xiao Tang, Yuan Zheng, Bei Cao, Yang Peng, Hong Liu, Yong Ni
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: Energies, Vol 12, Iss 10, p 1976 (2019)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1996-1073
DOI: 10.3390/en12101976
Popis: Building utility tunnels has been widely adopted as an important solution for the sustainable development of cities, but their unique fire problems have not attracted enough attention to date. With the purpose of preliminarily understanding the fire phenomena in a utility tunnel, this study performed a comprehensive analysis, including the burning behaviour of accommodated cables, hot gas temperature field and enhanced fuel burning rates based on bench-scale, full-scale and model-scale fire tests. The critical exposed radiative heat flux for the 10-kV power cable to achieve complete burning was identified. The whole burning process was divided into five phases. The cable’s noteworthy hazards and dangerous fire behaviours were also examined. The two-dimensional (2D) gas temperature fields and longitudinal maximum temperature distributions were investigated carefully, after which a versatile model was derived. The model predicted the maximum temperature attenuation of both upstream and downstream flows reasonably well. Finally, the phenomenon of enhanced fuel burning was explored. A multivariate cubic function that considers the global effects of relative width, height and distance was further proposed to estimate the enhancement coefficient. The current findings can provide designers and operators with valuable guidance for the integrated promotion of utility tunnels’ fire safety level.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals