Numerical Investigation of Fire Spread from a Fire Source to a Near Body in a Tunnel

Fire spread from one body to another in a road tunnel is investigated in this study, with respect to the phenomena and the physical concept. Fire Dynamics Simulator will be used as a CFD tool. Two wood boxes representing cars are modeled in a 40m long tunnel with longitudinal ventilation and fire transmission from one to another is considered. Ignition temperature is assigned to the second box surface as the ignition start condition. Indeed, ignition start of the second box depends on its temperature rise to a certain value that is extracted from experimental data. At each case, ignition time of the second box is captured. Furthermore, fire spread phenomena is considered quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show that increase of ventilation velocity causes a first increment and then decrease in ignition time, due to both cooling and smoke plume inclination effects. Also with increasing the distance, ignition time increment rate is faster at low HRRs. In addition, the results show that the tunnel height reduction has stronger effect on ignition time for lower HRRs. Finally, because of forced ventilation dominance in high ventilation velocities, no noticeable influence on ignition time is observed by changing the tunnel slope. To confirm accuracy of the numerical model, a validation with experiments will be presented too.