The maximum temperature of buoyancy-driven smoke flow beneath the ceiling in tunnel fires

In order to detect a fire and provide adequate fire protection to a tunnel structure, the maximum gas temperature beneath the ceiling to which the structure is exposed needs to be estimated. Theoretical analysis of maximum gas temperature beneath a tunnel ceiling based on a plume theory is given. The heat release rate, longitudinal ventilation velocity and tunnel geometry are taken into account. Two series of model-scale experimental tests were also carried out. The results of both analysis and experiments show that the maximum excess gas temperature beneath the ceiling can be divided into two regions. When the dimensionless ventilation velocity is greater than 0.19, the maximum excess gas temperature beneath the tunnel ceiling increases linearly with the heat release rate and decreases linearly with the longitudinal ventilation velocity. When the dimensionless ventilation velocity is less than 0.19, the maximum excess gas temperature beneath the ceiling varies as the two-thirds power of the dimensionless heat release rate, independent of the longitudinal ventilation velocity. In both regions, the maximum excess gas temperature varies as the −5/3 power of the vertical distance between the fire source bottom and tunnel ceiling. The investigation presented here considers only the cases when the continuous flame region is lower than the ceiling height.