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 AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON VEHICULAR BLOCKAGE
EFFECT ON THE MAXIMUM SMOKE TEMPERATURE IN TUNNEL

AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON VEHICULAR

BLOCKAGE EFFECT ON THE MAXIMUM SMOKE
TEMPERATURE IN TUNNEL
(Date received: 17.11.2020/Date accepted: 09.02.2021)

Zambri Harun1, Razieh Khaksari2, Mohd Rasidi Rasani1

1
Faculty of Engineering & Built Environment
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 Bangi Malaysia

London Bridge Associates Ltd.

2

Cranhurst Lodge
37-39 Surbiton Hill Road
Surbiton, KT6 4TS, United Kingdom
Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
Researchers are motivated to study tunnel fires because of the increasing number of large-scale incidents in urban tunnels.
When a fire occurs, most likely there are vehicles which get stuck in the tunnel. The stuck vehicles act as additional barriers
against the flow of smokes. The effect of blockages on the maximum temperature of smoke which has not received considerable
attentions in most of the previous investigations, is studied in this research. A set of scaled-down experiments was performed
in a model tunnel [3 m (length) × 0.6 m (width × 0.96 m (height)]. The variables in this section are ventilation velocity, heat
release rate (HRR) and blockage percentages. Gasoline was used as fuels in rectangular pools to generate a heat source. The
influence of blockage percentages on the maximum smoke temperature beneath the ceiling has been investigated by improving
the model of maximum smoke temperature published earlier by Li using local velocity near the fire source. This analysis
reveals that the modified model of maximum temperature, which considers the effect of vehicular obstacles, could estimate
experimental results with greater accuracy.

1.0 INTRODUCTION maximum temperature and flame tilt angle in a tunnel. The various
cross-sectional shapes under longitudinal ventilation were utilized. The
One of the most effective ways to alleviate the ever-increasing following dimensionless empirical model of the maximum temperature
traffic volume and congestion is constructing urban tunnels where rise based on the dimensionless heat release rate and the Froude number
automobiles, vans, buses, motorcycles, and trucks could travel was derived:
pass congested urban areas or hills. In recent years, the significant
increase in the number and the total length of tunnels contributed to (1)
several catastrophic fire incidents in tunnels and tremendous damage
to properties and lost of lives around the world. Therefore, many
where
researchers and fire safety engineers have studied fire characteristics
in tunnels usually equipped with a ventilation system to understand
the risks involved. Maximum smoke temperature beneath the (2)
ceiling is an important issue for fire safety engineering because
of its influence on the tunnel structure which could be damaged
when exposed to the relatively high temperature. In addition, the
activation of sprinkler and ventilation systems installed in tunnels (3)
is related to this parameter. Consequently, it is worthy to study the
maximum smoke temperature under the tunnel ceiling to improve and
the safety level in the tunnels. There are different factors, including (4)
the tunnel geometry, longitudinal ventilation velocity, and the heat
release rate (HRR) of the fire source. Such knowledge has been According to this formula, when the fire is relatively small,
studied by researchers widely and several empirical equations have the maximum temperature increases with the 2/3 power of the fire
been proposed to estimate the maximum temperature of hot gases HRR, while it decreases with the 2/3 power of the longitudinal
under the ceiling. The first researcher who proposed a model for the ventilation velocity. On the other hand, when the fire is relatively
maximum temperature in tunnel fires was Kurioka [1]. He carried large, the maximum temperature does not vary with these two
out experimental tests to study fire characteristics including the parameters.

Journal – The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (Vol. 81, No. 2, December 2020) 31
 ZAMBRI HARUN, RAZIEH KHAKSARI, MOHD RASIDI RASANI

Hu et al. [2] compared Kurioka’s model by full-scale where the tunnel has a horseshoe shape. The major result of this
tunnel fire tests. Although they only confirmed the first part of study proves the results of previous investigations where the
Kurioka’s model, good agreement was observed with the latter. maximum smoke temperature beneath the ceiling is proportional
They carried out twelve experiments in total, two experiments to the terms of Gao et al. [7] proposed modified equations
in a large-scale tunnel and ten experiments in full scale tunnels. for maximum smoke temperature rise beneath the ceiling and
Variations of this study were the fire size, tunnel section longitudinal temperature decay. Their experimental data had
geometry, and ventilation velocity. They concluded that: a good agreement with numerical simulations, the differences
1. The maximum smoke temperature beneath the ceiling was between experimental and numerical results were less than
higher for larger fire sizes, but it decayed faster while 7.5%. It should be notified that the present results need to be
traveling down the tunnel. verified with more full-scale simulations.
2. The smoke temperature of upstream backlayering flow The previously discussed models for measuring the
decreased with increasing longitudinal ventilation velocity. maximum smoke temperature considered tunnel fires without
3. A comparison between the upstream and backstream smoke blockage effect. However, in most actual tunnel fires, vehicles are
temperature revealed that although the smoke temperature usually stuck in the tunnel. A vehicle plays the role of an obstacle
for the upstream backlayering was higher near fire source; in the longitudinally ventilated tunnel, which will impact on
it decreased much faster while traveling away from the fire local velocity around the fire source remarkably. Consequently,
than that of the downstream flow. the tunnel fire characteristics such as the burning rate, the smoke
Smoke diffusion characteristics were analyzed by Wang [3] flow pattern, and the temperature will be affected.
experimentally and theoretically. A formula developed for To examine the effect of blockages as well as their distance
maximum smoke temperature under the condition that ambient to the fire source on the maximum smoke temperature, Hu et al. [8]
air velocity existed. Li [4] presented a theoretical analysis to carried out an experiment in a longitudinally ventilated tunnel [8].
correct the Kurioka’s model as it gives an infinite estimation A modification coefficient considering the impact of blockage-
of the maximum smoke temperature when the longitudinal fire distance was added and then, a global model including both
ventilation approaches zero. An axisymmetric fire plume theory the blockage ratio and blockage-fire distance was developed as
was used, and the dimensionless ventilation velocity was the in Equation 8. The maximum temperature decreased and then
basis of dividing the maximum excess gas temperature into two approached a constant value (similar to that with no blockage)
regions. According to their theoretical analysis and experimental with an increase in blockage-fire distance.
data, which the necessary empirical coefficients are obtained
from them, the following equation was presented:

(8)

(5)

Ceiling temperature distribution and smoke diffusion

where distance in a tunnel equipped with natural ventilation and
with a train blockage have also been investigated [9]. This is
(6) very important as many times, urban tunnel are congested;
researching in such an arrangement is more meaningful. The
and dimensionless smoke temperature and a constant value, which
was different for investigated different tunnels in this article [9],
(7) were used to derive the reference temperature in the fire section.
Shafee and Yozgatligil [10] studied the effect of blockage ratio
and found out that blockages caused the temperature along the
Li et al. [4] also evaluated the experimental results by tunnel ceiling to increase significantly.
comparing data from one model-scale test and two full-scale However, few studies have considered the effect of tunnel
tests. Li et al. found a good agreement between the model-scale blockage ratio on the maximum temperature under the ceiling
tests and the other tests. Since Equation 1 is useful for only in tunnel fires. Motivated by past studies, this study focuses on
small fires where the flame does not impinge the ceiling, Li and the effect of tunnel blockage ratio on the maximum temperature
Ingason [5] continued their experiments and improved their of hot gases under the ceiling in tunnel fires. Data from
model (Equation 5) to obtain a new model. They concluded that experimental fire tests in tunnels with considerable blockage
the maximum temperature is dependent on the combination of ratios are used. By analyzing these experimental data, previous
relevant parameters to an upper limit and then remains constant. models will be modified by introducing a factor that accounts for
Kashef et al. [6] carried out reduced-scale experiments the blockage effect.
and derived two formulas to predict the ceiling temperature.
However, Kashef et al. [6] did not discuss the effect of tunnel 2.0 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
configuration on smoke diffusion characteristics.
Recently, ceiling maximum temperature and its longitudinal 2.1 Experimental Set-Ups
decay in case of tunnel fire were obtained and studied in [7] The first step in the experimental setup to obtain reliable and

32 Journal – The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (Vol. 81, No. 2, December 2020)
 AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON VEHICULAR BLOCKAGE
EFFECT ON THE MAXIMUM SMOKE TEMPERATURE IN TUNNEL

qualify results is constructing the right model which can provide A detailed description of the experimental set up can be
the acceptable similarities between the scaled model and the found in an earlier article [14].
full-scale tunnel. However, the thermal inertia of the involved
material, turbulence intensity, and radiation are not explicitly 2.2 Heat Release Rate
scaled, and the uncertainty due to the scaling is difficult to Real tunnel fires were simulated by pool fires in this study. The
estimate, the general nature of the buoyancy-driven flows fuel was gasoline and square vessels were used as fuel containers
generated by a fire is not dependent on the scale [11]. The and later as burners during fire. There were three different vessel
dynamic similarity between the scaled model and real model is dimensions i.e. 8, 10, and 13 cm square. Each pool was 2 cm
related to preserving non-dimensional parameters such as the deep and filled with a fuel height of 1 cm. The mass burning rate
Froude, the Reynolds, and the Richardson numbers. Since it is is used to calculate the heat release rate. Since gasoline needs a
not possible to preserve all mentioned numbers in most cases, lot of oxygen in case of complete combustion, the mass burning
the main goal is the preservation of the Froude number as the rate increases with the ventilation velocity for fuel-controlled
latter is the ratio between inertia and buoyancy forces and the fires and the rate approaches a constant value for well-ventilated
Froude scaling model is used to build this scaled model [12]. fires. There is no blockage between the fuel source and the fan
The Froude number in this analysis in the same as in Equation 4. which explains the easy access of oxygen into the core of the fuel
The scaling relationships for key parameters, velocity, and HRR, and well-ventilated fire. However, and Q are varied with
based on the preservation of the Froude number are as follows: time and ventilation velocity, based on the empirical relationship
presented by Burgess [15], the burning rate with constant value
is predicted in the function of pool diameter:
(9)

(11)
(10)
where is the burning rate of an infinite diameter pool
In equations 9 and 10, subscript m is allocated for the fire. In Equation 11, k is the coefficient of radiative emission, and
model and F is for the full-scale tunnel. A review on a variety θ is the mean beam-length corrector. The HRR was determined
of approaches on similarity analyses, backlayering conditions by the burning rate [16] and can be calculated using Equation 12;
including the effect of blockages, inclination, and the location of
the fire source can be found in an earlier literature survey [13]. (12)
In this study, the Froude scaling method was used to build where HT is the heat of combustion of the gaseous
the model tunnel 1:50 scale of the Resalat Tunnel, Iran. The combustibles when it is oxidized completely at ambient
Resalat Tunnel is 150 m long and a diameter of 5.13 m. This condition and a is burner area.
expressway connects east to the west of Tehran, Iran. Based These sizes of pools produce simulated fires with heat
on the scaling ratio and method, the length of the tunnel, L, release rates of 2.21 MW, 4.22 MW, and 8.98 MW in a typical
was scaled geometrically. The investigated model was 3 m tunnel. These fire sizes correspond to fires of approximately 39-
long (x coordinate), 0.6 m width (y coordinate), and 0.95 m 160 MW in a tunnel with a diameter of 5.13 m when the Froude
high (z coordinate). Fig. 1 shows the drawing of the model scaling model is used.
tunnel. Tunnel origin located 164 cm away from the right end
of the model. The tunnel cross-section area was rectangular. 2.3 Measuring Instruments
All surrounding walls except half of one sidewall, the ceiling,
The temperature of hot gases beneath the tunnel ceiling
and the floor of the tunnel were constructed by 25 mm - thick
was detected by using one array of eight K-type stainless-
fireproof boards. Ten mm thick tempered glass in half of
steel sheathed thermocouples of 0.3 mm diameter. A K-type
one sidewall of the tunnel provides the capability of smoke
thermocouple is a precise and reliable instrument for continuous
movement observation.
measurements providing the temperature range of -250 °C to
A ventilation fan with 1 kW power and an airflow capacity
1260 °C. Thermocouples were placed 1 cm below the tunnel
of 8400 cfm was installed at the left end of the tunnel (upstream
ceiling with 17 cm intervals in the centerline of the ceiling. The
section) to generates the longitudinal ventilation. Ventilation
first thermocouple, T1, was fixed above the fire source and the
velocity was controlled and calibrated by varying the voltage
other seven thermocouples, T2 - T8, were installed after T1
by Toshiba frequency inverter VF-S11. One honeycomb mesh
between the origin and the fan section (Fig. 1).
and two metal mesh screens made of wire were installed within
The main part of the data collection system was the
a galvanized steel box and connect the three-phase fan and the
Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller. The signal from a
main tunnel to provide a uniform and straighten flow.
K-type thermocouple should be digitized before sending it to a
microcontroller. Therefore, the MAX6675 amplifier was used to
measure the output of a K-type thermocouple, to perform cold-
junction compensation, and to provide the result to the Arduino
via an SPI interface.

2.4 Vehicular Blockages

Experimental tests with different sizes of blockages were
Figure 1: Schematic side view of the model tunnel carried out to simulate the influence of vehicles. The vehicle

Journal – The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (Vol. 81, No. 2, December 2020) 33
 ZAMBRI HARUN, RAZIEH KHAKSARI, MOHD RASIDI RASANI

models consisted of three sizes, representing a sedan, a bus, and The existence of blockages causes that local ventilation
a truck. The dimensions of the sedan were 0.38 m (L) × 0.15 velocity in the vicinity of the fire source Vlocal to change through
m (W) × 0.12 m (H), for the bus: 0.54 m × 0.17 m × 0.21 m, the changes of the cross-sectional area as the following equation:
and for the truck: 0.61 m × 0.19 m × 0.20 m (Table 1). This
represents a 1:12 model of typical vehicles. The purpose of this (15)
dimension (1:12 scale) was to examine the effect of different
cross-sectional occupancy percentages of the tunnel cross-
sectional area rather than to simulate conditions close to actual 3.1 Influence of Vehicular Blockages on
conditions. Nevertheless, further investigations are needed to Maximum Smoke Temperature
explore the behavior of the smoke flow in conditions close to The behavior of fire-induced flow changes when blockages
real scenarios for safe and efficient design of tunnel fire. The occupy part of the tunnel cross-sectional area because of the
vehicular blockages were placed on one, two, and three lineups effect obstacles on the longitudinal velocity in the vicinity of
to simulate a tunnel with various lanes of vehicles. Typically, 3 the fire and downstream section. The bigger blockage causes
to 15% of the tunnel cross-sectional area was occupied by the higher local velocity which in turn, the discharge rate of smoke
model vehicles. Table 1 summarizes the blockage ratio of all is increased and the capability of ventilation to release the heat
scenarios. produced by the fire accelerates [4].
Table 1: Blockage ratio of various scenarios in this study
In other words, the maximum smoke temperature, which
depends on ventilation velocity, changes with the latter. Table 3
Scenario Vehicles Lanes occupy Blockage ratio illustrates the effect of blockage ratio on example cases with the
1 Sedan 1 3.4% same HRR and ventilation velocity.
2 2 Sedans 1-3 6.8%
Table 2: Three examples of the influence of blockages
3 Sedan-Bus 1-3 9.6%
on maximum smoke temperature
Bus-Truck-
4 1-3 12%
Sedan
Ventilation HRR Maximum smoke
5
Bus-Truck-
Sedan
1-2-3 15% velocity (m/s) (kW) ᵠ% temperature (°C)

0% 45.8
3.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 0.1 2.21 6.8% 45.0
9.6% 43.0
Before studying the effect of blockages on the maximum
smoke temperature, the influence of blockages on smoke 0% 36.8
flow behaviors and values which are used in different parts 0.8 2.21 6.8% 36.0
of this study needs to be determined first. When the blocking 12% 34.5
area percentage increases, the cross-section area of the tunnel 0% 37.8
decreases leading to the rise of local velocity at the vicinity 2.9 4.22 6.8% 37.0
of the fire source. As a result, the inertial force with respect to 12% 35.5
buoyant force enhances and then the Froude number rises. This
phenomenon and less entrained air because of it causes more heat In this section, first, the model presented by Li et al. [4],
convection and radiation and the acceleration of the discharge who studied the maximum temperature in a tunnel without
rate of fire smoke. This also affects smoke characteristics, i.e. the blockages, is evaluated by the experimental results of this
maximum smoke temperature to decrease. study in the presence of blockages (Fig. 2). As shown in Fig. 2,
When there is no obstacle in the tunnel, the ventilated Li’s model cannot estimate the maximum temperature rise
air diffuses to the entire tunnel and the concentration of the within acceptable errors. Therefore, Equations 5 are amended
ventilation flow does not change along the tunnel. However, by using Vlocal (ventilation velocity in the vicinity of the fire
with the existence of blockages in the tunnel, the tunnel source) instead of V and are now represented in Equations 16.
cross-sectional area becomes smaller. When the fire source is Fig. 3 compares the experimental results of the maximum
located at the centerline and the blockage is positioned at the smoke temperature with predictions by modified Li’s model
side lanes, local velocity will be larger when the ventilation considering the blockage ratio (Equation 16). The black line
air reaches the fire source to preserve continuity (Equation 14). presents modified Li’s model considering the blockage ratio.
In other words, velocity is inversely proportional with the It is shown that there is a good agreement between the model
cross-sectional area. Parameters below are defined to estimate predictions and experimental results (Fig. 3) and they are close
the local velocity: enough to the measured values which means that the amended
Li’s model could estimate the maximum smoke temperature in
the presence of obstacles. In addition, at low is
(13)
below the black line and at high is above the black line.
where A is the tunnel cross-sectional area and Ablkg is the
blockages cross-sectional area. The blocking percentage is
defined as: (16)

(14)

34 Journal – The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (Vol. 81, No. 2, December 2020)
 AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON VEHICULAR BLOCKAGE
EFFECT ON THE MAXIMUM SMOKE TEMPERATURE IN TUNNEL

where Li’s model correctly. Therefore, a modification model with

Vlocal instead of V was developed, which is shown to collapse
(17) maximum temperature predicted and measured values. Still,
further thermal experiments are recommended in order to find
and the most appropriate and suitable correlations for both low and
high . Moreover, the scaled tunnel model can be further
(18)
improved to study a wide range of several scenarios.

5.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are extremely grateful for the financial assistance provided
by the FRGS/1/2016/TK03/UKM/03/1 grant from the Ministry
of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE) and GUP-2018-102
grant from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

REFERENCES
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PROFILES

ZAMBRI HARUN is the Head of Mechanical Engineering Programme at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Prior to working at UKM, he has worked as a process engineer at Motorola (M) Sdn Bhd and as a mechanical and
electrical design manager for the Design and Construction of the Gerbang Selatan Bersepadu (GSB) project. As a professional engineer, he has
also been a consulting engineer in mechanical building services. He received a BSc. and an MEng. degree in mechanical engineering. His PhD
is in turbulence and wall-bounded flows from the University of Melbourne. He actively researches in turbulence, fluid mechanics applications,
renewable energy and end of live vehicle (ELV). He has published over 100 articles in conference proceedings, journals as well as in books both
in the fields of engineering and education.
Email address: [email protected]

RAZIEH KHAKSARI HADDAD is a fire engineer working at the London Bridge Associates Ltd. United Kingdom. She has a BSc. in solid
mechanics and a MSc. in energy conversion. In addition, she holds a PhD in mechanical engineering specialising in smoke behaviours in tunnels.
She has more than 6 years of working experience in the car-producing industry. Currently, she is undertaking numerical simulations of the fire and
evacuation process in road tunnels.

MOHAMMAD RASIDI RASANI is a senior lecturer at the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia. He was a petrochemical plant maintenance engineer and a design engineer involved with pressure vessels and heat exchangers, before
undertaking a lead/senior stress engineer role in the aerospace industry. He has more than 5 years working experience in composites and aero-
structure analysis. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and is also a professional engineer by profession. Currently, he is undertaking research
projects and research interests related to flow-induced vibrations, flow biomechanics and renewable energy, all of which involves computational
fluid dynamics and finite element analysis.

36 Journal – The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (Vol. 81, No. 2, December 2020)

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