Numerical Modelling of Movement and Behaviour of Smoke Produced From Fires in the Ville-Marie and L.-H.-La Fontaine Tunnels: Literature Review

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY To investigate the performance of the current emergency ventilation strategies of both the L.-H.-La Fontaine and the Ville-Marie tunnels in the event of a fire, a research project is being conducted by the Fire Risk Management Program of the Institute of Research in Construction of the National Research Council of Canada (B-4258). The research project will use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models, calibrated and validated, for the simulation of the behaviour of smoke originating from fires in the two tunnels. The calibration and validation of the models will be conducted through venting tests in the tunnels. The proposed work includes: Finding an appropriate numerical simulation model to study the behaviour of the smoke in the tunnels. Assessing the ability of in-place emergency ventilation strategies to control smoke spread and minimize the impact of smoke on tunnel users in the event of a major fire in one of the tunnels. Validating the existing emergency ventilation operation and recommending guidelines for improving the ventilation operation to maximize intervention effectiveness. The study recommendations will allow the future development of an intelligent ventilation system with intervention based on a pre-established scenario of ventilation activated using automatic fire detection. The current research study combines numerical and experimental phases. The numerical phase will make use of a model that can be applied to study smoke ventilation in tunnels. The experimental phase will be used to calibrate and validate the chosen model. As required in the first year tasks, an extensive review of ventilation of motor-traffic tunnels for fire safety, numerical models used worldwide, and different smoke ventilation practices followed worldwide was conducted. The literature review explores the different numerical simulation models used throughout the world and recommends the model to be used in the study of fires in tunnels. Two potential CFD models have been recommended: Solvent and FDS which are to be explored. Both Solvent and FDS will be used for a ventilation scenario using existing data. Based on the results, a model will be selected for use in the remainder of the project. The report also includes the theoretical concepts of calculation of the recommended numerical models and justification of the choice of the model.