• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.81-86
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• 2016

Recently, frequent traffic congestion has occurred in domestic urban roads. As a solution for downtown traffic congestion in domestic urban roads, plans for great depth underground double-deck tunnels have been made. Great depth underground double-deck tunnels that have been planned for passenger cars, has the structure of a network type; the entry of vehicles is carried out in the underground space. In these network great depth underground double-deck tunnels, the cross section and the height of the tunnel are smaller than the general road tunnel, and the smoke of a fire will propagate faster than the evacuation of tunnel passengers by the action of the traffic-ventilation and casualties are expected. Therefore, in the present study, an attempt was made to prevent the delay system for fire smoke diffusion at the time of a fire in a domestic network great depth underground double-deck tunnel according to the area of the tunnel block during the operation of the delay system for fire smoke diffusion to analyze the effects of reducing the inflow velocity. When the area of the tunnel block was not less than 50%, the effect of reducing about 21% of the wind speed acting on the tunnel was significant. If the area is more than 50%, the diffusion rate of fire smoke was reduced by approximately 21%, which will be useful for a safe evacuation.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.119-127
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• 2011

Because of most notably the increase in vehicular traffic in Korea, as measured by highway transport usage, relief is being sought by expanding the construction of highways after 1970s'. These highways have opened up over 70 % of the mountainous areas in Korea's country side which includes the construction of tunnels. Currently there are 607 tunnels installed that are being maintained and by 2015, under the next medium-term plan, Korea will build an additional 440 tunnels. In addition, the use of 1,000m double-pole tunnels is expected to increase significantly in 256 locations. There is no doubt that these tunnels will relieve traffic congestion and aid improved communications, but halfclosed underground highway tunnels in particular are required to reduce tunnel fires caused by poor vehicle maintenance, and other factors such as speeding motorists that increase the number of vehicular accidents. Double-pole tunnels in 1,000m length over require vehicle drivers to be more cautious in terms of the continuous speed limit, judged by how devastating most of car-crash fires within these tunnels can be. In order to prevent these disasters, a full-length tunnel speed enforcement system should be considered mandatorily in legal clauses.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.167-175
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• 2019

To effectively deal with the fire in tunnel which is mostly the vehicle fire, it's more important to suppress the fire at early stage. In urban tunnel, however, accessibility to the scene of fire by the fire fighter is very limited due to severe traffic congestion which causes the difficulty with firefighting activity in timely manner and such a problem would be further worsened in underground road (double-deck tunnel) which has been increasingly extended and deepened. In preparation for the disaster in Korea, the range of life safety facilities for installation is defined based on category of the extension and fire protection referring to risk hazard index which is determined depending on tunnel length and conditions, and particularly to directly deal with the tunnel fire, fire extinguisher, indoor hydrant and sprinkler are designated as the mandatory facilities depending on category. But such fire extinguishing installations are found inappropriate functionally and technically and thus the measure to improve the system needs to be taken. Particularly in a double-deck tunnel which accommodates the traffic in both directions within a single tunnel of which section is divided by intermediate slab, the facility or the system which functions more rapidly and effectively is more than important. This study, thus, is intended to supplement the problems with existing tunnel life safety system (fire extinguishing) and develop the remote-controlled automatic fire extinguishing system which is optimized for a double-deck tunnel. Consequently, the system considering low floor height and extended length as well as indoor hydrant for a wide range of use have been developed together with the performance verification and the process for commercialization before applying to the tunnel is underway now.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2021

Hydrogen in hydrogen-electric vehicles has a wide range of combustion and explosion ranges, and is a combustible gas with a very fast flame propagation speed, so it has the risk of leakage, diffusion, ignition, and explosion. The fuel tank has a Thermally active Pressure Relief Device (TPRD) to reduce the risk of explosion and other explosions, and in the event of an accident, hydrogen inside the tank is released outside before an explosion or fire occurs. However, if an accident occurs in a semi-closed space such as an underground parking lot, the flow of air flow is smaller than the open space, which can cause the concentration of hydrogen gas emitted from the TPRD to accumulate above the explosion limit. Therefore, in this study, the leakage rate and concentration of hydrogen over time were analyzed according to the diameter of the nozzle of the TPRD. The diameter of the nozzle was considered to be 1 mm, 2.5 mm and 5 mm, and ccording to the diameter of the nozzle, the concentration of hydrogen in the underground parking lot increases in a faster time with the diameter of the nozzle, and the maximum value is also analyzed to be larger with the diameter of the nozzle. In underground parking lots where air currents are stagnant, hydrogen concentrations above LFL (Lowe Flammability Limit) were analyzed to be distributed around the nozzle, and it was analyzed that they did not exceed UFL (Upper Flammability Limit).

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.1 s.60
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• pp.85-94
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• 2006

In this study, scaled model tests were carried out to decide the optimal critical velocity, to prevent back layering in the case of fire in a long traffic tunnel. Realistic estimates were made for the time required for people to escape ken the tunnel and far the time required by the ventilation operator to increase the system speed to full capacity. The analysis, predicts that the emergency ventilation will start about 240 seconds after the tunnel fire. It was also found that prevention of back layering would occur within 4 minutes after fan operation. To find out optimal critical velocity, a 1/50 scaled model tunnel(diameter : 0.2 m and length : 20 m) based on the Froude similarity technique was constructed. Changing $\beta$ values in the Tetzner's equation, smoke propagation was observed. From the experiment, it was concluded that using a $\beta$ value of 0.5 to prevent back layering successfully allowed time for safe evacuation.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.47-60
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• 2021

Hydrogen is a next-generation energy source, and according to the roadmap for activating the hydrogen economy, it is expected that industries to stably produce, store, and transport of hydrogen as well as the supply of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be made rapidly. Accordingly, safety measures for accidents of hydrogen vehicles in confined spaces such as tunnels are required. In this study, as part of a study to ensure the safety of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in road tunnels, a basic investigation and research on the risk of fire and explosion due to gas leakage and hydrogen tank rupture among various hazards caused by hydrogen fuel cell vehicle accidents in tunnels was conducted. The following results were obtained. In the event of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle accidents, the gas release rate depends on the orifice diameter of TPRD, and when the gas is ignited, the maximum heat release rate reaches 3.22~51.36 MW (orifice diameter: 1~4 mm) depending on the orifice diameter but the duration times are short. Therefore, it was analyzed that there was little increase in risk due to fire. As the overpressure of the gas explosion was calculated by the equivalent TNT method, in the case of yield of VCE of 0.2 is applied, the safety threshold distance is analyzed to be about 35 m, and number of the equivalent fatalities are conservatively predicted to reach tens of people.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.662-668
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• 2018

Most electric rooms are located in the underground spaces of buildings. When a fire occurs in electrical equipment, the fire expands to cable insulation material, resulting in toxic smoke and combustion products. If the smoke and combustion products quickly move vertically and horizontally, the evacuation of occupants and firefighting activities will be hindered. Therefore, it is necessary to design optimal equipment for smoke control in cases of fires in electric rooms. This study analyzes the characteristics of smoke and combustion products in fires in a cubicle-type switchboard in an electric room using PyroSim, which is based on the program Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). The fire modeling consists of four scenarios according to the operation mode of the mechanical ventilation equipment, the amount of air supply and exhaust, and the location of the air supply slot. The analysis shows that the mechanical ventilation equipment improves the smoke density, visibility, carbon monoxide concentration, and temperature characteristics. The visibility and temperature characteristics were improved when the air flow rate and the location of the air supply slot from fire defense regulations were applied.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.274-280
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• 2011

Evacuation and Fatalities Simulation is one of the core technologies for performance based design. Recently, developed programs in foreign countries have limitations such as simple fatality calculation and coarse visual interface. This study developed an advanced evaluation program for evacuation and fatalities to overcome limitations of existing programs and improve various applications, i.e., an evacuation algorithm using elevators as well as evacuation stairs. In addition, the evaluation program can let users make a decision of fatalities from fire by coupling with FDS (Fire Dynamics Simulator) from NIST and realizes three-dimensional virtual space using a graphic module.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.269-274
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• 2004

In this study reduced-scale experiments were conducted to determine the backlayering distance in tunnel fires. The 1/20 scale experiments were carried out under the Froude scaling using ethanol square pool fire ranging from 8 to 1km in each side with total heat release rate from 2.47 to 12.30 ㎾. It has been found that ventilation velocity increases with aspect ratio(tunnel height/tunnel width). At L$\_$B/$\^$*/ ＜5 the ventilation velocity increases proportional to the backlayering distance from 0.25 power of the heat release rate. However at L$\_$B/$\^$*/ $\geq$5 the ventilation velocity varies as the 0.3 power of the heat release rate.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.308-315
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• 2014

In this study, reduced scale experiments were carried out to evaluate the effect of external wind in a road tunnel fire. Experiments were conducted in a $1.1m{\times}0.5m{\times}50.4m$ tunnel. 4.5 litter gasoline was used as a fuel. Temperature, oxygen and carbon monoxide concentration were measured. Smoke reaching time to the tunnel exit was affected by the external wind. When a fire was fully developed, wind effect is reduced compared with the early stage of a fire. CO concentration was reached at more than 1,500 ppm.