• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.86-91
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• 2010

In event of a tunnel fire, all kinds of equipment can be destroyed in high temperature that can exceed $1300^{\circ}C$, fatal structural demage can be caused by spalling of concrete structural elements. To make matters worse, there is a high possibility of the secondary damage which can lead to the collapse of the shear resisting structure. Accordingly, it is time that we developed the technology to counter fires in connection with the fire-resistant design of a tunnel structure. To secure the reliability of the fire-resistance performance of a tunnel structure, it is necessary to assess the fire's behavior on every structural element exposed to the fire as well as to calculate the tunnel fire intensity and the quantity of heat released. In this study, we drew out the fire damage range of each structural element of a tunnel and the minimum thickness of concrete cover for each fire-resistant material through some actual experiments of fire behavior on the structural elements of a tunnel.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1770-1773
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• 2007

Fire accident in tunnel is one of the most critical railway accidents, together with overturning of train by derailment and train crash. Tunnel structures contribute to minimize the cost and time of transport, but in case of railway fire accident occurring bring serious damages of human life caused by narrowness of shelter, poisonous smoke and high temperature raised at the inside of tunnel. For that reason, at the beginning of plan of tunnel, the optimum design for rescue of passengers is needed. For the detail and most suitable design for rescue of passengers, many tunnel designer substituted simulation program for mock examination by its high cost and effort. In this study, simulation program techniques, such as Fluent and Simulex, are applied for verifying the rescue design of passengers reduced the risk when fire accident occurred at tunnel utilizing of case study for planned railway tunnels shows 1,245m length in Iksan-Sili area.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2019

While wood pellets are often used as a fuel in thermoelectric power plants and firewood boilers, there is a risk of ignition temperature when strong wood pellets, which have a high calorific value, for prolonged periods of time. In this research study, the minimum auto ignition temperature and the ignition limitation temperature according to the change in flow rate depending on the size of the test vessel were calculated, and based on these temperatures, the apparent activation energy was calculated to predict the combustive properties of the material. The apparent activation energy was calculated to be 190.224 kJ/mol. The thicker the sample is storage in the vessel, the longer the ignition induction time was due to the increased difficulty in heat being transferred from the surface of the vessel to the middle section area of the vessel. For vessel of the same size, the higher the flow rate, the lower the auto ignition temperature was. It was also confirmed that increases in the size of the test vessel lowered the auto ignition temperature and increased the ignition induction time.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2024

Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are widely used in various sectors, such as transportation (e.g., electric vehicles (EV)) and energy (e.g., energy storage facilities) due to their high energy density, broad operating temperature (-20 ℃ ~ 60 ℃), and high capacities. LIBs are powerful but fragile on external factors, including pressure, physical damage, overheating, and overcharging, that cause thermal runaway causing fires and explosions. During a LIB fire, a large amount of oxygen is generated from the decomposition of ionogenic materials. A water fire extinguisher that helps with cooling and suffocating must be essentially required at the same time. In fact, however, it is difficult to suppress LIB fires in the case of EVs because a LIB is installed with a battery pack housing that interrupts direct extinguishing by water. Thus, this study aims to investigate effective fire extinguishing measurements for LIB fires by using an EV. Relevant documents, including research articles and reports, were reviewed to identify effective ways of LIBs fire extinguishing. A real-scale fire experiment generating thermal runaway was carried out to figure out the combustion characteristics of EVs. This study revealed that the most effective fire extinguishing measurements for LIB fires are applying fire blankets and water tanks. However, there is still a lack of adequate regulation and guidelines for LIB fire extinguishment. Taking this into account, developing functional fire extinguishment measurements and available regulatory instruments is an urgent issue to secure the safety of firefighters and citizens.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.128-133
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• 2011

The present study performs a series of 40 % reduced scale of ISO-9705 fire test to investigate the characteristics of heat flux on the floor level in terms of fire characteristics and location in the compartment. The heat flux was measured with Schmidt-Boelter type heat flux gauge at two locations on the floor level of inside and doorway side of the compartment. Different types of fuel - methane, heptane, toluene, ethanol, polystyrene - were burned in this test series. The measured heat flux inside of the compartment was relatively higher than that of front side as the heat release rate of fire and upper layer temperature increased. The difference of measured heat flux at inside and doorway side increased for high sooty fire. The present study shows that the heat flux distribution at lower layer greatly depend on the thermal radiation from fire and upper layer, not only the upper layer temperature but also various fire characteristics such as composition of combustion gases, soot concentration, ventilation condition and so on.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.13-21
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• 2020

This study tested the wood used in building interiors; each type had various incident heat fluxes based on their thickness. The combustion characteristics measured were effective heat of combustion, heat release rate peak and arrival time, maximum average rate of heat emission, and piloted ignition temperature. The wood specimens used in the experiment were 4.8 to 18 mm thick. 25, 35, 50, and 60 kW/㎡ were applied to the incident heat flux that the wood specimens were exposed to. The wood specimens tested were two types of medium-density fiberboard (each with a different density), treated red pine, particle board, and plywood. A comprehensive comparison of different fire characteristics was conducted to analyze the fire patterns corresponding to each type of wood in this way, the risk of fire was studied. The risk of fire was particularly high for particle board. The results of quantifying the fire characteristics of the types of wood studied could function as important input data with which to calculate the fire load of composite combustibles.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.101-113
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• 2015

This paper introduces a numerical analysis method for reinforced-concrete(RC) members exposed to fire and proposes considerations in designing RC structures on the basis of the comparison between numerical results and design codes. The proposed analysis method consists of two procedures of the transient heat transfer analysis and the non-linear structural analysis. To exactly evaluate the structural behavior under fire, two material models are considered in this paper. One is "Under-Fire" condition for the material properties at the high temperature and the other one is "After-Cooling" condition for the material properties after cooling down to air temperature. The proposed method is validated through the correlation study between experimental data and numerical results. In advance, the obtained results show that the material properties which are fittable to the corresponding temperature must be taken into account for an accurate prediction of the ultimate resisting capacity of RC members. Finally, comparison of the numerical results with the design code of EN1992-1-2 also shows that the design code needs to be revised to reserve the safety of the fire-damaged structural member.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.95-105
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• 2014

Reinforced concrete (RC) shield tunnel lining must be designed for fireproof performance because the lining is sometimes exposed to very high temperature due to traffic accidents. Both experimental and numerical studies are carried out to evaluate fire resistance performance of precast RC tunnel lining systems. In the experimental studies, six full-scale precast RC tunnel segments are exposed to fire in order to examine the influence of various parameters on the fire resistance performance of precast RC tunnel lining. We used the temperature curve of the RABT criteria, which are severe conditions of fire temperatures. The fire test showed that the explosive spalling was not observed by substituting concrete to PP fiber reinforced concrete. A transient heat flow analysis was carried out in consideration of the material properties that change with temperature, and the results showed good agreement with the test results.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.19 no.3 s.59
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• pp.13-19
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• 2005

An experimental study is presented for extinguishing characteristics of liquid fuel fire by water mist containing sodium acetate trihydrate. To evaluate the extinguishing performance of water mist containing an additive, the evaporation characteristics of a water droplet on a heated surface was examined. The evaporation process was recorded by a charge-coupled-device camera. Also, small-scale extinguishing tests were conducted for n-heptane pool fire in ventilated space to measure flame temperature variation. The average evaporation rate of a water droplet containing an additive was lower than that of a pure water droplet at a given surface temperature due to the precipitation of salt in the liquid-film and change of surface tension. In case of using an additive, the flame temperature was lower than that of pure water at a given discharge pressure and it was because the momentum of a water droplet containing an additive was increased reducing flame size. And also dissociated metal atoms, sodium, were reacted as a scavenger of the major radical species OH^-,\;H^+$ which were generated for combustion process. Moreover, at a high pressure of 4MPa, the fire was extinguished through blowing effect as well as primary extinguishing mechanisms.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.121-127
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• 2007

Frequent occurrences of a fire cause tremendous loss of human lives and their property. Recently, in order to cope with such catastrophic accidents, researches on fire-fighting robots are carried out in developed countries. Under the dangerous situations, it is sometimes impossible for fire-fighting men to access the firing place because of explosive materials, smoke, high temperature and so on. In such an environment, fire-fighting robots can be useful to extinguish the fire. It is usually very dangerous place where fire-fighting robots operate. Hence, these robots should be controlled by remote users who are for away from the firing place exploiting remote communication systems. This paper considers the communication systems between fire-fighting robots and remote users. The communication systems consist of two parts; digital packet communication systems and analog image communication systems. Digital packet communication systems transfer data packets in order to control fire-fighting robots and to check the state of the fire-fighting robots. Remote users watch the video around the fire-fighting robots by exploiting the analog image communication systems. In the future, the more prosperous the commercial communication network systems will be, the more evolved the communication systems for fire-fighting robots are.