SMAY supports airflow and hot smoke tests in the road tunnel in Laliki

Our company collaborates with technical universities on various research projects. One of the projects involved road tunnel research by the Silesian University of Technology conducted in Laliki, Śląskie province. The research involved tests on air flow in the tunnel, as well as smoke tests and tests on smoke control performance of the ventilation system installed in the tunnel.

The experiment was attended by Małgorzata Król, Ph.D, Eng and Piotr Koper, Ph.D, Eng, researchers of the Chair of Heating, Ventilation and Dust Extraction at the Environmental and Power Engineering Faculty of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, and Aleksander Król Ph.D, researcher from the Chair of Transport Systems and Traffic Engineering at the Faculty of Transport of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice. ARDOR, a Warsaw-based company, also participated in the tests.

The purpose of the tests was to check the airflow speed in four tunnel sections with the ventilation system operating according to the activation matrix for fire events.

14 anemometers by Sensor company were used for the tests, mounted on two standposts. The spacing of the anemometers on each standpost was 80 cm. The standposts were moved in the course of measurements according to a predetermined testing grid (Fig. 1). This enabled the coverage of the tunnel with a testing grid having a cell size of 80×90 cm. This provided 76 test points in total for each of the tested sections. During the tests, fans in the relevant sections were manually activated.

Fig. 1 Tunnel cross-section with test standpost locations marked.

Weather conditions were controlled for the tests on both portals using Kestrel 4500 weather station (southern portal), and WindMaster Pro ultrasound anemometer by Gill Instruments (northern portal).

According to the documentation, the critical speed for the tunnel is 3.1 m/s. The average speed for the respective sections was 3.2 m/s, 2.5 m/s, 2.3 m/s and 3.3 m/s.

The purpose of hot smoke tests was to check the operation of the fire detection system in the road tunnel, and subsequent operation of fans during smoke spread.

Three hot smoke tests were performed. The tests were carried out on the basis of an Australian standard AS 4391-1999 Smoke management systems-Hot smoke test. According to the standard, two trays filled with sixteen litres of alcohol produce the output power of 700 kW, while four trays provide 1,500 kW in output.

Five smoke generators by Vulcan and two or four alcohol trays were used for the tests. 14 thermocouples located on two standposts and a thermal imaging camera by Flir (Fig. 2) were used for temperature measurements. In the first two tests, fans were activated automatically.

Fig. 2. Photos of the hot smoke test station taken with a thermal imaging camera.

Are you interested in our solutions?

We look forward to talking to you about ventilation.