• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.22-30
• /
• 2015

This study evaluated road shape and roadside barrier impact on near-road air pollution dispersion using FLUENT computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Simulated road shapes are three types, namely at-grade, depressed, and filled road. The realizable k-${\varepsilon}$ model in FLUENT CFD code was used to simulate the flow and dispersion around road. The selected concentration profile results were compared with the wind tunnel experiments. The overall concentration profile results show good agreement with the wind tunnel results. The results showed that noise barriers, which positioned around the at-grade road, decrease the horizontal impact distance (In this study, the impact distance was defined as the distance from road surface origin coordinate to the position whose mass fraction is 0.1.) lower 0.33~0.65 times and change the vertical air pollution impact distance larger 2.0~2.27 times than those of no barrier case. In case of filled road, noise barriers decrease the horizontal impact distance lower 0.24~0.65 times and change the vertical air pollution impact distance larger 3.33~3.55 times than those of no barrier case. The depressed road increase 1.53~1.68 times the vertical air pollution impact distance. It contributes the decrease of horizontal air pollution impact distance 0.32~0.60 times compare with no barrier case.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.104-111
• /
• 2017

The construction of road tunnels and bridges have delivered driving efficiency and stability based on developed engineering technology. Tunnels have the advantage of reducing the deforested area compared with other road construction methods. Since a tunnel is an underground passageway dug through the surrounding soil/earth/rock and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end, it does not cause a large amount of deforestation. This study surveyed the deforested areas at each end of the tunnel by the design of the tunnel entrance and exit and forest topography to minimize the amount of deforestation caused by road construction. A survey was done on a total of 150 tunnels (300 entrances and exits) on several main roads in Korea. The deforested area of each tunnel was collected by a breakdown of the entrance area and the upper area of the tunnel. According to the results of Kruskal-Wallis analysis, it was found that there was statistically a significant relation between the location of tunnels and the amount of deforestation by the topographical access type of the tunnels. The tunnel with 'facing orthogonal to incline' type access caused the smallest deforestation while the the tunnel with 'facing to valley' and 'parallel with incline' type accesses caused large deforestation during tunnel construction. Tunnel positioning in the light of topography can reduce the deforested area by up to 1.5ha at each tunnel.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.100-107
• /
• 1997

In case of a fire outbreak in a uni-directional road tunnel, the flow of traffic immediately behind the fire disaster will be stalled all the way back to the entrance of the tunnel. Furthermore, when the vehicle passengers try to flee away from the fire toward the entrance of the tunnel, the extremely hot fume that propagates in the same direction will be fatal to the multitudes evacuating, but may also cause damage to the ventilation equipments and the vehicles, compounding the evacuation process. This paper will present the 3-dimensional modelling analysis of the preventive measures of such a fume propagation in the same direction as the evacuating passengers. For the analysis, the fire hazard was assumed to be a perfect combustion of methane gas injected through the 1 m X 2 m nozzle in the middle of the tunnel, and the product of $CO_2$ as the indicator of the fume propagation. From the research results, when the fire hazard occurred in middle of the 400 m road tunnel, the air density decreased around the fire point, and the maximum temperatures were 996 K and 499 K at 210 m and 350 m locations, respectively, 60 seconds after fire disaster occurred, when the fumes were driven out only towards the exit-direction of the tunnel. By tracing the increase of $CO_2$ level over 1% mole fraction, the minimum longitudinal ventilation velocity was found to be 2.40 m/sec. Furthermore, through Analysis of the temperature distribution graphs, and observation of the cross-sectional distribution of $CO_2$ over 1% mole fraction, it was found that the fume did not mix with the air, but rather moved far in a laminar flow towards exit of the tunnel.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.151-155
• /
• 2017

Background: At the entrance of a tunnel, reflection of sunlight from the surrounding environment and a lack of adequate lighting usually cause some vision problems. The purpose of this study was to perform a safety evaluation of lighting on a very long road in Ilam, Iran. Methods: The average luminance was measured using a luminance meter (model S3; Hagner, Solna, Sweden). A camera (model 108, 35-mm single-lens reflex; Yashica, Nagano, Japan) was used to take photographs of the safe stopping distance from the tunnel entrance. Equivalent luminance was determined according to the Holliday polar diagram. Results: Considering the average luminance at the tunnel entrance ($116.7cd/m^2$) and using Adrian's equation, the safe level of lighting at the entrance of the tunnel was determined to be 0.7. Conclusion: A comparison between the results of the safe levels of lighting at the entrance of the tunnel and the De Boer scale showed that the phenomenon of black holes is created at the tunnel entrance. This may lead to a misadaptation of the drivers' eyes to the change in luminance level at the entrance of the tunnel, thereby increasing the risk of road accidents in this zone.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.411-417
• /
• 2009

The thermo-flow field in road tunnel is influenced by some facts such as piston effect of vehicle's move, operation of ventilation facilities, natural wind and buoyancy effect of fire plume. Among those, piston effect is one of primary causes for formation of air flow in road tunnel and has an effect on initial direction of smoke flow in tunnel fire. In this study to analyze the unsteady flow in the tunnel caused by the run of vehicle, the experimental study of vehicle-induced unsteady flow on a reduced-scale model tunnel is presented. While the three types of vehicle shape such as basic type of rectangular shape, diamond-head type and stair-tail type are changed, the pressure and air velocity variations with time are measured. The rising ratio of pressure and velocity are in order of "basic type of rectangular shape > stair-tail type > diamond-head type". The experimental results would be good data for development of a numerical method on the vehicle-induced unsteady tunnel flow.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.344-353
• /
• 2014

In this study, the behavior of rock pillar in the diverging area of road tunnel was assessed by using a three dimensional numerical analysis. Based on parameters affecting the behavior of rock pillar, different safety factors according to pillar width, depth and rock conditions were evaluated. It turned out that as the pillar width increases, the change curve of safety factors in accordance with depth and rock conditions shows more of the nonlinear behavior. By the assessment of the minimum safety factor, a safety factor chart on the behavior of rock pillar in the diverging area of road tunnel was suggested.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.67-75
• /
• 2012

Because recently(July 14, 2011) fire occurred in the engine room of a moving taxi under Namsan Tunnel 1, 51 vehicles' driver and more than 250 passengers in the road tunnel were urgently evacuated with abandoned vehicles. Vehicle fires in Namsan Tunnel that day, Sufferers struggled to escape quickly difficult to escape the two-way by abandoned vehicles on the road and to fear many casualties by using vehicle fuel and combustible interior and the driver who is ignorant of vehicle accident continuous entered in the road tunnel had accessibility the site of fire department was more difficult. In this study, It is to investigate structure and basic materials, such as fire extinguish equipment and facilities for damage prevention and to analyze the problems and to plan improvement method of fire extinguish equipment, facilities for damage prevention and transportation facilities(Large traffic signs, Breaker, etc.) on the Namsan Tunnel that in the long-term plan is prepared to strengthen for accessibility of the site of fire department in case of Vehicle's fire.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.421-435
• /
• 2022

The necessity of estimating the time and cost required for tunnel construction has led to extensive research in this regard. Since geological conditions are significant factors in terms of time and cost of road tunnels, considering these conditions is crucial. Uncertainties about the geological conditions of a tunnel alignment cause difficulties in planning ahead of the required construction time and costs. In this paper, the continuous-space, discrete-state Markov process has been used to predict geological conditions. The Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation (MCS) method is employed to estimate the construction time and costs of a road tunnel project using the input data obtained from six tunneling expert questionnaires. In the first case, the input data obtained from each expert are individually considered and in the second case, they are simultaneously considered. Finally, a comparison of these two modes based on the technique presented in this article suggests considering views of several experts simultaneously to reduce uncertainties and ensure the results obtained for geological conditions and the construction time and costs.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.363-377
• /
• 2018

The proper functioning of critical points on transport infrastructure is decisive for the entire network. Tunnels and bridges certainly belong to the critical points of the surface transport network, both road and rail. Risk management should be a holistic and dynamic process throughout the entire life cycle. However, the level of risk is usually determined only during the design stage mainly due to the fact that it is a time-consuming and costly process. This paper presents a simplified quantitative risk analysis method that can be used any time during the decades of a tunnel's lifetime and can estimate the changing risks on a continuous basis and thus uncover hidden safety threats. The presented method is a decision support system for tunnel managers designed to preserve or even increase tunnel safety. The CAPITA method is a deterministic scenario-oriented risk analysis approach for assessment of mortality risks in road tunnels in case of the most dangerous situation - a fire. It is implemented through an advanced risk analysis CAPITA SW. Both, the method as well as the resulting software were developed by the authors' team. Unlike existing analyzes requiring specialized microsimulation tools for traffic flow, smoke propagation and evacuation modeling, the CAPITA contains comprehensive database with the results of thousands of simulations performed in advance for various combinations of variables. This approach significantly simplifies the overall complexity and thus enhances the usability of the resulting risk analysis. Additionally, it provides the decision makers with holistic view by providing not only on the expected risk but also on the risk's sensitivity to different variables. This allows the tunnel manager or another decision maker to estimate the primary change of risk whenever traffic conditions in the tunnel change and to see the dependencies to particular input variables.

• Fire Science and Engineering
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.9-17
• /
• 2016

In the case of a medium length road tunnel, the installation of a smoke control facility is not mandatory so users can suffer considerable injuries if a fire breaks out. Therefore, this study analyzed the high-temperature air and toxic gas generated by fire proliferating with time when a smoke barrier is not installed and when the installation interval is 100, 150, 200, and 250 m through 3-dimensional numerical analysis, evacuation simulation, and Quantitative Risk Assessment Methodology targeting the medium length road tunnel. As a result, the diffusion of the high-temperature air and toxic gas occurring from the a fire was delayed when the smoke barrier was installed in a medium length road tunnel compared to that when it was not installed. In addition, when the installation interval of a smoke barrier was 100m and the numerical analysis target was 100m, the diffusion of high-temperature air and toxic gas generated by the fire was delayed more than in the other cases, which was most suitable for tunnel users to evacuate.