• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.319-327
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• 2001

Introduction of new design tools has been required to optimally design and operate the ventilation system of long vehicle tunnels.. The demand has led to wide spread use of the simulation technique throughout the would to analysis the dynamic relationship among the variables associated with vehicle tunnel ventilation. This paper aims at performing on-site study at local tunnels to test the applicability of NETVEN, a simulation model vehicle tunnel ventilation. The study was carried out at four urban as well as highway tunnels model of vehicle tunnel ventilation. The study was carried out at four urban as well as highway tunnels employing different ventilation systems as well as traffic methods. There were some discrepancies sound between the simulation output and measurements and the following four factors are considered to mainly cause those disagreement. (1) The real situation shows distinctive transient and retarding characteristics with respect to air flow and contaminant dispersion, while ventilation forces are not steady-state and in particular those traffic and climatic variables show significant instantaneous variation. (3) Near the exit portal, the CO levels show bigger differences. The general trend is that data with higher CO concentrations carry bigger discrepancies. Turbulent diffusion is though to be the main reason for it and also contribute to the fact hat the highest CO concentrations are found at the locations somewhat inward, not at the exit portals. (4) Higher traffic rate results in higher discrepancies of ventilation velocity. Along with the exhaust characteristics, the vehicle aerodynamic characteristics need to be studied continuously in order to reduce the velocity disagreement.