Numerical investigation of prediction performance of design fire curves for a tunnel fire

The prediction performance of design fire curves is numerically investigated for tunnel fire using the fire dynamics simulator (FDS). A large eddy simulation (LES) was adopted in the simulation of a previous 750 kW tunnel fire experiment. Based on the experimental heat release rate, t(2)-fire growth, quadratic and exponential design fire curves (DFCs) are mathematically constructed and adopted in the FDS simulation. The predictions of each DFCs are compared against the experimentally measured smoke temperature, smoke travel time, and carbon monoxide (CO) concentration. In addition, the prediction performance of the mixture fraction (MF) and mixing controlled fast chemistry (MCFC) combustion models, is compared. The simulation results of the MF and MCFC models are similar except for the CO concentration features. For the performance of the DFCs, t(2)-fire growth curve with the MF combustion model is the most effective combination, which demonstrated the most reasonable agreement with the experimental data.