Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The paper gives a quantitative description of the fire development in large tunnel fires and simple analytical expressions to calculate the heat release rate (HRR), time to reach the maximum HRR and the fire duration in fuel-controlled tunnel fires. If knowing the total heat content and the maximum HRR, there will be only one parameter to vary, the parameter n from the original work by Numajiri and Furukawa [1]. Comparison to experimental data from large-scale tunnel fires is presented in order to see the applicability of the mathematical expressions for tunnel fires. Investigators of large tunnel fire accidents and researchers can use the mathematical expressions given in order to reconstruct the HRR development. These equations can also be applied when there is a need for analytical descriptions of HRR of free burning fires.