North American road tunnel fire detection research project

A study to investigate the performance of fire detection systems in roadway tunnels was initiated by the Fire Protection Research Foundation in 1999. A Technical Advisory Group consisting of fire and transportation officials, engineering firms, researchers, and system manufacturers was formed to oversee the project, whose overall goals are:- Investigate the performance attributes of current fire detection technologies for roadway tunnel protection;- Develop performance criteria for fire and smoke detection systems in roadway tunnel applications;- Help optimize the technical specifications and installation requirements for this application.The first phase of this project that was completed recently was a literature review of past and current research and application of fire detection systems for road tunnel protection. Based on this study, a second phase of the research program with the following objectives was launched in November 2005:- Develop appropriate design fire scenarios and test protocols for evaluating performance of road tunnel detectors;- Conduct full-scale tunnel fire tests to document the performance of currently available fire detection technologies under challenging tunnel fire scenarios;- Analyze technical data and conduct computational modeling to help understand and optimize the technical specifications and installation requirements for application of fire detection technologies in road tunnels;- Evaluate environmental effects in real tunnel environments on system performance;- Benchmark full scale fire research scenarios against data from demonstration fire tests;- Provide technical data to standards and code writers for the development of guidelines for application of fire detection technologies in road tunnels.The paper will present a summary of the first phase literature study, a progress report on the second phase of the research program, and an update on roadway tunnel research and standards development activities in North America.En 1999, la Fire Protection Research Foundation lan\ue7ait une \ue9tude visant \ue0 \ue9valuer la performance des syst\ue8mes de d\ue9tection d'incendie dans les tunnels routiers. Un groupe de consultation technique a alors \ue9t\ue9 mis sur pied, compos\ue9 de responsables de la lutte contre les incendies et du transport, de soci\ue9t\ue9s d'ing\ue9nierie, de chercheurs et de fabricants de syst\ue8mes de d\ue9tection. Le groupe est charg\ue9 de superviser le projet dont les principaux objectifs sont les suivants :Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye