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INTERESTING TUNNELS
To look at the various road and rail tunnels listed below, just clink on the tunnel name, and the link will take you to the correct page. The tunnels are grouped by Australian State and Country.
Perth Western Australia
Melbourne Victoria Australia
Sydney New South Wales Australia
New Zealand (North Island).
Queensland Australia.
Typical details of Interst for Road/Rail Tunnels
Typical Deluge Valve station, located in a fire isolated area, generally located every 120m along the tunnel length. This area is also used by the general public during evacuation procedures, and the valves are located inside a locked enclosure. The fire brigade and maintenance personnel have keys for access.The deluge valves are designed and trimmed to open and close automatically, without any human assistance, as the valves are considerable distance from the tunnel operations control room. This means that the operator can open and close deluge valve as required in event of a fire scenario, especially if the fire moves or spreads.
Typical Deluge control valve assemblies
Adjacent is a typical deluge control valve assembly located in a cross passage between tunnel bores, approx 120 metres apart, the valves are behind a chain mesh fence (so in an emergency where this cross passage is use to move the general public from one tunnel (fire side) to the other tunnel (non fire side for escape), so these valves can not be tampered with), as these are fully controlled (both opening and closing) for the fire control room by the tunnel operators and fire brigade as required to fight the fire scenario.These valves are trimmed to maintain a constant downstream pressure as designed, to minimize water wastage, and to control the opening and closing speeds to minimize water hammer.
Deluge Control valve assembly
Adjacent is a control valve assembly prior to installation (picture from the Lane Cove Tunnel Project), pre-built in a factory to minimize labour time in the tunnel, ready for installation via a crane on the cross passage concrete slab. Note all the deluge valves are fully trimmed and the manifold is completed with 2 fire hydrant landing valves on the main incoming header pipe + plus a dirt trap and DN50 drain valve & removable for future flushing requirements
Typical Deluge System Operation at Test & Commissioning stage.
This is a typical view when a single (1) fire deluge system operates in a tunnel in a fire scenario, this is why operators stop all traffic flow prior to deluge system operation, because you could not drive through this as visibility is severely impaired. There can be as many as 3-5 zones operating simultaneously if required, the tunnel operators & fire brigade have full control. Typically water discharged is equivalent to a rain storm delivering 10mm per minute for a minimum 60 minutes (as required by NFPA / FMG / Australian Standards), of rain in a rain gage, another words a lot of water.
Our systems are designed to runs for 60 minutes at full flow in a fire scenario, as per the Australian Standards requirements for deluge systems.
Deluge system run test, photo taken from the tunnel roof level looking over the operating deluge nozzles, note the road below is not visible
Before deluge system activation, all tunnel traffic has to be stopped, otherwise the vehicle drive would not be able to see where they are going, potentially cauing another incident, the tunnel operator control the system operations
Before deluge system activation, all tunnel traffic has to be stopped, otherwise the vehicle drive would not be able to see where they are going, potentially cauing another incident, the tunnel operator control the system operations
Hydraulic & Water Hammer Issues
Careful consideration of hydraulic issues and water hammer in long horizontal piping systems, in the road tunnel unique profiles & undulating gradients must be taken into account. We take particular care & spend considerable time in analyzing the problem, and the required solution for each unique tunnel circumstance. Specific measures designed and built into combined main piping system to minimize any water hammer & hydraulic issues, caused by opening and closing deluge valves + when pumps are starting / stopping, during maintenance or in a fire scenario. Lessons learnt in previous tunnel and good engineering practices are used when designing a fire protection system in an underground road tunnel, which is essentially a high rise building laying on its side. These same measures can be adopted for high rise building too. Unfortunately statutory codes do not clearly address road tunnels design, refer to our Fire Protection Page for more details, or send us your enquiries.
Deluge Water Spray Design
The tunnels designed by DKnapp Fire Design uses a tried and proven principle, where we have deluge nozzles space at maximum 9.0m/2 per nozzle across the tunnel road surface area (from road kerb to road kerb coverage) as per Australian Standards AS2118.3 requirements for deluge water spray systems, and following the guidelines of Factory Mutual (FMG) and National Fire Protection Codes (NFPA), thus allow for even fire water distribution and total coverage from all sides of a large vehicle that may be parked or moving in the road tunnel.The only exception to this design philosophy in Australian & New Zealand road tunnels, is the Sydney Harbor Tunnel (done by others), deluge water spray system consists of a central fire main and water spray nozzles pointing to each traffic lane. This design does not cater for a large truck-trailer (box type) vehicles, and on the wall side of the vehicle would not be protected by direct water spray.There is no Australian Standard for designs of deluge water spray system for road tunnels, so over time we have attempted to develop the best for purpose design philosophies, using all available water spray codes from Australia, USA, Europe, UK, and based on many tunnel fires in the world, learning by previous mistakes, constantly updating our philosophy & design parameters and system design evolution. The more we can lean for mistakes of the past, the better our designs will be in the future.
Fire Hydrant, Fire Hose Reel & Fire Extinguisher Design
The fire hydrant (AS2419) is based on a combined main fire service and also utilizes AS2118.6, fire hose reels (AS1221 & AS2122) and fire extinguisher (AS2444), these services are housed in custom build cabinets every 60 metres along the tunnel length, and are accessible to the general public. When a cabinet door is opened, an alarm is sounded in the control indicating which cabinet has been opened.Fire hydrant are provided either adjacent (within 4 meters of the emergency doors) or within the cross passage on the deluge manifold for fire brigade use only, no hoses are provided in the cabinet or inside the cross passages.For example of the cabinets please visit the Cross City Tunnel Road Tunnel site
Fire Detection Design
The most effective fire detection systems are those than can accurately tell the tunnel operators where the fire is located by deluge zone areas, so the appropriate deluge system can be operated, many types of linear heat detection systems have be tried, but we believe that the Queensland Northern City Bypass Tunnel has the best for design system, being a linear heat detection system that is very accurate.The fire detection system also includes for EWIS phones for fire brigade use only, housed is a separate part of the cabinets for hydrants, is a loced section clearly indicate as fire brigade use only.
Conculsion
DKnapp Fire Design Pty Ltd has vast experience in Road and Rail Tunnel Fire Protection Design, Installation and Commissioning.
We have design experience in all aspects of Fire Protection Design / Consultancy / Construction / Audits / Commissioning / Drafting for a variety of projects / As Built documentation / Operations and Maintenance Manuals, in Australasia, and this knowledge can easily be utilized worldwide.
We are based in Western Australia, and with the internet / emails / FTP sites / computers / video conferencing, or our ability to work out of the client's office (anywhere), we can assist your team in the design of the fire protection system for particular project.
We look forward to your enquiries and will endeavor to answer all your questions / enquiries in a timely manner, please email us on admin@dknappfiredesign.com.au , or go to our Contact Us page.
We thank you for visiting our web site, and hope that you have gained valuable information and an insight to some of the issues that confront us whilst doing the design on a project.
We have design experience in all aspects of Fire Protection Design / Consultancy / Construction / Audits / Commissioning / Drafting for a variety of projects / As Built documentation / Operations and Maintenance Manuals, in Australasia, and this knowledge can easily be utilized worldwide.
We are based in Western Australia, and with the internet / emails / FTP sites / computers / video conferencing, or our ability to work out of the client's office (anywhere), we can assist your team in the design of the fire protection system for particular project.
We look forward to your enquiries and will endeavor to answer all your questions / enquiries in a timely manner, please email us on admin@dknappfiredesign.com.au , or go to our Contact Us page.
We thank you for visiting our web site, and hope that you have gained valuable information and an insight to some of the issues that confront us whilst doing the design on a project.