Effect of Initial Velocity Field on Smoke Diffusion Characteristic in Subway Tunnel

In this paper, piston wind effect on smoke diffusion characteristic in subway tunnel is studied by using three-dimensional transient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. In the first simulation case, fire disaster is simulated with homogeneous resting initial field condition. In the second simulation case, the train’s decelerating process till stopping in the tunnel is simulated for getting three-dimensional tunnel air velocity field distribution. Then the final heterogeneous air velocity field when the train stops in the tunnel is taken as initial field condition and the same fire scenario as the first case is simulated again. The data obtained under both initial conditions are compared by detecting people evacuation safety and the influence of initial air velocity field is analyzed. The results show that the inertial air velocity field caused by train’s movement has significant influence on smoke diffusion at the first few minutes of fire disaster, which is the key time for people’s evacuation. The adopted method in this paper and the simulation result could be used in establishing more effective subway fire evacuation plan.