A Review of Developing Railcar Design Fires for Smoke Control System Design

Rail tunnel and station smoke control system designs typically consider a fully-developed fire from a railcar as a worst case, credible fire scenario. This paper provides the results of a review and assessment of the methods used to estimate the heat release rate of a fully-developed fire inside of a railcar. The review includes large and scaled railcar testing data as well as a range of modeling techniques. Important factors affecting the railcar heat release rate are discussed along with an assessment of the current methods for estimating the railcar heat release rate.