Prevention and control of highway tunnel fires

Rijkswaterstaat en Efectis hebben samengewerkt aan een nodige revisie van wat bekend staat als de RWS-procedure voor tunnels. Dit rapport beschrijft de testprocedure zoals deze vanaf 2020 toegepast zal worden. Nieuw in deze versie zijn onder meer werkwijzes voor het testen van vluchtdeuren en voegen, en voor het on-site testen met een mobiele oven.

In de toekomst zullen tunnels steeds vaker te maken krijgen met extreme weersomstandigheden. Het COB-netwerk heeft een eerste verkenning gedaan om de risico’s van klimaatverandering ten aanzien van (toekomstige) tunnels in kaart te kunnen brengen. Het rapport formuleert activiteiten waarnaar in de (nabije) toekomst gehandeld moet worden.

The Knowledge Platform for Tunnel Safety (KPT) asked Nils Rosmuller, lecturer in Energy and Transport Safety at the IFV, to think about the possibilities for firefighting in such tunnels. In consultation with Brandweer Nederland, Rijkswaterstaat and the IFV  Brandweeracademie, resources for officers-in-charge have been developed. This document presents the tools that have been developed (decision diagram and operational capability table) as well as the process of their creation and ideas about the section on 'concrete spalling' in the development of the decision diagram. 

On 8 August 2017, the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management sent a letter to the Dutch House of Representatives concerning the reduced fire resistance of concrete in four tunnels as established following an investigation by Rijkswaterstaat. This received extensive media attention and the findings led to many questions from various interested parties. This publication contains an overview of the results obtained through a collaborative process of those interested parties, facilitated by the Knowledge Platform for Tunnel Safety (KPT).

Research commissioned by Rijkswaterstaat has shown that the fire resistance of tunnels made of ROK concrete may be impaired. In response to this, four discussion tables were set up at the end of 2017 under the coordination of the Knowledge Platform for Tunnel Safety (KPT) with the aim of discussing the problems outlined above from various perspectives. These are the discussion tables for Existing Tunnels, New Tunnels, Research, and Emergency Services.  This document was prepared by Discussion Table - Research in response to the request for further substantiation of the final conclusions. The explanations presented here basically reflect the way in which each conclusion was reached and the reasons for it. The conclusions (and the explanations) should, however, be considered as a whole, in view of the order in which they are reached and to safeguard the message.

Dit afstudeerwerk biedt een vernieuwende visie ten aanzien van de brandwerendheid van betonnen tunnels.