Fire in tunnels: steps towards a real time solution
Event details
| Date | 05.05.2011 |
| Hour | 12:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Bernhard Schrefler |
| Location |
GC C3 30
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
The availability of an efficient tool for simulation of a fire scenario in a tunnel is of paramount importance for fire safety management in emergency situations, for training of fire brigades prior to emergency cases in order to be able take the right decisions when needed and to evaluate measures geared to increase the resistance of existing tunnel vaults against spalling. We have developed such a tool which takes the thermal fluid-structural coupling in a tunnel fire fully into account. The simulation of a realistic fire scenario is still a time consuming task and measures have to be taken to reduce the computing time. It is neither possible to disregard the enormous heat sink the tunnel vault represents with its phase changes and chemical reactions nor to simplify the physical model. Up to now we have chosen a 3D-2D coupling strategy where the thermally driven CFD part is solved in a three dimensional cavity and the concrete behaviour is solved on 2D sections normal to the tunnel axis, at appropriate intervals. The aim of our current research effort is twofold: realize a true 3D-3D coupling and reduce drastically the solution time. The way for achieving this is through adoption of an extremely fast equation solver which can achieve a speed-up of up to 3600 times and the adoption of the Proper Generalized Decomposition PDG for a fast 3D solution of the problem of heated concrete. Steps in this direction as well as the general model will be shown.
Dr. Bernhard Schrefler is professor of Structural Mechanics at the University of Padua and Secretary General of CISM. He obtained his Ph.D. and D.Sc. at the University of Wales. He received honorary doctorates from the St.Petersburg State Technical University, from the University of Technology in Lodz, from the University of Wales-Swansea, from the Leibniz University of Hanover, from the Russian Academy of Sciences and from the Ecole Normale Superieure, He is recipient of the Computational Mechanics Award, the IACM Award, the Biot Medal of ASCE and the Euler Medal of ECCOMAS. He has published close to 200 papers in refereed Journals on structural engineering, soil mechanics, environmental mechanics, and biomechanics and on technology for nuclear fusion, and has written or edited 33 books. His main research interests are in multi-scale analysis and porous media mechanics including environmental geomechanics.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Contact
- Prof. Lyesse Laloui