Session 3 Going public selling the

underground solution

North American Tunneling 2006 Ozdemir (ed.)

2006 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 0 415 40128 3

Concrete tunnel lining fire resistance and protection

W. Chen
Jacobs Civil Inc, Boston, USA

ABSTRACT: For transportation tunnel projects, either new design or rehabilitation, owners always seek for
adequate and economic solutions for fire resistance and protection of concrete lining should a fire occurs. The
behavior and impact of a concrete lining during a fire depend on the tunnels designed fire load and its associated
fire time-temperature curve, besides its means of tunnel ventilation. Overstress and explosive spalling in concrete
lining may occur through differential temperature gradients and water vapor pressure in the lining. Until recent,
fire design loads and time-temperature curves for tunnels are based on available building standards, which may
not be adequate. This paper assesses existing fire design standards, codes, and guidelines for tunnel concrete
linings; reviews the latest active and passive methods for tunnel fire protection; summarizes the physical and
mechanical properties of concrete lining exposed to fires; evaluates high performance concrete tunnel linings
behavior when it is exposed to fires; reviews the latest tunnel fire time-temperature design curves; proposes a
loading combination for tunnel design in fire; and provides a simplified manual approach, considering time
dependent and temperature gradient factors within the lining, for concrete tunnel lining design in fire.

1
1.1

INSTRUCTION

manual calculation approach for fire design and rehabilitation of concrete tunnel lining for transportation
tunnels.

Fire design standards and guidelines for

tunnels

Universal design standard or guideline for fire design

of concrete tunnel lining does not exist (Beeston,
2002), though intensive researches have been invested,
in recent years, on the material behavior of tunnel
structure components exposed to fire, on the fire timetemperature curve in tunnels, and on the fire protection
methods and material. Most fire design codes are only
suitable for building structures. They cant be directly
applied to tunnel lining designs, since the fire load
and its associated fire time-temperature curve are not
representative to fire events in tunnels.
Very few countries have fire design standards for
tunnel linings. The Netherlands Ministry for Public Works and Water Management (RWS) has set
prescriptive standards for fire design curves and temperature limits for tunnel linings, since tunnels in
Netherlands are below groundwater level and any leakage, as a result from fire events, is not acceptable.
Another country has similar prescriptive standards is
Germany, the ZTV-RABT. International Tunnel Association (2004) has published a document in an attempt
to provide guidelines for structural fire resistance for
road tunnels.
The intent of this paper is to review these fire design
standards and guidelines and to derive a simplified

1.2 Active and passive fire protection

Active fire protection systems are means to positively
fighting fire and protecting life and tunnel structures within tunnel when fire events occur. Typical
active fire protection systems include tunnel ventilation and water suppression systems. These systems are
beyond the scope of this paper and wont be further
discussed.
Passive fire protection systems are means to add on
tunnel linings fire resistance capacity. They are generally provided by the following means (Carvel, 2005):

A secondary layer of concrete or cementitious

material applied to the inner tunnel surface.
Protective panels attached to tunnel ceiling and
walls.
Addition of polypropylene fibers in concrete mix to
improve its fire resistance.
The focus of this paper is on the evaluation of tunnel
concrete linings fire resistance capability when the
lining is exposed to fires. Details of the fire protection
means and methods are not further discussed.

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2 TUNNEL BEHAVIOR WHEN EXPOSED

TO FIRE

Table 1.
tunnel.

2.1

Vehicle type

Temperature C

Passenger
Bus/small lorry
Heavy lorry (HGV) with combustible
goods
Petrol tanker (general case)
Petrol tanker (extreme case, such as
for ITT)

400 C
700 C
1,350 C

Cause of fire and its impact to tunnel

stability

Two main causes of tunnel fires are from the leakage

of petroleum, from vehicles, and vehicles accidents
in tunnels. Spilled petroleum is often the reason of a
fast fire development. In general, the fire in a concrete
lined tunnel does not impair its support capacity. This
could be concluded from the fires in Channel Tunnel,
Storeblt Tunnel, and Mont-Blanc Tunnel. None of the
fire caused the tunnels to collapse, though concrete
spall was observed in all cases. Also, concrete lining
compressive strength loss does not penetrate beyond
the spalled section. As a consequence, tunnel lining
after a fire may continue to provide sufficient support
capability to avoid a general collapse; however, caution
must be taken for underwater tunnels, where lining
cracks may result in excessive water inflow into the
tunnel and present life threat issues.
2.2

Maximum temperature from vehicle fire in a

1,350 C
1,400 C

Spalling

At high temperature and when water vapor pressure

build-up beyond the tensile capacity of the concrete, a
fast relief of chunks of concrete may explode, at fast
velocity, away from the wall. Cause of the vapor phenomenon is from the dehydration of calcium hydroxide
in the concrete cement when the temperature is above
400 C, as shown in Equation (1).

Figure 1. Fire time-temperature curves (Annica Nordmark,

1998).

impermeable concrete, with silica fume or low

water-cement ratio. More permeable concrete general perform better in a fire. Lightweight concrete
performs better than normal weight concrete in a
fire.
Rate of heating Spalling can be more severe in
rapidly growing fires.
Thickness The thicker the concrete, the better it
will behave when exposed to fire.

Spalling rate is influenced by (Lance 1998,

Gustaferro 2002):

Moisture content The higher the moisture content

the higher the likelihood the spalling would occur.
Steel reinforcement Closely spaced reinforcement
can minimize concrete spalling.
Type of aggregates Gravel concrete undergoes
more spalling in a fire because of different coefficient of thermal expansion that result in the development of high stresses in the concrete mix. Carbonate
aggregates, such as limestone and dolomite, when
expose to fire will calcine, a phenomenon that
carbon dioxide is driven off and calcium (or magnesium) oxide remains. This reaction absorbs fire
heat and, therefore, the carbonate aggregate performs better than other normal weight aggregates,
siliceous aggregates, in a fire. Quartz aggregate is
also not recommended for fire resistant concrete. It
changes state at about 573 C and expands suddenly
by 0.85% in volume and affects the concrete.
Density and permeability Concrete that is not
allowed to dry may spall, especially in highly

DESIGN PARAMETERS

3.1 Fire load and fire time-temperature curve

The fire load and fire time-temperature curve in a tunnel from vehicle fire depend upon the type of vehicle
involved, the number of the vehicle involved, the tunnel geometry, and the tunnel ventilation system used
(PIARC, 1999). Table 1 lists the maximum temperatures at the ceiling or wall of a tunnel that could be
developed based on the vehicle types (PIARC, 1999).
Figure 1 shows common fire time-temperature
curves generally used in European countries. Curve 1
is the Netherlands Rijkswaterstaat (or RWS) curve;
Curve 2 is the Germany RABT curve; Curve 3 is
based on Eurocode 1: Basis of Design and Actions
on Structures, Part 2.2; and Curve 4 is the standard
ISO curve, normally seen for building structures. From
these curves, it could be seen that heat release in

210

tunnels is higher and faster than in building structures

(ISO curve), because of its confined space nature and
less natural ventilation ability in general.
ITA (2004) proposed a classification method for
tunnel fire design loads, as a function to time and temperature, based on vehicle type and the criticality of
the tunnel when exposed to fire and resulting crack
and leakage. For design purpose, it classifies the tunnel into four categories, cars only, heavy lorries, petro
tankers, and special cases, such as immersed tube tunnel (ITT). Its fire time-temperature curves basically
follow those curves presented in Figure 1.
3.2 Temperature gradient through lining section
It is difficult task to determine the temperature distribution through the cross section of concrete lining.
Concrete properties, when exposed to fire, vary with
the heat release rate of the fire, which is a function
of the time and its associated energy release capacity
of the associated burning goods. One relative accurate
approach may be through 2-D or 3-D computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) program which has the capability of performing thermal-structure coupling analysis
and can capture the structure properties with the variation of temperature and time. However, this approach
would be tedious and time consuming and the accuracy of its result is depending upon the accuracy of
the time and temperature dependent thermal properties
provided. A simplified approach is therefore proposed
here.
Wickstrm (1986) proposed a simplified method
to predict the temperature variation through concrete
slabs, based on many results of CFD analyses. In this
manual calculation, the concrete temperature, Tc , is
given by:

where, Tf is the designed fire temperature in C; x

is a function of time, th in hours, that relates the concrete surface temperature to the concrete temperature
at depth x, in meter, into the slab; w is a function of
time, th , that relates the fire temperature to the concrete
surface temperature.

Figure 2 shows temperature variation curves in concrete sections, which are calculated based on Equation
(2) for the ISO standard fire time-temperature curve.
3.3 Thermal properties and modulus of elasticity

Figure 2. Temperature gradient in concrete, depth in mm,

based on ISO standard fire time-temperature and derived
from Equation (2) (Wade, 1991).

is about 2,300 kg/m3 . When exposed to fire at temperature above 100 C, the density of most concrete
would drop 100 kg/m3 from the evaporation of free
water. This phenomenon has little effect to concretes
thermal response. Other than the change of its moisture content, concretes density does not change much
from thermal impact, except for limestone aggregates. Limestone aggregates would decompose when
its exposure temperature is greater than 800 C.
Concretes thermal conductivity and specific heat
also vary with its degree of exposure to thermal loads.
These properties are important for 2-D and 3-D CFD
and structure analyses; however, for the simplified
manual calculation to be presented in this paper, they
are not explicitly required and are not further discussed. EC2 (1993) and BS 8110 (BSI, 1985) present
these properties in details.
3.4 Concrete strength
Concrete compressive strength is reduced with the
increase of temperature. Figure 3 illustrates design
values of concrete compressive strength at different
temperature state in accordance with BS 8110.
In Figure 3, the line of normal weight concrete is
given by (R being the relative factor to concretes normal temperature strength and T being the temperature)
the following equations:

The line for light weight concrete in Figure 3 is

given by:

The density of the concrete depends on the aggregates

and its other mixtures. Typical density of concrete

211

strength design or load and resistance factor design

methodologies than working strength design approach
for tunnel concrete lining design in fire.
The fundamental philosophy of the ultimate
strength design of concrete is its nominal capacity
(R), nominal strength of a design member, shall be
greater than the factored demand forces, U. Normally
a strength reduction factor, , is applied to R to account
for the uncertainty in estimating the material strength
and cross sectional properties; therefore,

Figure 3. BS 8110 design values for concrete compressive

strength vs. temperature (BSI, 1985).

For fire design, the strength and the members sectional properties are based on the most likely expected
situation; therefore, most international codes specify
the strength reduction factor to 1 for fire design
purpose, and

4.2 Design loads

Design loads for transportation tunnels include dead
loads (D), thermal load (T), ground and groundwater pressures (H), and lives loads (L) from vehicles. Wind and snow loads do not have noticeable
impact to tunnels. In accordance with ACI 318
(2005), Equation 9-2, the loading combination, Lc, is
given by:

Figure 4. Design values for yield strengths vs. temperature.

3.5

Reinforcing steel strength

Standards or codes for steel yield strength reduction

of reinforcing steel vary, though they are very similar.
For simplified calculation purpose, the curve from BS
8110 is adopted here, as shown in Figure 4. The line of
the relative factor of yield strength of reinforcing steel
is given by:

4
4.1

SIMPLIFIED DESIGN OF TUNNEL

CONCRETE LINING EXPOSED TO FIRE
Design approach

Under a fire event, structures may behave beyond its

elastic limit. It is more appropriate adopting ultimate

Equation (12) is applicable for building structures

in normal temperature condition. Its application to
tunnel structures in extreme thermal condition should
be revised, since in a fire, the likelihood of all these
loads to occur is rare and the thermal load is in a
extreme state. For fire design of buildings, a load factor of 0.5 is normally used for live load, L, in many
national codes. Load factor for ground and groundwater has not been seen from those codes. Since fire in
a tunnel is an extreme event, the author recommends
using a load factor of 1 to ground and groundwater
pressures. Also, thermal expansion may benefit the
concrete lining in compression. It is, therefore, recommend a load factor of 1 to be used for temperature
loads. The load combination for fire design, Lcfire , can
then be expressed as:

Please note that New Zealand (SNZ, 1992) and

Eurocode (EC1, 1994) even further reduce the load
factor of dead load to 1.

212

4.3

Simplified design approach

The proposed simplified manual calculation is based

on design principles byACI 318 (2005), with the inputs
of fire design time-temperature curve, the reduced
material strengths, and the revised loading combination described in previous sections. Details steps are
described below.
The first step is the calculation of the required
design demand based on the loading combination proposed in Equation (13) and general structural analysis
principals.
The second step is the selection of a design fire
time-temperature curve, such as those curves shown
in Figure 1 or adopting those recommendations from
ITA (2004) guidelines.
The third step is the calculation of the temperature
across the tunnel lining section. This can be calculated
based on Equation (2) or from Figure 2. The temperature of the steel reinforcement is assumed to be the
same as that of concretes at that location.
The fourth step is the calculation of the reduced
strengths of the tunnel concrete lining components.
For concrete, it can be derived from Equations (5) to
(8), or using Figure 3. For reinforcing steel, it can be
derived from Equation (9), or using Figure 4.
The derivation of the reduced concrete compressive
strength from the fourth step would be tedious and
unpractical, since the concrete section is continuous.
For practical design purpose, EC2 (1993) specifies the
concrete strength in two regions: full capacity for concrete section with temperature less than 500 C; and
zero strength for concrete section with temperature
greater than 500 C. Another approach is to divide
the concrete into several layers and use mean values at the sections for design. From past experience,
it is found that the refined approach obtains similar
result as that by EC2; therefore, the EC2 approach is
recommended here.
The last step is the calculation of the linings nominal capacity, Rfire , using ACI 318 (2005) design
principles and the verification of Rfire is equal or
greater than the calculated demand, Ufire .
5
5.1

FIRE PROTECTION FOR EXTREME

TUNNELS
Underwater tunnels

For underwater tunnels, crack and leakage of tunnel

may lead to inundation of the tunnel, which can cause
life safety issue and social and economic impacts to the
operation of the tunnel owner. More stringent criteria
are required for these tunnels; however, the universal
standard does not exit. The Netherlands RWS requires:
The temperature of the steel reinforcement in concrete shall not exceed 280 C, to prevent sagging and
tunnel collapse, and

The temperature at the surface of the concrete shall

not exceed 380 C, to prevent spalling.

To achieve these requirements, special coating or

cladding (passive protection) to divert temperature
away from the concrete surface of the lining is
required. Caution need to be made for this approach to
life safety issue, since diverting temperature from tunnel ceiling and wall means diverting the heat back to
the tunnel. Another approach is the use of a sacrificial
layer of lining to the design lining.

CONCLUSION

Several conclusions can be drawn from this paper:

Universal design for tunnel concrete lining exposed

to fire does not exist.
High performance concrete lining performs poor
than normal concrete lining in a fire event (lower
permeability tends to cause explosive spalling).
Building standards or codes for fire design must be
modified for tunnel lining designs.
Load factors, for loading combination in ultimate
strength design, for tunnel lining design in fire can
be lower than that in normal temperature condition.
A simplified manual calculation approach for tunnel
lining design exposed to fire is derived.
For underwater tunnels, the use of additional passive
fire protection means should be considered.

REFERENCES
ACI. 318. 2005. Building code requirements for structural
concrete and commentary.
Annica Nordmak, A. 1998. Fire and life safety for underground facilities: present status of fire and life safety
principles related to underground facilities. Tunnelling
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217269.
Beeston, A. 2002. Refractory solutions for fire protection
of tunnel structures. Proceedings of the 4th International
Conference on Tunnel Fires, Basel, Switzerland.
BSI. 1985. Structure use of concrete, BS 8110, British
Standards Institution, UK.
Carvel, R. 2005. Fire protection in concrete tunnels. The
Handbook of Tunnel Fire Safety: 110124.
EC1. 1994. Eurocode 1: Basis of design and design actions
on structures. Part 2-2: Actions on structures exposed to
fire. ENV 1991-2-2.
EC2. 1993. Eurocode 2: Design of concrete structures. ENV
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Lance, G.A. (1998) Effects of Fire on Tunnel Lining
Stability, Tunnels & Tunnelling International, October.
Gustaferro,A.H. (2002) Fire-Resistant Concrete, MA Magazine, Spring.
ITA. Working Group No. 6 Maintenance and Repair 2004.
Guidelines for structural fire resistance for road tunnels.

213

SNZ. 1992. Code of practice for general structural design and

design loadings for buildings. NZS4203.
Wade, C.A. 1991. Method for fire engineering design of
structural concrete beams and floor systems. BRANZ
Technical Recommendation No.8.

Wickstrm, U. 1986. A very simple method for estimating

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