Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039

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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tust

Air flow behavior and gas dispersion in the recirculation ventilation

system of a twin-tunnel construction
Yong Fang a,, Jianguo Fan a, Bernadette Kenneally b, Michael Mooney b
a
Key Laboratory of Transportation Tunnel Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
b
Center for Underground Construction & Tunneling, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Forced ventilation and recirculation systems are usually used in the construction of long twin tunnels as
Received 21 August 2015 they offer large amounts of fresh air economically. However, because of the confluence near the cross-
Received in revised form 3 March 2016 aisle, the fluid behavior and gas concentration are very different than in traditional forced ventilation
Accepted 20 April 2016
for a single tunnel. A three-dimensional numerical model was built to study the air flow behavior and
hazardous gas dispersion near the cross-aisle of a twin-tunnel construction. Field measurements were
also carried out to validate the numerical model. The results show that there is a dead zone ahead of
Keywords:
the cross-aisle which has a much lower air velocity than in other parts of the twin tunnels and where
Tunnel construction
Recirculation ventilation
hazardous gases are more concentrated and uniformly distributed. In the cross-aisle and confluence zone
Hazardous gases of the air flow-out tunnel, methane tends to gather at the top and hydrogen sulfide tends to gather at the
Local fan bottom. Increasing the recirculation velocity does not eliminate the dead zone near the cross-aisle
Safety although it consumes a huge amount of energy. Increasing the air velocity of the duct is an effective
method to improve the air quality, but it is also expensive, especially when the air duct is long. When
a jet fan was placed ahead of the cross-aisle in this study, the dead zone was eliminated completely.
With respect to the recirculation ventilation system of twin tunnels, local jet fans offer an effective
and economical way to eliminate the dead zone.
2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction and the Dongjiashan highway tunnel explosion, which caused 44

During tunnel construction, hazardous gases are released into
the tunnel. These materials include carbon monoxide (CO) gener-
ated from internal combustion engines and blasting and methane
(CH4) or hydrogen sulfide (H2S) emitted from surrounding rocks
(Elioff et al., 1995; Tang et al., 2011). Generally, carbon monoxide
is not a main risk source and is easy to be estimated. By contrast,
methane and hydrogen sulfide gather easily and unpredictably,
posing the risk of gas explosion and poisoning. It is necessary to
continuously introduce fresh air into the working area through
the ventilation system to dilute the pollutants rapidly (Parra
et al., 2006). Although the risk of gas explosion in traffic tunnel
construction is much lower than that in coal mining, many serious
accidents have happened in China, such as the Yanjiaozai railway
tunnel explosion, which had more than 70 fatalities in 1959, the
Paotaishan railway tunnel explosion, with 13 fatalities in 1994,
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: fy980220@swjtu.cn (Y. Fang).
fatalities in 2005 (Lei, 2011).
It is widely admitted that both the safety and working condi-
tions of tunnel construction depend on the efficiency of the venti-
lation system (Lowndes et al., 2006; Torao et al., 2009). There are
three major ventilation systems: forced, exhaust and mixed. Forced
ventilation is used more widely in tunnel construction than the
other two ventilation systems because of its convenience and
economy. For example, Torao et al. (2009) suggested that exhaust
ventilation is less efficient than forced. As the length of the air
ducts is generally limited by the leakiness of the ducts (Onder
et al., 2006; Onder and Cevik, 2008), forced ventilation combined
with recirculation systems (Fig. 1) has been widely used for the
construction of extra-long parallel tunnels in China, such as the
highway tunnels in Zhongnanshan (2
18 km), Micangshan
(2
13.8 km), Erlangshan (2
13.4 km), and Nibashan
(2
10 km). This combination has also been adopted in the con-
struction of tunnels needing more fresh air to dilute hazardous
gases like methane and hydrogen sulfide. In recirculation ventila-
tion systems, because the parallel tunnels act as galleries for fresh
air in and pollutant air out separately, large quantities of air can be
mixed extremely economically (Maidl et al., 2013).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2016.04.006
0886-7798/ 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039 31

Fig. 1. Forced ventilation combined with recirculation system.

As far as the flow field and pollutant dispersion near the face are
concerned, there is a lot of research on this topic in relation to min-
ing tunnels. Parra et al. (2006) studied the fluid field of three ven-
tilation systems by numerical and experimental analysis to reveal
the spatial distribution of dead zones and local mean age of air.
Hargreaves and Lowndes (2007) examined the ventilation flows
at various stages of the cut with the continuous miner using a
CFD model and validated the results by a full-scale experiment.
Diego et al. (2011) revealed the pressure loss around the continu-
ous miner and an articulated truck in a dead-end tunnel ventilation
system. Torao et al. (2011) investigated the air flow and dust
concentration around roadheaders in mixed ventilation systems.
Most recently, Sasmito et al. (2013) analyzed the air velocity field
and methane concentration of different ventilation systems for
underground coal mines. Most of these studies focused on the
problems of positive pressure ventilation and extract ventilation
in the heading face, and issues such as flow field and pollutant
concentration of recirculation ventilation systems were rarely
mentioned.
The aim of this study is to reveal the flow field and the distribu-
tion of hazardous gas concentration near the cross-aisle in recircu-
lation ventilation systems of parallel tunnels. Experimental
measurement was carried out to validate the results of a three-
dimensional numerical model. In the study, the hazardous gases
H2S and CH4 that are encountered in practice were taken into
consideration. These also represent hazardous gases whose weight
is heavier and lighter than that of air respectively. The results can
help engineers to better understand the flow pattern of a recircu- Fig. 2. Ventilation system in practice: (a) the heading tunnel, (b) the cross-aisle.
lation ventilation system and also to design an effective ventilation
system for the construction of parallel tunnels with hazardous
gases. suggested an average recirculation air velocity Vr of no less than
2.0 m/s and an average velocity of air flow in the heading tunnel
of no less than 0.5 m/s. The amount of fresh air Q forced to each
2. Measurement programs heading face is more than 39 m3/s and the air velocity at the outlet
of the air duct Vin = Q/A is more than 19.4 m/s, where A represents
The Huayinshan twin tunnels (8151 m each) are part of an the outlet section area of the air duct and is 2.01 m2 for a
expressway in Sichuan Province, China. They were classified as U1600 mm air duct.
gas tunnels because the results of geological exploration showed Field measurement was carried out to reveal the characteristics
that methane (CH4) was emitted from the surrounding rocks with of air flow and hazardous gas concentration near the cross-aisle in
H2S in gas formations. Hence, a forced ventilation with recircula- the recirculation ventilation system. There are a total of ten cross-
tion system was adopted to introduce large quantities of fresh air sections to be tested as shown in Fig. 3. A hot wire anemometer
to the heading face in the construction of the Huayinshan twin tun- which has a resolution of 0.01 m/s was employed to test the air
nels. The forced auxiliary ventilation consisted of a flexible flat-lay velocity, and a portable multisensor which has a resolution of
duct with a 1.6 m diameter hung from the roof adjacent to the right 0.01% for CH4 and 0.1 ppm for H2S was used to test the hazardous
hand side wall of the tunnel as shown in Fig. 2. The air was forced gas concentration. As the air velocity and hazardous gas concentra-
to the heading faces of the twin heading tunnels through this duct tion vary with the location, it is important to increase the number
by two 132 kW variable frequency fans positioned in the air flow- of monitor points to obtain the average air velocity and gas concen-
in tunnel about 30 m away from the cross-aisle. Jet fans were also tration of the cross-section. Consequently the cross-section of the
positioned along the tunnel to recirculate the air by intaking base tunnel (sections I-I, II-II, III-III and IV-IV) is divided into eight
the fresh air through the air flow-in tunnel and exhausting the parts and the cross-section of the cross-aisle (section V-V) is
polluted through the air flow-out tunnel. The ventilation scheme divided into six parts. The air velocity and hazardous gas
32 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039

Fig. 3. Field measurement scheme: (a) the location of monitored cross-sections, (b) detail of the cross-section I-I, II-II, III-III and IV-IV, (c) detail of the cross-section V-V.

concentration at the centroid of each part were recorded for system. Meshing has great influence on the results of CFD models.
10 min at 15-s intervals. All the air velocity and hazardous gas Mapped meshing and free meshing were both involved in this
concentration records of each part were averaged to be vi and ci model as well as intensive meshing near the tunnel wall where
separately. Hence, the average air velocity Vs and hazardous gas the boundary layer (close-to-wall) is (Torno et al., 2013; Diego
concentration Cs of the cross-section can be calculated: et al., 2011). Independence mesh tests were also carried out with
P different mesh sizes: 2 m (29,827 elements), 1.5 m (71,168
ai v i
Vs P 1 elements), 1 m (164,199 elements), 0.8 m (236,433 elements) and
a 0.5 m (722,587 elements). The bigger the mesh size, the smaller
P i
ai ci the element number and the faster the computation. The results
Cs P 2
ai show that when the mesh size is smaller than 0.8 m, the computation

where i = 1, . . . , 8 for base tunnel and i = 1, . . . , 6 for cross-aisle, and

ai is the area of part i in the cross-section.

3. Numerical model

3.1. Model description

This study focuses on the air flow and pollutant dispersion near
the cross-aisle, so the excavation in the heading face was ignored
for the purpose of this study. The recirculation ventilation system
to be modeled consists of twin parallel tunnels with the length
230 m, width 12 m and height 8 m, and a cross-aisle with the
width 5 m and height 6.35 m, as shown in Fig. 3. The distance
between the central lines of the twin tunnels is 35 m. The distance
between the cross-aisle and heading face is about 115 m. At this
distance, the air flow becomes steady-state when it is moving from
the face to the cross-aisle (Kurnia et al., 2014; Nan et al., 2015;
Zhang et al., 2015).
The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT was
used to simulate the flow field of the recirculation ventilation Fig. 4. Geometry and meshing of the numerical model.
 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039
Fig. 5. Average air velocity of the cross-section along the twin tunnels.
Fig. 6. Correlation of air velocities between CFD value and field measurement.
Fig. 7. Correlation of average air velocity of cross-section between CFD value and
field measurement.
results are stable and can be considered to be acceptable. Fig. 4
shows the meshing details of the numerical model which has
236,433 elements.
The CFD model has four types of boundary conditions: Wall,
Opening, Inlet and Outlet. The tunnel surface, heading face and
air duct surface are considered to be the Wall boundary with no
slipping and mass exchanging. The exit of the air flow-out tunnel
is assumed to be the Opening with uniform pressure. There are
three Inlets. One is located at the entrance of the air flow-in tunnel
33
and has a uniform recirculation air velocity Vr. The other two are
located at the outlets of the air ducts and have uniform airflow
velocity Vin. There are two mass Outlets located at the entrance
of the air duct to simulate the axial flow fans in the air flow-in
tunnel. The density and average temperature of the air were
1.225 kg/m3 and 20 C respectively.
The uniform recirculation air velocity Vr can be denoted by the
average air velocity Vs in the air flow-in tunnel far behind the
cross-aisle which was tested by field measurement according to
Eq. (1) and found to be 2.31 m/s. The uniform airflow velocity Vin
of the air duct was tested directly by anemometer and found to
be 21.35 m/s and 20.82 m/s for the air flow-in tunnel and air
flow-out tunnel respectively. Methane and hydrogen sulfide, which
are assumed to emit from the heading face, have average values of
11.1 m3/min and 0.0086 m3/min in the air flow-in tunnel, and
9.78 m3/min and 0.0077 m3/min in the air flow-out tunnel respec-
tively. These values were calculated by multiplying the amount of
fresh air Q introduced to the heading face and the average gas
concentration Cs. Where Q (Q = Vin
A) is 42.9 m3/s and 41.8 m3/s
for the air flow-in tunnel and air flow-out tunnel respectively, Cs
was tested by the portable multisensor in the steady-state air flow
far behind the heading face and found to be 0.43% and 0.39% for
methane and 3.34 ppm and 3.07 ppm for hydrogen sulfide in the
air flow-in tunnel and air flow-out tunnel respectively.
In the numerical model, incompressible air is considered using
Newtonian flow, ignoring heat exchange. Neither humidity nor
heat transfer has been considered in this model. The air-flow
velocity is obtained by solving the continuity, momentum, and
34 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039

Fig. 8. H2S concentration in the (a) sections along the tunnel, (b) section III-III, (c) section V-V.

turbulence equations. Pollutant concentrations are obtained by
introducing flow velocity into the convection diffusion equations.
The turbulence model is the key component in representing flow
behavior in the ventilation for tunnel construction. There are
several models such as the simple Zero Equation Models and
the complex LES models (Large Eddy Simulation) and RANS models
(Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) which are widely used in
engineering applications. The turbulence models that can be used
in FLUENT include the Spalart-Allmaras model, k-epsilon models,
k-omega models, SST (Shear Stress Transport) models, and so on.
Among these, k-epsilon models are used the most. Many publica-
tions have also showed good correlations between the numerical
results and the measurement when k-epsilon models were
involved in the simulation of air flow in tunnels (Parra et al.,
2006; Torao et al., 2009; Kurnia et al., 2014). In this study, the
k-epsilon model is chosen as it gives good predictions with R2
between the CFD model and field measurement for the tunnel
ventilation.
3.2. Results and validation
In the recirculation ventilation system, some of the fresh air in
the air flow-in tunnel is forced to the heading faces by the axial
fans, and the rest flows forward and passes through the
 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039 35

Fig. 9. Methane concentration in the (a) sections along the tunnel, (b) section III-III, (c) section V-V.

cross-aisle, experiencing the confluence twice with the contami-
nated air at both ends of the aisle. Near the cross-aisle, the air flow
and hazardous gas dispersion are different from that in the venti-
lation system for a single tunnel due to this confluence. Fig. 5
shows the computed average air velocity of cross-section Vs along
with the air flow-in and air flow-out tunnels in the CFD model. The
average air velocities Vs of both tunnels are similar if the cross-
section is far away from the cross-aisle. In the air flow-in tunnel,
Vs decreases dramatically at the location of X = 70 m because of
the suction of the axial fans and changes little from the location
X = 70 m to the end of the cross-aisle (X = 110 m). The average
air velocity Vs in the cross-aisle is much higher than that in other
places as the sectional area of the cross-aisle shrinks greatly.
In the air flow-out tunnel, the mixed air flows out from the
cross-aisle and mixes with the contaminated air from the heading
face, and the average air velocity Vs of the tunnel at the cross-aisle
(X = 130 m) increases too. However, when the cross-section is
located about 30 m behind the cross-aisle (X = 100 m), Vs decreases
36 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039
Fig. 10. Average air velocity of cross-section for various Vr in (a) air flow-in tunnel,
(b) air flow-out tunnel.
rapidly to the recirculation air velocity Vr. It can also be seen that Vs
decreases as the contaminated air flows to the cross-aisle from the
heading face, and the lowest average air velocity is along the
tunnel ahead of the cross-aisle. The lower flow velocity means a
higher chance of hazardous gases gathering.
The technical specifications for the construction of railway and
highway tunnels in China set the minimum average air velocity of
return air flow to be 0.5 m/s for a gas tunnel. An area with average
air velocity less than 0.5 m/s can be deemed as the dead zone.
Fig. 5 shows that there is no dead zone from the entrance to
the cross-aisle for both of the twin tunnels in the model, but there
is a dead zone located ahead of the cross-aisle and the length of
the dead zone is about 40 m and 35 m for the air flow-in and air
flow-out tunnel individually.
Fig. 6 shows the correlation of the air velocity vi of each part in a
cross-section (see Fig. 3) between the CFD model and the field
measurement. It can be seen that in sections I-I, II-II and IV-IV,
the air velocities obtained by the CFD model fit the field measure-
ment well and the R2 coefficients are 0.9312, 0.9033 and 0.945
respectively. In section III-III, the air flow is affected greatly by
the confluence and the turbulence is strong. The air velocity vi of
each part has a wide range of variation and the R2 coefficient is
0.9272. In the cross-aisle, the air velocity is much higher than in
other cross-sections of the twin tunnels. When the field measure-
ment was being carried out, the lining of the cross-aisle had not
been completed and the surface was very rough as shown in
Fig. 2. This obviously affected the air flow in the cross-aisle and
enlarged the sectional area. As a result, the air velocity in section
V-V computed by the CFD model is higher than that obtained by
Table 1
Average air velocity near the cross-aisle for various Vr.
Vr (m/s) 2 2.5
Average air velocity (m/s) Section II-II 0.373 0.453
Section IV-IV 0.333 0.376
Fig. 11. Average air velocity of cross-section for various Vin in (a) air flow-in tunnel,
(b) air flow-out tunnel.
Table 2
Average air velocity near the cross-aisle for various Vin.
Vin (m/s) 19.4 22 24 26 28 30
Average air Section II-II 0.373 0.397 0.476 0.508 0.539 0.588
velocity (m/s) Section IV-IV 0.33 0.37 0.39 0.44 0.48 0.52
field measurement, and the R2 coefficient is 0.9561. Fig. 7 shows
the correlation of the average air velocity Vs of the cross-section
between the CFD model and the field measurement. It can be seen
that the average air velocities obtained by these two methods fit
very well for the monitor cross-sections. Generally there is a good
correlation of the average air velocity Vs between the CFD model
and field measurement; the overall R2 coefficient is 0.9496.
In the recirculation ventilation system, the area from the head-
ing face to the cross-aisle has the highest concentration. The
concentration is decided by the amount of the gas emission in
the face and the fresh air forced to the face. The area from the
cross-aisle to the exit of the air flow-out tunnel has a much lower
gas concentration as it is diluted by the recirculated air flow. Figs. 8
and 9 show the hazardous gas concentration near the cross-aisle.
In section II-II (X = 125 m) and IV-IV (X = 140 m), which are both
located at 10 m ahead of the cross-aisle, hazardous gases have a
good uniform distribution with greater concentration. In the
cross-aisle (section V-V), methane tends to gather at the top and
sulfide always gathers at the bottom. The distribution of hazardous
gases in section III-III is more complicated because it is affected by
the confluence in the air flow-out tunnel. However, as the polluted
3 3.5 4 4.5 5
0.493 0.519 0.523 0.549 0.591
0.469 0.535 0.548 0.600 0.791
 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039
Fig. 12. Schematics of the recirculation ventilation system with local fan.
air moves from the cross-aisle to the exit of the air flow-out tunnel,
methane still tends to gather at the top and sulfide gathers at the
bottom. Compared with section II-II and section IV-IV, gas concen-
tration in section V-V and section III-III is smaller as the huge
amount of air passes through. The maximum concentration is
generally decided by the gush amount of hazardous gases and
the fresh air forced to the heading face, but the results show that
confluences near the cross-aisle have effects on the distribution
of hazardous gases concentration in the cross-sections.
4. Schemes to eliminate the dead zone
4.1. Recirculation air velocity Vr
Fig. 10 shows the average velocity of air flow along the tunnel
near the cross-aisle in cases of different recirculation air velocities
Vr while maintaining a constant Vin = 19.4 m. It can be seen that the
length of the dead zone in both of the tunnels cannot be elimi-
nated by increasing Vr although the dead zone shrinks slightly.
The relationship of Vr to the average air velocities at section II-II
(X = 125 m) and section IV-IV (X = 140 m) are shown in Table 1.
The effect of Vr on the velocity of air flow ahead of the cross-aisle
is not obvious. On the other hand, Vr is generally related to the
number of jet fans in the tunnel and the number of jet fans repre-
sents energy consumption. When Vr is doubled, the air flow resis-
tance of the recirculation ventilation system increases fourfold, and
so does the number of jet fans. With respect to the concentration of
hazardous gases along the tunnel, increasing the recirculation air
37
velocity Vr will dramatically decrease the concentration in the air
flow from the cross-aisle to the tunnel entrance. The velocity Vr
does not decrease the hazardous gas concentration in the air flow
ahead of the cross-aisle even though it increases the energy con-
sumption of the recirculation ventilation system.
4.2. The air velocity Vin of the air duct
The velocity Vin at the outlet of the air duct represents the
amount of fresh air forced to the heading face. The greater the
air velocity in the air duct (Vin), the greater the return air velocity
in the heading tunnel. Maintaining a constant recirculation air
velocity Vr = 2.0 m/s, the behavior of air flow near the cross-aisle
was computed by changing the velocity Vin from 19.4 m/s to
30 m/s. Fig. 11 shows the average velocity of air flow along the
air flow-in tunnel ahead of the cross-aisle in cases of different
Vin. It can be seen that with the increase of Vin, the length of the
dead zone reduced obviously and the average air velocity
increased linearly as shown in Table 2. When Vin is 30 m/s, the
average air velocities in all cross-sections are bigger than 0.5 m/s
and the dead zone disappears. So increasing the amount of fresh
air forced into the heading face helps to eliminate the dead zone
near the cross-aisle.
In a recirculation ventilation system, axial fans, which have
more power than jet fans, are used to provide fresh air for the
heading face. As an effective ventilation system for tunnel
construction, the energy consumption of the axial fans has to be
38 Y. Fang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 58 (2016) 3039
Fig. 13. Average air velocity of cross-section for various locations of jet fan in (a) air
flow-in tunnel, (b) air flow-out tunnel.
considered at the same time as air quality. The energy consump-
tion of axial force can be denoted as
P kw g A V 3a
where g is the coefficient related to the fan efficiency, friction of the
air duct and so on, A is the outlet section area of the air duct and Va
is the air velocity of the axial fan which is bigger than the velocity
Vin at the exit of the duct because of the air leakage. So when the
velocity of the air flow in the duct increases from 20 m/s to 30 m/s,
the energy consumption increases more than 3 times. If the fresh
air needs to be forced to the face for a longer distance, the energy
consumption of the axial fans is greater. To improve the air quality
and eliminate the dead zone, increasing Vin is an effective but
expensive method, especially when the original fresh air is enough
to dilute the hazardous gases. When considering the balance
between energy consumption and air quality, increasing Vin is not
a good choice for improving air quality in the dead zone.
4.3. Jet fans
Compared with axial fans, jet fans have much lower power and
are usually used to strengthen the local fluid flow in the ventilation
system for tunnel construction. Jet fans are usually placed near the
sidewall in practice. According to the ventilation plan of the
Huayinshan twin tunnels, the diameter of the jet fan is 1000 mm,
the power is 30 kW and the outlet air velocity is 33.7 m/s.
Maintaining a constant recirculation air velocity Vr = 2.0 m/s and
a constant Vin = 19.4 m/s, five different locations of jet fans were
considered as shown in Fig. 12. The average velocities of air flow
along the tunnel near the cross-aisle for the different locations of
jet fans are shown in Fig. 13. When the jet fan was located at
Loc-2, the average air velocity in air flow-in tunnel near the
cross-aisle increased dramatically and the dead zone disap-
peared. When the jet fan was located at Loc-4, the average air
velocity in the air flow-out tunnel near the cross-aisle increased
and the dead zone disappeared too. When the jet fan was located
in the cross-aisle (Loc-5), the dead zone still existed although its
length was reduced. However, when the jet fan was located in
Loc-1 and Loc-3, it did not improve the air flow near the cross-
aisle. So placing jet fans ahead of the cross-aisle in heading tunnels
is helpful to eliminate the dead zone near the cross-aisle.
5. Conclusions
In this study, a forced ventilation combined with recirculation
system for the construction of long twin tunnels was discussed.
A three-dimensional numerical model was built to study the fluid
flow behavior and hazardous gas concentration in the recirculation
ventilation system. Field measurements were also carried out to
validate the numerical model. The results showed that there is a
dead zone lying 3540 m ahead of the cross-aisle which has a
much lower air velocity than the other places. The confluences
near the cross-aisle have effects on the distribution of hazardous
gas concentration in the cross-sections. In the dead zone,
hazardous gases that are more concentrated have a good uniform
distribution. In the cross-aisle, methane tends to gather in the
top and hydrogen sulfide tends to gather in the bottom. In the
confluence zone of the air flow-out tunnel, hazardous gas distribu-
tion is more complicated. However, in the cross-aisle and conflu-
ence area of the air flow-out tunnel, gas concentration is much
smaller than that in the dead zone due to the dilution of recircu-
lated air.
There are three factors that affect the air quality in the tunnel:
the air velocity of the recirculation, the air velocity of the air duct,
and local fans. The air velocity of the recirculation can be changed
by changing the number of jet fans in the recirculation system.
However, the results show that increasing the air velocity of the
recirculation does not improve the air quality from the cross-
3 aisle to the heading face. Increasing the air velocity of the air duct
is an effective method to improve the air quality from the cross-
aisle to the heading face, but the energy consumption of the axial
flow fans increases cubically. It is expensive, especially when the
air duct is long. However, the dead zone was eliminated
completely and the gas concentration near the cross-aisle
decreased when a jet fan was placed 50 m ahead of the cross-
aisle. Comparatively speaking, local jet fans offer an effective and
economical way to eliminate the dead zone and improve the
local air quality in a recirculation ventilation system of twin
tunnels.
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