Experimental Study on Calculation of Critical Velocity in Accordance with Gradient of a Road Tunnel at Fire

This study provides a basic data necessary to design a facility of smoke management after calculating the critical velocity of the gradient scale model tunnel and reviewing its adequacy to establish an optimum disaster prevention system for a road tunnel at fire. The experiment is carried out by using Froude scaling to a scale model which is about 1/29 as big as the real tunnel, and its critical velocity calculation is calculated to the 0-2% gradient of the tunnel. The result shows that the higher the gradient is, the stronger the critical velocity, but that it doesn't affect the critical velocity so much when the gradient is less 2%. In addition, this result is studied in comparison with the results done by other researchers to review the adequacy of the critical velocity.