I'm known for my rant about critical velocity concept in tunnel ventilation systems, and I tried to really control myself and not go into podcast with it :) But in recent weeks, when I was enjoying sake at IAFSS in Tsukuba two important things happened. We have received the PASCAL award from the Polish Ventilation Association for the best ventilation design in Poland - our S2 Warsaw Ring tunnel project. The second was the invitation from the Conference of European Directors of Roads to talk about my view on challenges in tunnel ventilation. So it seems our design in this space gets some appreciation, and people want to listen to this...

Here we go. In order to train for my talk in front of Road Administrators of Europe, please let me outline some challenges related to smoke control in tunnels. What are we designing for? How does air travel in the tunnel and what makes it move? What components do we need to consider, and how to turn it into a risk-based approach? And finally, what do we need to advance into the future?

I hope the episode is nice not just for tunnel engineers, but everyone who has to deal with ventilation or design fires, as it has some very fundamental concepts in it. I also promised some links, so make sure to check:
- The car park and tunnel podcast episode collection, where you can find episodes I've been mentioning in the show
- A study on airflows induced by vehicle movement in road tunnels by the analysis of bulk data from tunnel sensors - a grand study with my friends Aleksander & Gosia Król, which gives an explanation for many forces acting on the flow in the tunnel. The good news is that a much more advanced paper is now submitted and pending review. Fingers crossed!!!

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