ITA COSUF – Workshop on New Energy Carriers in Road Tunnels

On February 20th and 21st 2019, the ITA COSUF workshop on new energy carriers in road tunnels took place in Utrecht, Netherlands. The two-day event started with an expert meeting, in which new developments and research needs all around new energy carriers (NEC) were discussed. On the second day, international speakers presented the latest findings concerning changing risks in NEC related fires, the increased requirements for safety services, fire tests, etc. to a professional audience. The project team of SUVEREN contributed as well and displayed their current status of works. The workshop ended with a panel discussion. Read more here.

Fire Test Preparations Entering Final Stage

After months of planning, the SUVEREN fire tests are finally getting closer with the first test scheduled to start by the end of March. The whole programme includes real-scale testing of both new energy carries (NEC) themselves as well as passenger car-like fires. Fortunately, the cooperation with a German battery manufacturer resulted in a number of Li-Ion traction batteries that will be tested in the case of thermal runaway. The acquisition of a portable FTIR device will allow the analysis of the emitted gas species in a very detailed way, especially in terms of large-scale fire testing. As the aim of the project is to increase the safety in underground facilities, suppression tests using different fixed firefighting systems will be investigated regarding their performance when it comes to NEC fires. The data gained during the fire test will lead to a deeper understanding of NEC fire risks and serve as first-hand validation data for the planned fire simulations with the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and commercial CFD code. The whole consortium is looking forward to the start of the fire tests and to see where the months of planning have lead.