NATURE OF PRESSURE WAVES

INDUCED BY A HIGH-SPEED
TRAIN TRAVELLING THROUGH A
TUNNEL

SEMINAR PRESENTED BY : Roy Roshan Chandy

S7 M.E
7442
GUIDE:ARUN KUMAR. V.
LECTURER 1
M.E.
 INTRODUCTION
• Increase in personal mobility has led to new high speed railway
needing new lines and straighter tracks. To avoid obstacles and
environmental barriers longer & numerous tunnel sections are
created.
• The passage of a high-speed train in a tunnel causes
aerodynamic problems which do not appear in open air:
• Compression and expansion waves are generated when the train
enters the tunnel, when its velocity changes and wherever the
tunnel crosssection is varied. These pressure waves can cause
relevant aerodynamic loads on vehicle and tunnel structures.
• Aerodynamic noise, forces and moments acting on the train, and
especially the aerodynamic drag, grow due to the confinement of
the surrounding space; moreover, at the tunnel exit, micro-
pressure waves and sonic boom can generate inconveniences to
the nearby residents.
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The entity of aerodynamic drag depends on several parameters
such as

•the blockage ratio,

•the tunnel network geometry and surface,
•the number of pressure relief ducts,
•the train type and its speed, the presence of other trains, etc.

If this drag is underestimated during design, either the required

operating speed cannot be attained, or the air temperature
resulting from the dissipated power can exceed safety limits.
Such negative effects can be minimized by reducing the blockage
ratio,or by connecting the tunnel to the atmosphere, or to a
second parallel tunnel.

The blockage ratio is the ratio of vehicle to free tunnel cross-

section area
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 Nature of fluid flow in the tunnel

• Flow generated by trains in the tunnel is

COMPRESSIBLE,TURBULENT AND THREE
DIMENSIONAL IN NATURE.
• Pressure, density and velocity fields around the train are
affected by the confining effects of the tunnel walls even
at steady state;
• unsteady phenomena develop whenever the relative
motion between train and tunnel imposes strongly
unsteady boundary conditions to the flow.
• This is the case when the train ends cross the tunnel
portals, when train passing occurs in the same tunnel
and, in general, whenever the tunnel section encounters
a change or a connection with a different tunnel or
atmosphere.
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 MODEL PROBLEM
• Results were obtained on different underground high-speed railway
networks connecting two stations 220m long which are 60km apart.
• These different tunnel networks include single-track tunnels either with
or without connections with other parallel tunnels or atmosphere.
• The blockage ratio  is always 0.52, except for the case of a single
open tunnel at atmospheric pressure, considered as a reference case,
where 0.13.
• The initial air temperature is fixed at 300 K.
• The initial pressure level in the closed tunnel is 10 000 Pa, while in
open tunnels it is equal to the atmospheric pressure level of 101 300
Pa.
• In all cases, the tunnel walls have been considered adiabatic, with a
friction coefficient Cfg =0.003 corresponding to a mean wall roughness
of 0.5 mm. Pressure relief ducts, when present, are 25m long & 3 m
diameter.

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 MODEL PROBLEM
• Pressure relief ducts, when present, are 25m long, cylindrical with 3m
diameter, and connect perpendicularly two main tunnels with equal section.
• Their friction coefficient is 0.005, higher than that of the main tunnel, to take
into account the fact that these short ducts are usually bored manually.
• Each train running on the rail link is Lt = 200 m long, has 10m
long,sinusoidally shaped nose and tail, and a circular cross-section At of
3.6 m diameter. Its friction coefficient is Cft = 0.003. The aerodynamic
design of the train geometry has been considered ideal: a shape coefficient
Cs = 1 has therefore been introduced.
• On the train tail, the correction coefficient has been set to the
experimentally determined value Cdt=0.99, which is valid for high-speed
trains. The train accelerates at 2m/s^2 for 60s reaching its cruise speed of
120m/s, which is maintained constant until the distance from the arrival
station reaches 3.86 km. At this point, a constant deceleration of 2m/s2
brings the train to rest in 60 s . The total time needed to cover the 60 200m
distance is therefore 561.66 s.

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MODEL PROBLEM

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TUNNELS AT ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE

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Pressure initially increases in front of the train in the 60-op-5 case owing to
tunnel friction; it reaches its maximum at t ’ 266 s, when the compression wave
generated by the train during its acceleration reaches the train nose after
having been partially reflected at t = 173 s as an expansion wave at the tunnel
open end
. In the 60-op-10 tunnel, viscous and compressibility effects are
instead negligible due to the large tunnel section and low air velocity; the
pressure level in front of the train nose remains in this case approximately13
constan as due to air outflow piston effect is reduced..
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 NEED FOR TRAIN TUNNELS
UNDER PARTIAL VACUUM
• if the tunnel diameter must be kept small
and the required power for 200m long
trains has to be maintained in the order of
10–15 MW at 120m/s –i.e., the required
power for very high-speed trains or
Maglevs in open air –the aerodynamic
constraints impose a reduction either of
the cruise velocity or of the pressure level
inside the tunnel.
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 aerodynamic drag is one-tenth of the one observed previously in
the open configuration
 while the flow around the train is still choked, i.e., sonic
conditions occur at the end of the annular space. Later,
differences appear due to the closed portals.
 Actually, the tunnel wall at the end station reflects the
compression wave generated during the train acceleration as a
compression wave –unlike the open air portals which reflect it as
an expansion wave.
 When the reflected wave reaches the train nose (t =266 s), it
leads to an increase of the pressure level in front of the train.
 Due to the piston effect, this increase is accentuated when the
train approaches the arrival station, as shown in Fig. the
supersonic expansion on the tail becomes more intense. A
stronger shock wave appears on the train tail, and the Mach
number reaches the value of 1.7 before the deceleration phase.
 Aerodynamic power reaches instead its maximum value at the
end of the cruise phase the closure of the end portals causes a
130% increase of the maximum aerodynamic power Wmax(tot) ,
and a 50% increase of the average power (Wtot).
 A reduction of the sharp increase of aerodynamic drag can be 18
obtained by a tunnel prolongation behind both stations.
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 NEED FOR TUNNEL WITH
PRESSURE RELIEF DUCTS
 reduction in the tunnel diameter by a factor 2, although leading to a decrease
in building costs approximately proportional to the tunnel diameter, also
implies an increase of energy costs by a factor 7. This fact plays an important
role in the choice of the tunnel diameter for high-speed lines.
 Another relevant environmental issue raised by high-speed train aerodynamics
in tunnels is the high velocity of air flow at the tunnel exit. At the higher
blockage ratio tested, wind in the arrival station reaches nearly 50 m/s, while at
the lower one it does not exceed 5m/s.
 These values should be compared with the current requirements for
passenger comfort in underground stations, which prescribe an air velocity
not higher than 5m/s
 The addition of 13 pressure relief ducts of 3m diameter, one every 5 km
(configuration 60-op-5-13), causes an average power decrease of 17MW; when
ducts are placed every kilometer this decrease reaches 32MW.
 However, the required power, needed to overcome aerodynamic forces at
these blockage ratios and train velocities, remains too high for a realistic
underground transportation system, due to energy consumption and thermal
evolution.

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 TUNNEL NETWORK WITH CONNECTIONS

•60-cl-5-13 refers to twin single track parallel tunnels, each 60km long & interconnected
with each other by 13 pressure relief ducts each 25m long & 3m diameter.
•The presence of pressure relief ducts allows the generation of an air flow in the second
tunnel from the high-pressure regions in front of the train nose to the low pressure
regions behind the tail.
•This alleviates the piston effect, thus reducing the pressure drag and the avg power by
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factor of 1.9,peak power by factor of 2.6.
•Air flow also remains subsonic & does not exceed 0.9 at the end of the annular space.
DRAWBACKS OF TUNNELS WITH CONNECTIONS:

There is a strong drag increment at each shaft crossing and the drag may even
rise to the value of 10kn.
Cross flows are generated by pressure difference between the tunnels, reaching
upto 60 m/s. thus resulting in a strong lateral force of newtons acting on train at
each shaft crossing.
These generate high structural load and pose problems for train control.
Trains travelling in opposite tunnels can reciprocally interact and cause high
unsteady aerodynamic loads.

MODIFICATIONS MADE TO REDUCE THE DRAWBACKS:

Design of shafts so as to avoid direct impingement of the cross flow on the
train.
Locate the airshafts where the train speed and the upstream pressure level are
not high enough to increase the piston effect and generate high velocity air flow
in the ducts such as in the 60-cl-5-2x2 configuration of the tunnel shown thus
reducing drag by 20 to 40%.
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 AEROTHERMAL LOADS UNDER PARTIAL VACUUM
EFFECTS ON TRAINS:
The compression due to the piston effect generated by the train leads to an
increase in the air temperature upstream of the train nose: the increment with
respect to the initial air temperature ranges from 30K (60-cl-5-2 2) to 80K (60-cl-
5).
The rapid expansion along the train brings to a strong reduction of the air
temperature which reaches a minimum after the supersonic expansion. At
t=500s, in single tunnel configurations, the air temperature can fall 60K below
the initial reference temperature. Such a reduction in air temperature requires
additional care in the structural and thermal design of the vehicle.
EFFECT ON DEPARTURE STATION:

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EFFECT ON ARRIVAL STATIONS:

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 CONCLUSIONS:

The passage of a high-speed train in a tunnel causes aerodynamic problems which

do not appear in open air: compression and expansion waves are generated when the train enters the
tunnel, when its velocity changes and wherever the tunnel cross section is varied. These pressure waves
can cause relevant aerodynamic loads on vehicle and tunnel structures.

The reduction of the diameter of the tunnels is desirable in order to

limit construction costs. This reduction increases blockage ratios for
given train geometries, thus leading to an unwanted rise of propulsion costs.

The construction of underground connections under partial vacuum seems to be the most viable
solution to the problem. However, the effects of multiple reflected compression waves on tunnel closed
ends reduces strongly the advantages of partial vacuum in single closed tunnels.

In this framework, the best configuration for this long-range, high-blockage ratio
tunnel network seems to consist in two coupled tunnels connected by a number of
pressure relief ducts.

The power required for train motion is, in this case, more than 50% lower than in the single tunnel
connection and more than 90% lower than in a single tunnel connection at low blockage ratio and
atmospheric conditions.

Side effects of these connections are not always desirable: sudden increases
in aerodynamic drag and strong lateral wind loads on the train can be generated.
A solution to this problem can be found by placing pressure relief ducts only
in proximity of the stations, where the high-speed train is in its accelerating=
decelerating phase.
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References:
[1] A.Baron ,The alleviation of
the aerodynamic drag and
wave effects of high speed
trains in very long
tunnels,Italy,Sept 2000 pp
365-401
[2] P.Ricco ,Nature of pressure
waves induced by high
speed train travelling through
a tunnel,Belgium,July 2005
pp 781-808
[3] Yahya,Fundamentals of
compressible flow.

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