IF articles

The article is focused on the fire risk assessment

methodologies which can be usefully applied for

the fire safety design of railway tunnels. Hazards arising

from the hazardous events involving trains carrying dangerous

goods in tunnels can determine heavy consequences

in case of “mixed” operation, where the possibility

that passenger trains are getting involved in a large fire

is significant. In order to demonstrate the acceptability of

the tunnel safety level a risk analysis must be carried out,

and within the risk assessment process further safety

measures can be showed to be required. Often the uncertainties

arising from the lack of knowledge of the system

and from the aleatoriety characterizing the phenomena

involved in the fire scenarios can determine a switchover

in the design acceptability.

A method is therefore proposed in this article aimed at

treating the uncertainties enhancing the accuracy of the

risk assessment, if required by the overall evaluation

process, with a negligible computational burden.