US EPA

15613 

Book/Book Chapter 

Air quality monitoring system in Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport - North Tunnel 

Buraczynski, JJ; Patel, SJ; Cheesman, DM; Gatz, C 

2000 

The Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is the commercial airline passenger facility serving the metropolitan area of Detroit, USA. The current airport expansion program includes a runway and the South Access Road (SAR) which extends the existing main airport access road 5 km south. Where the SAR passes under a new runway a three-cell tunnel, identified as the North Tunnel, is provided to carry vehicular traffic through the airport. The ventilation in each cell of the North Tunnel is provided with a series of jet fans hung from the tunnel roof. During normal operating condition, the ventilation rate is varied based on the concentration levels of air pollutants as recorded by air quality monitoring equipment. The traffic in the normal traffic tunnel cells will predominantly consist of passenger cars. Therefore, these two tunnel cells are equipped with CO sensors. The service tunnel cell, which will be used mainly by the airport service vehicles, is equipped with NO2 detectors. Furthermore, the North Tunnel is being built in ground/earth that has some Methane pockets. Therefore, all tunnel cells are equipped with Methane detectors that will automatically operate the ventilation system in emergency mode. The Paper briefly describes the analytical work done in evaluating ventilation requirements during a fire as well as during normal traffic. The Paper then proceeds to provide details on the design of the air quality monitoring system and its use in varying the ventilation rate by controlling the number of jet fans in operation. 

In: Caserta, A. S. ed. 10th International symposium on aerodynamics and ventilation of vehicle tunnels; November; Boston, MA. London, UK: Professional Engineering Publishing Limited; pp. 875-886. (BHR group conference series publication no. 43).