Evergreen Line

The Evergreen Line is a fast and frequent service covering the distance between the Douglas College Station and Lougheed Town Center. It is also expected to remove 60,000 cars a day from the roads and offset greenhouse gases up to 60,000t a year by 2020. Tunnel linings are vulnerable to large fires, which may result in spalling and/or collapsed concrete. The tunnel portion for this new rapid transit line required fire protection and life safety services analysis.

We evaluated the fire protection and life safety concepts for the tunnel portion of the Line. We also completed a fire growth and smoke ventilation Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Subway Environmental Simulation (SES) analysis to predict the distribution of air velocity, smoke distribution, concentration, and other relevant variables throughout the tunnel. We also defined the evacuation provisions from the tunnel, the number of smoke control zones, and the requirements for maintaining a tenable environment.

Through our smoke modeling and code consulting, we assessed the performance of the fire ventilation during a fire incident inside the station and determined there was a tenable environment for safe egress. We also developed compliance strategies to address the line’s design and features.