Escape tunnels are specially designed safety structures that provide secure pathways for personnel, serving as evacuation routes from hazardous areas to muster locations during serious incidents, such as hydrocarbon explosions and fires.
Typically, escape tunnels are fully enclosed and constructed to have high integrity, making them blast- and fire-rated structures. They are engineered to withstand blasts, fires, high impacts, and other accidental loads. The fire rating usually ranges from H0 to H120, with some tunnels also designed to withstand jet fire. Additionally, these tunnels can resist blast pressures of several bars. To accommodate thermal and mechanical movements, escape tunnels are equipped with flexible seals that are rated for blast, hydrocarbon exposure, and jet fire.
Nowatec specializes in designing escape tunnels for both offshore and onshore facilities. The following analyses are typically conducted during the design phase of escape tunnels.
- Global structural analysis for ultimate limit state (ULS) and serviceability limit state (SLS) static conditions.
- Comprehensive global and local dynamic analysis for explosion and fire redundancy under accidental limit state (ALS) conditions.
In addition to analyzing global and local strength, joint design and calculations for joint strength are conducted for both welded and bolted connections.