Cooling performance study of a new cooling system in subway tunnel based on field measurement and CFD simulation

Some cities’ subways were constructed early and have been in operation for a long time. A large amount of heat accumulates in the rocks around the subway tunnels, causing the phenomenon of heat accumulation. This situation leads to the inadequate cooling capability of train air-conditioning systems, which, may even cease to function under extreme conditions. Currently, few solutions are available to address this issue. Therefore, this study proposes a new cooling system in subway tunnel. Considering the dusty environment inside the tunnel, the terminal equipment mainly consists of natural convection copper tube finless heat exchangers and a self-flushing device without fans, which cool using piston wind. By comparing field measurements of two tunnels with and without the cooling system in similar locations, the results show that the air temperature in the tunnels is reduced after the cooling system is installed. The results indicate that the average temperature in the tunnels decreases from 30.93 °C to 19.80 °C, marking a reduction of 11.13 °C after the cooling system runs for 24 hours. The temperature change in the tunnel is a long-term process, and actual measurements require significant time consumption. In this study, the long-term effect is predicted using CFD simulation in tunnels. The accuracy and credibility of the CFD simulation have been confirmed through its reasonable agreement with experimental data, with the final temperature after 24 hours achieving a relative error of less than 0.26%. Through the simulation, the temperature at a depth of 10 cm inside the tunnel wall after 24 hours is determined to be 27.56 °C, indicating a reduction of 3.44 °C compared to the initial temperature of 31 °C. This study can provide a reference for other subway tunnel cooling systems and serves as a basis for CFD simulations to verify cooling effects.