ABSTRACT
An essential element of a tunnel lining design is to ensure that the final lining will not fail due to the high temperatures, which may be developed during a fire. For testing the fire resistance of the passive fire protection materials, a series of standard time – temperature curves have been developed which last maximum three hours. However, there are plenty of real tunnel fires which lasted more than three hours as in the fires of Mont Blanc, Tauren and Gotthard tunnels. On this purpose an innovative fire protection material has been developed based on the technology of geopolymerization. In the specific research the properties of this material are presented (mechanical, physical, thermal) as well as the behavior of the material in fire scenarios which last for more than 3 hours and for different thicknesses of the material. The results of the test show that a) the material is not damaged after an extended time exposure to fire and retains its structural integrity b) with a thickness of 4 cm the material can achieve the RWS fire scenario limits (380 oC in the interface) for substantial more time than the required time of 3 hours. The results of the laboratory scale tests proved that the material has a good thermal insulating capacity which may render it a promising material for passive fire protection of underground constructions.
