Ground-Water Cooling System On The London Underground

The London Underground is the world's oldest underground train network with the first services running as early as 1863. It provides a vital means of transport for over 3 million people everyday, spanning more than 253 miles of track. But are these people’s health's at risk? Poor ventilation systems used on the London underground have been at the forefront of health issues. Deep Ventilated tube tunnels, high volumes of trains and the body heat from passengers have meant that temperatures have at times been dangerously high with reports of 47 degrees Celsius occurring during a heat wave in the summer of 2006. So what needs to be done to ensure that users of the underground can travel safely?

The sustainable technology issue that best helps rule out the problem of over heating is to implement an efficient cooling system through out the tube network which keeps the tunnels and trains cool and is environmentally friendly. In addition to this any systems must be energy efficient and avoid causing significant delays to travellers across the entire tube network. With volumes of passengers expecting to continually increase, the primary objective is to one day have a complete tube network of cooling ventilation systems to ensure that passengers health is not under any sort of threat! But this won't happen over night, as made clear by LU's Managing director: "Cooling the Tube is a major and long-term engineering challenge".

The technology that has been put forward to try and solve these issues is known as ground-water cooling. It works by taking water that is stored deep below the surface in rocks or from the rivers Thames, Colne & Lee which all fall in to the London Groundwater Basin. The average temperature of the water tends to fall around 12 degrees Celsius. This is the pumped through heat exchanges, which works by passing the water over a heat exchange and extracting it as cold air which is distributed through vents in to the station. The trains also can be kept cool with vent fans that have been built in to the roofs of carriages pulling in cool air to improve passenger comfort during their journey.

Extractor Fan at London Victoria

This process is also a good example as renewable energy which serves well to reduce our fight against global warming. This technology has been tested at London’s Victoria underground and I intend to visit this station to see and feel for myself the effects of this technology.

Ventilation systems are not just there to make the environment comfortable for underground travellers, but also to save lives from disaster! In November 1987 a huge fire spread through London’s King Cross station. Extractor fans would have meant that smoke and toxic fumes could have been sucked out form the station and thus meant fire-fighters could have worked easily and saved more lives.

I feel that this topic is personally relevant to me and my course because I have a passion for travelling and take particular interest in trains. The London Underground is the primary mode of travel throughout London and health and safety concerns need to be maintained to a level in which is appropriate for people travelling on the underground network. Also its is important to me as I live less than 35 miles from London and often use the underground myself and plan to one day spend some time working in London and so therefore would want to feel comfortable when using the trains. Furthermore there is a vital relevance to my course in that every system needs to operate over a computer network in which needs to be initially designed then maintained, skills in which I hope to develop further from my units.

My Plan of inquiry involves carrying out further research in to the impacts that Ground-water cooling systems have so far had on the London underground. I’m hoping to use several secondary research sources such as the local news or media in London which include London newspapers like the Evening Standard and metro which will outline any progress or projects involving the cooling system. Also I intend to visit London and see and feel for myself the systems that have been put in place, as mentioned earlier one at London Victoria and hopefully get the chance to speak with an engineer who is involved with environmental issues. In addition I will use the Transport for London website to find our further information into the process being made into cooling projects on the underground.

http://www.metro.co.uk
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard
http://www.tfl.gov.uk

http://www.cibse.org