Fire Science Show

Did you know that the standard temperature-time curve, which is the underpinning of the fire resistance of assemblies, is over 100 years old? Once you know that, you cannot stop but think about how this affects modern construction works. In this episode, I'm interviewing dr John Gales from York University, who has spent over a decade studying the historical origins of fire testing and the standard curve. John has found some missing links and narratives and has also done a pretty good job confronting the choices from the (far) past with modern consequences.

But that is not all. Within this "historical" theme, we venture far earlier, to the 18th Century and some first attempts to use fire protection materials and verify their properties with fire tests. Furthermore, we take a modern view on these historical origins, through modern fire tests John has performed on materials his team has recreated in their lab.

For the practical engineers - the episode ends up with a discussion on fire protection of historical buildings, where antique solutions meet modern codes and expectations. A very needed discussion in the fire community.

Connect with John Gales at: 
https://twitter.com/GalesFireSafety
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jgales/

*** Linkedin discussion thread ***
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6823481111092486145

*** Useful links ***
The paper the episode is themed around: "The historical narrative of the standard temperature-time heating curve for structures" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10694-020-01040-7

Heritage fire protection materials and verification of their properties with modern methods: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352710219310551?via%3Dihub

A great supplementary material from 2012 - Gales J., Maluk C., Bisby L., Structural Fire Testing – Where are we, how did we get here, and where are we going?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261992399_Structural_Fire_Testing_-_Where_are_we_how_did_we_get_here_and_where_are_we_going

Two part paper from 1978 by V. Babrauskas and R.B. Williamson:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01983053
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01998390

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

Why do we take certain decisions during an evacuation process? How do we choose the evacuation route? These are often affected by cognitive biases, which is the main theme of today's episode. With Dr Michael Kinsey we will discuss how biases can be used to understand known behaviours and model human behaviour in a more realistic way. A lot of focus is placed on the evacuation modelling, and how the decision-making processes are implemented in the computer models... And in the end, we talk a bit about biases in engineering and evacuation of tall buildings - after all, Michael lives and works in Shanghai.

Connect with Michael at https://twitter.com/DrMichaelKinsey

--- Linkedin Discussion Thread ---
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6821332317399760896

--- Useful links ---
The paper on cognitive biases, which was the theme of this episode: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-018-0708-0

Mike's lecture on cognitive biases: https://www.oasys-software.com/news/research-cognitive-biases-within-decision-making-during-fire-evacuations/
Mike's keynote on cognitive biases at FEMTC 2020: https://www.femtc.com/events/2020/d1-02-kinsey/

PhD on the dynamic signage mentioned in the episode: https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/8080/
Recent papers of Fire Safety Engineering Group at Greenwich University:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379711221001454
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/authShare/S0379711221001454/20210708T123300Z/1?md5=35a030d79a5c6c6f396effad3e921a2e&dgcid=author (free download till 27.08.2021)


Learning how to learn course that was briefly mentioned by myself: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

Zone modelling is a technique introduced in 1970's and 80's that has changed fire science. In my personal opinion, along with oxygen calorimetry and the development of FDS it may have been the most impactful tool of fire science. This is why I think its shameful it does not receive the same recognition today.

With Colleen we go deep into the zone models, discussing the tool itself and the ways to adapt it to current needs. You will learn how zone models evolved, and what makes them really useful in the modern world. It is a technology of the past, but certainly one with a bright future. 

*** A mandatory download *** 
https://www.branz.co.nz/fire-safety-design/b-risk/
This is the zone model largely developed by Colleen, absolutely worth your time to try it out!

--- LinkedIn discussion thread ---
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6818412552368771072

--- Useful links ---
https://fireresearchgroup.com/ FRG is the company that Colleen works for, and it is a bunch of great experts solving issues of modern fire science. Excellent resources are available. Keep an eye on them.

Branzfire / B-Risk technical documentation covers the basics of zone modelling, available at: https://www.branz.co.nz/fire-safety-design/b-risk/

The same I can tell about the CFAST documentation, available here: https://pages.nist.gov/cfast/index.html

The paper that made Colleen pursue the career in fire! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0379711284900067?via%3Dihub
i was wrong in the interview, it is not the one about RSET (that was another by Leo Cooper in the same year, wow, what a brilliant mind he was!)

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

Everyone is talking about AI, but how can we really use it in fire safety engineering and firefighting? Prof Xinyan Huang of HK PolyU will explain his research in this field, and we can consider it as a time travel to the future. We touch on the ideas of AI and machine learning, and what does it really do (and what it does not do). We also investigate Xinyan's most recent research where AI was successfully applied to investigate the location of a fire in a tunnel and predict the smoke layer height in an atrium. Both are impressive case studies, being the first step to a propper use of AI in FSE performance-based design!

--- LinkedIn discussion thread --- 
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fire-science-show_007-ai-in-smart-firefighting-and-the-future-activity-6815873476340056064-UPY3

--- Useful links ---
HK PolyU Fire lab site: https://www.firelabxy.com/
Smart firefighting concept: https://www.firelabxy.com/smart-firefighting

Paper on detecting the fires in tunnels with AI : https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10694-020-00985-z

Paper on smoke control design in atria with AI: 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352710221003867?via%3Dihub

*** A must read ***
"Mechanistically Informed Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Fire Engineering and Sciences" by MZ Naser
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10694-020-01069-8

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

In Episode 6, our host, dr Wojciech Wegrzynski, explains his experiences with modelling rapidly growing fires in car parks. Such fire growth may be typical for EV fires that originate in battery and pose a different set of challenges compared to "traditional" design fires used for car parks.  The height of the car park is discussed as the variable that has the largest impact on the overall safety of the facility.

I discuss the aspects to consider when analysing the safety of a car park for electric vehicles and go in-depth into a large CFD project carried at the ITB in the last year. I hope my views will be useful to fellow fire safety engineers tackling how to provide safety for car parks fit for EV's!

For this episode, a companion paper illustrates some of the HRR curves used in the experiment and briefly summarises the findings: https://www.sfpe.org/publications/magazine/fpeextra/fpeextra2021/fpeextraissue64

--- LinkedIn Discussion Post ---
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fire-science-show_006-evs-rapid-fires-and-car-parks-fire-activity-6813335411184738304-M3dh

--- Useful links ---

The viral video mentioned in the episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAQlLu5ttOk

Short paper on the issue discussed in the episode: https://www.sfpe.org/publications/magazine/fpeextra/fpeextra2021/fpeextraissue64

Discussion on modelling vehicles (as obstacles) in car parks:
https://panel.sft.cnbop.pl/storage/ba77bcb7-0f79-4b14-a595-e36f60c7e3b0

FEMTC 2021 presentation on the multiparametric simulation project, going a bit more in-depth in how the study mentioned in the episode was performed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsjqV1g6PYY

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

Today I've talked to Roeland Bisschop, Project Manager in RISE, about his first-hand experience with battery fires. Roeland explained to me how do battery fires look from a scientific perspective, and how my perspective was kind of skewed by viral online videos. I've learnt a lot about fire propagation and products, as well as how to deal with fires that occured. This was a great talk, and I'm sure it will benefit many Fire Safety Engineers out there, who have to deal with this major issue with the limited knowledge we got today.

This is a part of two-episode miniseries, and in part II next week I will talk a bit about my experiences in modelling the consequences of rapidly growing fires in car parks. I hope you enjoy both episodes!


--- LinkedIn discussion thread---
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6810798545810051072

--- Usefull links ---
The review on electric vehicle fires:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-019-00944-3

Find Roeland at:
https://www.ri.se/en/person/roeland-bisschop
https://twitter.com/b_roeland

Full scale battery fire experiments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHZtne5yYBg

Toxicity of battery fires:
http://ri.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1522149&dswid=348


Handling battery fires: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-020-01038-1

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

Dr Matthew Bonner of the Imperial College London is one of the leading scientists touching on the subject of the fire safety of facades. His flavour is tackling the complexity through big data analyses and developing new ways to use AI to help us in future. His research has started few months before the Grenfell, and the tragedy has definitely made more eyes follow his studies. I think he has passed the test and provided useful knowledge that was a starting point for multiple follow up projects.

I didn't mention this in the episode, but this research got Matt the 2020 SFPE Student Scholar Award, and he kind of landed on the first page of Financial Times...But yeah, once you listen to what he has to say, you will know there is some quality and solid science in there!

I hope you will enjoy the episode!

---- LinkedIn Discussion Thread ----
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6808262852223266816

---- Useful links ----
The paper on complexity: http://koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201809355933912.page
The paper on the facade fire database based on the  Polish method we have  talked about: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132319307528?via%3Dihub
Wikipedia page - list of high-rise facade fires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-rise_facade_fires

Find Imperial Hazelab at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/hazelab
Find Matt Bonner at:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/m.bonner16
https://twitter.com/MattBonnerFire
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewbonnerfire/

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

How do you know if a building is safe in fire or not? Usually through performing ASET-RSET analyses, in which you determine how and when the tenability criteria in the building are breached. This is what I discuss with dr Gabriele Vigne. We discuss the overall use of tenability criteria in fire science, and in more details, the use of visibility in smoke.


--- LinkedIn Discussion thread ---
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6807702437852442624

--- Links ---

Follow Gabriele on Twitter at @vigne_gabriele and his company JVVA at @JVVAFIRE

The papers mentioned in the episode:

The soot yield paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379711217301327?via%3Dihub

The wavelength sensitivity paper: 
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-021-01139-5

LinkedIn account of Gabriele: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriele-vigne-544352a/

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

Guillermo Rein is a recipient of ERC Consildator Grant on smouldering megafires. The most challenging source of founding, meant for the projects that can truly change the world. And his HAZE project is just like that - to study a phenomenon that accounts for more than 13% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and takes the lives of thousands (millions?) of people every year.

In this episode you will learn about the haze fire chemistry and emissions, they ways to detect them and the directions for the whole discipline of the fire science.


---- LinkedIn Discussion thread ----
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6807701866659540992

---- Links ----
Learn about the Hazelab at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/hazelab

Learn about cellular automata here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1540748920306490?via%3Dihub

Learn about peat fire emissions in here: 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1540748920306490?via%3Dihub

Follow Guillermo on Twitter @GuillermoRein and @ImperialHazelab

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.

Let's do this. For the first time... Welcome to the Fire Science Show!

My name is Wojciech Wegrzynski, and I'm with the Building Research Institute (ITB) in Warsaw, Poland.

In this episode you will learn who I am, where do I come from and why I have decided to start a fire science podcast. I'm sharing my journey from a frontline CFD engineer to a professor at the ITB. I'm still learning fire science, actually, I'm probably spending more time learning than ever in my life. This is why I look forward to doing this podcast - I hope to learn from the best of the field and take you on this journey with me. 

I hope you will enjoy the podcast. See you at your favourite podcast app, every Wednesday from now!


---- LinkedIn Discussion thread ----
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6807701129024061440

---- Some links ----

If you would like to dig through my research, you can find most of it here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wojciech-Wegrzynski

And if you are mostly interested in our wind and fire coupled modelling, the papers can be accessed here:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10694-018-0748-5
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10694-018-0749-4

(psst... if you do not have access, send me an e-mail at [email protected] and I will be thrilled to share it with you)

If you would like to connect with me, you can find me on
Twitter - https://twitter.com/WojciechITB
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wojciech-w%C4%99grzy%C5%84ski-a3626960/

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The Fire Science Show is produced by the Fire Science Media in collaboration with OFR Consultants. Thank you to the podcast sponsor for their continuous support towards our mission.