On 29 Nov 2010 Dr Guillermo Rein was interviewed by Scottish TV about a recent research paper published about "Forecasting Fire Growth".
On the same day he was interviewed for BBC Radio Scotland and The Scotsman.
Showing posts with label firegrid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firegrid. Show all posts
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
FireGrid: An e-infrastructure for next-generation emergency response support
by Dr Sung-Han Koo
A recent journal paper titled "FireGrid: An e-infrastructure for next-generation emergency response support" has been published in the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing. Its content is presented here.
The costs of fire are great, commonly estimated in the range of 1-2% of GDP. Despite this, emergency service intervention at fires is often reliant upon very basic information (i.e. fire alarm panel information) or simple “gut instinct” of experienced fire officers. This need not be the case in the modern era, when a range of technologies are available which, if effectively harnessed, could transform the way in which fire emergencies are tackled, thereby significantly impacting the costs associated with failures. Here we describe development and demonstration of a novel concept which integrates sensor technologies, fire simulation, High Performance Computing (HPC) and knowledge-based reasoning, to provide an “intelligent” emergency response system known as FireGrid.
The heart of the system is the sensor-linked fire model (described in more detail in reference 17). While fire simulation has found wide application historically for design purposes, the uncertainties of fire development defeat any attempt to provide a true predictive capability of hazard evolution, generally precluding real-time use. We bypass these uncertainties by continually updating our model with a flow of sensor-derived information regarding conditions in the building. The modelling strategy exploits Monte-Carlo techniques in combination with Bayesian inference for “steering”; being “embarrassingly parallel” in nature it is ideal for implementation on multiprocessor HPC systems. The output contains embedded probabilistic information about the likelihoods of various future hazard conditions, encompassing both threat to humans (i.e. escaping occupants, and incoming fire and rescue personnel) and to the building itself (in terms of structural weaknesses, or collapse potential). The interpreted information is conveyed rapidly to the end user, i.e. the “incident commander”, to provide decision support information that can effectively assist their intervention strategies.
Initial application of a system such as FireGrid would be most relevant to high-risk and critical infrastructures, including tall buildings. It is readily apparent that better information to incident commanders could be vital in avoiding scenarios comparable to the World Trade Center tragedies, where emergency responders continued intervention operations totally oblivious to the impending
collapse of the towers. FireGrid is an ambitious vision, and its success also depends upon an effective partnership and engagement with potential end users. Our initial project was undertaken in conjunction with various members of the UK fire and rescue services, culminating in a live fullscale demonstration test attended by a broad audience including a senior fire officer. The complex evolution of the fire, with unexpected behaviours and ultimate transition to “flashover”, was an ideal test of the sensor-linked model running on the grid, and the system capabilities were effectively demonstrated. Further development of such systems extends a genuine hope that some of the chronic and long-standing problems associated with accidental fires might be eventually be overcome, with wide–ranging benefits to all relevant stakeholders.
Editor note: A related paper is discussed in "Towards the forecast of fire dynamics to assist the emergency response"
A recent journal paper titled "FireGrid: An e-infrastructure for next-generation emergency response support" has been published in the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing. Its content is presented here.
The costs of fire are great, commonly estimated in the range of 1-2% of GDP. Despite this, emergency service intervention at fires is often reliant upon very basic information (i.e. fire alarm panel information) or simple “gut instinct” of experienced fire officers. This need not be the case in the modern era, when a range of technologies are available which, if effectively harnessed, could transform the way in which fire emergencies are tackled, thereby significantly impacting the costs associated with failures. Here we describe development and demonstration of a novel concept which integrates sensor technologies, fire simulation, High Performance Computing (HPC) and knowledge-based reasoning, to provide an “intelligent” emergency response system known as FireGrid.
The heart of the system is the sensor-linked fire model (described in more detail in reference 17). While fire simulation has found wide application historically for design purposes, the uncertainties of fire development defeat any attempt to provide a true predictive capability of hazard evolution, generally precluding real-time use. We bypass these uncertainties by continually updating our model with a flow of sensor-derived information regarding conditions in the building. The modelling strategy exploits Monte-Carlo techniques in combination with Bayesian inference for “steering”; being “embarrassingly parallel” in nature it is ideal for implementation on multiprocessor HPC systems. The output contains embedded probabilistic information about the likelihoods of various future hazard conditions, encompassing both threat to humans (i.e. escaping occupants, and incoming fire and rescue personnel) and to the building itself (in terms of structural weaknesses, or collapse potential). The interpreted information is conveyed rapidly to the end user, i.e. the “incident commander”, to provide decision support information that can effectively assist their intervention strategies.
Initial application of a system such as FireGrid would be most relevant to high-risk and critical infrastructures, including tall buildings. It is readily apparent that better information to incident commanders could be vital in avoiding scenarios comparable to the World Trade Center tragedies, where emergency responders continued intervention operations totally oblivious to the impending
collapse of the towers. FireGrid is an ambitious vision, and its success also depends upon an effective partnership and engagement with potential end users. Our initial project was undertaken in conjunction with various members of the UK fire and rescue services, culminating in a live fullscale demonstration test attended by a broad audience including a senior fire officer. The complex evolution of the fire, with unexpected behaviours and ultimate transition to “flashover”, was an ideal test of the sensor-linked model running on the grid, and the system capabilities were effectively demonstrated. Further development of such systems extends a genuine hope that some of the chronic and long-standing problems associated with accidental fires might be eventually be overcome, with wide–ranging benefits to all relevant stakeholders.Editor note: A related paper is discussed in "Towards the forecast of fire dynamics to assist the emergency response"
Monday, November 01, 2010
Towards the forecast of fire dynamics to assist the emergency response
A recent journal paper titled "Forecasting Fire Growth using an Inverse Zone Modelling Approach" has published in Fire Safety Journal. We are happy that the work has been widely featured in the media and many people is being exposed to the novel idea:
Effective control of a compartment fire saves lives and money. When fire fighters manage to put out a fire before it grows out of proportions, live safety is greatly increased and significant damage can be avoided. Moreover, the affected building can be re-occupied without major investment of resources. But when a fire passes a certain size, the building might collapses as a consequence of the fire damage to the structure (eg, 2001 WTC or 2005 Windsor Tower) or might have to be demolished due to irreversible damages.
Due to a lack of the required technology to support emergency response, fire fighters often have to follow their intuition when it comes to attacking the fire instead of basing their decisions on knowledge of the actual fire. This lack of information can lead to lost opportunities or unnecessary risks.
Prediction of the ongoing fire development ahead of time under different possible conditions based on the current events taking place would give fire fighters insight into the dynamics of the particular fire being flighted. With this extra knowledge, they could weight other options and feed more information into the emergency management. However, fire dynamics follow complex physical processes closely coupled to one another, which makes current tools not able to accurately forecast fire development in real time.
This emerging technology has been called Sensor Assisted Fire Fighting. The FireGrid project, to which this paper belongs together with the recent PhD thesis of the lead author, aims at providing physics-based forecasts of fire development by combining measurements from sensors in the fire compartment with a range of computational modelling tools. The sensor measurements can provide essential lacking information and compensate the accuracy lost, and thus overcome the shortcomings of current modelling tools and speed them up. The proposed methodology is to collect measurements in the fire compartment, and to assimilate this data into the computational model.
When enough measurements are available to characterize the current fire, a forecast is made. This forecast is then constantly updated with new incoming data. If, for example, a door is opened or glazing breaks, and the ventilation conditions change drastically, the sensor measurements will steer the computational model towards capturing the new conditions. With this technology, fire fighters could act upon forecast behaviour.
This paper presents one of the first steps in this direction. Data is assimilated into a simple zone model, and forecasts of the fire development are made. Positive lead times are reported here for the first time. These results are an important step towards the forecast of fire dynamics to assist the emergency response. Together with the application to CFD within the same PhD thesis, the previous thesis of Cowlard on flame spread predictions and the most recent paper by Koo et al. on probabilistic zone models, these establish the basis for technology for sensor assisted fire fighting. The envisioned system is not yet fit for operational purposes and further research is needed. The investigation of the effects of adding further realism in the fire scenarios will be the focus of future studies.
The paper can now be read at the website of Fire Safety Journal.
Note: A related paper is discussed in "FireGrid: An e-infrastructure for next-generation emergency response support"
- Interview for Scottish TV News (go to minute 19 here). Aired on 29 Nov 2010.
- Interview for BBC Radio Scotland (or go minute 42.20 here). Aired on 29 Nov 2010.
- Articles in The Scotsman, CORDIS-EU and Xinhuanet (in Chinese).
Effective control of a compartment fire saves lives and money. When fire fighters manage to put out a fire before it grows out of proportions, live safety is greatly increased and significant damage can be avoided. Moreover, the affected building can be re-occupied without major investment of resources. But when a fire passes a certain size, the building might collapses as a consequence of the fire damage to the structure (eg, 2001 WTC or 2005 Windsor Tower) or might have to be demolished due to irreversible damages.
Due to a lack of the required technology to support emergency response, fire fighters often have to follow their intuition when it comes to attacking the fire instead of basing their decisions on knowledge of the actual fire. This lack of information can lead to lost opportunities or unnecessary risks.
Prediction of the ongoing fire development ahead of time under different possible conditions based on the current events taking place would give fire fighters insight into the dynamics of the particular fire being flighted. With this extra knowledge, they could weight other options and feed more information into the emergency management. However, fire dynamics follow complex physical processes closely coupled to one another, which makes current tools not able to accurately forecast fire development in real time.
Figure: Conceptual representation of the data assimilation process and the sensor
steering of model predictions even when critical events take place in an evolving fire scenario.
steering of model predictions even when critical events take place in an evolving fire scenario.
This emerging technology has been called Sensor Assisted Fire Fighting. The FireGrid project, to which this paper belongs together with the recent PhD thesis of the lead author, aims at providing physics-based forecasts of fire development by combining measurements from sensors in the fire compartment with a range of computational modelling tools. The sensor measurements can provide essential lacking information and compensate the accuracy lost, and thus overcome the shortcomings of current modelling tools and speed them up. The proposed methodology is to collect measurements in the fire compartment, and to assimilate this data into the computational model.
When enough measurements are available to characterize the current fire, a forecast is made. This forecast is then constantly updated with new incoming data. If, for example, a door is opened or glazing breaks, and the ventilation conditions change drastically, the sensor measurements will steer the computational model towards capturing the new conditions. With this technology, fire fighters could act upon forecast behaviour.
This paper presents one of the first steps in this direction. Data is assimilated into a simple zone model, and forecasts of the fire development are made. Positive lead times are reported here for the first time. These results are an important step towards the forecast of fire dynamics to assist the emergency response. Together with the application to CFD within the same PhD thesis, the previous thesis of Cowlard on flame spread predictions and the most recent paper by Koo et al. on probabilistic zone models, these establish the basis for technology for sensor assisted fire fighting. The envisioned system is not yet fit for operational purposes and further research is needed. The investigation of the effects of adding further realism in the fire scenarios will be the focus of future studies.
The paper can now be read at the website of Fire Safety Journal.
Note: A related paper is discussed in "FireGrid: An e-infrastructure for next-generation emergency response support"
Monday, August 09, 2010
Prof Torero interviewed by Beacons for Public Engagement
Edinburgh Beltane interviewed Prof Jose Torero on his views about public engagement and research in fire safety. Read the inreview here.Edinburgh Beltane - Beacons for Public Engagement are funded by the UK higher education funding councils, Research Councils UK, and the Wellcome Trust
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Prof Torero elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Congratulations to Prof Jose Torero on being elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). FREngs are UK's leading engineers and a unique national resource.Prof Mike Forde said "This is an incredibly competitive award and reflects Jose's personal engineering achievements related to advances in structural behaviour in fire, material flammibility, tunnel fire safety, contaminant remediation technology and sensor driven emergency response. It also recognises Jose's engineering contributions as an advisor to industry and governments worldwide".
Official announcement can be read here: Academy elects 'unique national resource' to assist in economic recovery, RAEng News Release, 08 July 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Congratulations to Dr Abecassis Empis and Dr Jahn for their PhD thesis defenses
Congratulations to the two new Doctors of Philosophy from the fire group!
Cecilia Abecassis Empis successfully defended her PhD thesis on the 23rd of March 2010. The external examiner was Prof. Fred Mowrer from California Polytechnic State University, and the internal was Prof Dougal Drysdale. The thesis title is "Analysis of the Compartment Fire Parameters Influencing the Heat Flux Incident on the Structural Façade" and she was supervised by Prof Jose Torero.
Wolfram Jahn defended his PhD thesis on the 8th of April 2010. The external examiner was Prof Bart Merci from Ghent University, and the internal was Dr Stephen Welch. The thesis title is "Inverse Modelling to Forecast Enclosure Fire Dynamics", and he was supervised by Dr Guillermo Rein and Prof Jose Torero.
Cecilia Abecassis Empis successfully defended her PhD thesis on the 23rd of March 2010. The external examiner was Prof. Fred Mowrer from California Polytechnic State University, and the internal was Prof Dougal Drysdale. The thesis title is "Analysis of the Compartment Fire Parameters Influencing the Heat Flux Incident on the Structural Façade" and she was supervised by Prof Jose Torero.
Wolfram Jahn defended his PhD thesis on the 8th of April 2010. The external examiner was Prof Bart Merci from Ghent University, and the internal was Dr Stephen Welch. The thesis title is "Inverse Modelling to Forecast Enclosure Fire Dynamics", and he was supervised by Dr Guillermo Rein and Prof Jose Torero.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Visiting researcher at Tokyo University of Science
Our PhD student Sung-Han Koo has been awarded an International Young Researcher Scholarship which will fund a 3-month visit to the Center for Fire Science and Technology in the Research Institute for Science and Technology at Tokyo University of Science, Japan.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
HEC technology innovation award for FireGrid
Edinburgh students Sung-Han Koo & Sungwook Kang got the third prize HEC technology innovation award for their paper "Real-time fire prediction using sensors" on FireGrid.
Photo: Award reception of the 3rd Hyundai Engineering & Hankyung Technical awards. (From left to right) Co-chair of Hyundai Engineering, Sung-Wook Kang (MSc student UoE) and Bon-Ju Koo (father of Sung Han Koo, PhD student UoE).
The HEC is an award to post-graduate students who propose "technical renovation, new paradigms, new enterprise", conferred by Hyundai Engineering Co. Ltd. and Hankyung Economy (a media company); this was the third annual award.
Students Sung-Han Koo (BRE Trust/FireGrid PhD student) and Sungwook Kang (SAFE MSc student) submitted a technical paper related to the FireGrid project and were selected as one of the 14 finalists from about 70 initial entries. They then presented the work in person in Korea on 15 October and were later announced as one of the 7 final prize-winners, being awarded the joint "third prize" (3 million KRW, c. £1500).
The work was supervised Dr Stephen Welch.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Short Review of Workshops on Data Assimilation and Optimization, summer 2009
by Wolfram Jahn
A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to leave temporally the world of Fire Safety Engineering and attend two conferences related to the non-fire aspects of my thesis work: data assimilation and optimization.
The 8th International Workshop on Adjoint Model Applications in Dynamic Meteorology
The first conference, organized by NASA and with NSF support (who also provided a grant to pay for my expenses), was held in the little town of Tannersville, in Pennsylvania, USA, and was the International Workshop on Adjoint Model Applications in Dynamic Meteorology(18–22 May 2009).
While most of the talks of this conference were way out of the scope of my thesis (and many of them incomprehensible to my 'engineering' mind), a few of them were closely related to my thesis work, and I could get some very interesting ideas from them. Additionally to the talks there was a tutorial session which occupied most of the first day of the conference. This was made for PhD students who use functional data assimilation systems for numerical experiments, rather than develop them on their own. The 5h-tutorial covered all the basics of data assimilation and adjoint modelling, and was very helpful in terms of getting my hands on the things I had read on DA in various papers, and it filled the gaps resulting from my still growing mathematical knowledge.
On the last day of the conference I presented my work in the poster session. Being the only person at the whole conference without a meteorological background, I got a few 'what on earth is he doing?' looks, but generally the idea of using data assimilation concepts in other areas generated a great deal of interest, and people were very curious about fire modelling in general.
Overall, this workshop was very interesting and useful, and gave me the opportunity to talk to the most prominent people in the field of DA (e.g. Ronald Errico, Ronald Genaro, Jeff Kepert). On my return to Edinburgh, I could apply some of the newly acquired knowledge and thereby greatly simplify my problem, which accelerated my progress significantly. One of the things I realized at this conference was the immense amount of resources historically invested in the topic: so many people have worked in Data Assimilation in the last 50 years, and so many more issues are yet to be resolved. Applying all these concepts to Fire Forecasting is certainly going to take a few more PhDs....
EUROGEN 2009, ECCOMAS Thematic Conference
The second conference was EUROGEN, on Optimization and Control, was held in Krakow, Poland in June. It was organized by
ECCOMAS, ECROFTAC, and CIMNE. The conference was mostly focused on industry problems of optimization, and the very broad range of topics presented in the conference made it difficult to find talks even loosely related to my research. However, after presenting our work on inverse modelling of fire dynamics, I did get very positive feedback and people showed a lot of interest (for some reason people get very excited when they see FDS snapshots).
The eternal question of whether it is better to use gradient based optimization, or whether evolutionary algorithms are the way forward, was very present at this conference. Unfortunately no real discussion on the subject could be established, since each party is absolutely convinced that they are right, and therefore the discussion is not necessary (this actually seems to be accepted by both parties). Even after enquiring on both sides I did not get any useful arguments that would justify preferring either methodology.
It is absolutely necessary at this point to mention the excellent organization of the conference with a very nice venue, outstanding food and an extraordinary gala-dinner at the oldest restaurant in Krakow (established in 1364). Obviously the charm of this beautiful city added its part to the success.
A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to leave temporally the world of Fire Safety Engineering and attend two conferences related to the non-fire aspects of my thesis work: data assimilation and optimization.
The 8th International Workshop on Adjoint Model Applications in Dynamic Meteorology
The first conference, organized by NASA and with NSF support (who also provided a grant to pay for my expenses), was held in the little town of Tannersville, in Pennsylvania, USA, and was the International Workshop on Adjoint Model Applications in Dynamic Meteorology(18–22 May 2009).
While most of the talks of this conference were way out of the scope of my thesis (and many of them incomprehensible to my 'engineering' mind), a few of them were closely related to my thesis work, and I could get some very interesting ideas from them. Additionally to the talks there was a tutorial session which occupied most of the first day of the conference. This was made for PhD students who use functional data assimilation systems for numerical experiments, rather than develop them on their own. The 5h-tutorial covered all the basics of data assimilation and adjoint modelling, and was very helpful in terms of getting my hands on the things I had read on DA in various papers, and it filled the gaps resulting from my still growing mathematical knowledge.
Group photo at the Adjoint Worshop
On the last day of the conference I presented my work in the poster session. Being the only person at the whole conference without a meteorological background, I got a few 'what on earth is he doing?' looks, but generally the idea of using data assimilation concepts in other areas generated a great deal of interest, and people were very curious about fire modelling in general.
Overall, this workshop was very interesting and useful, and gave me the opportunity to talk to the most prominent people in the field of DA (e.g. Ronald Errico, Ronald Genaro, Jeff Kepert). On my return to Edinburgh, I could apply some of the newly acquired knowledge and thereby greatly simplify my problem, which accelerated my progress significantly. One of the things I realized at this conference was the immense amount of resources historically invested in the topic: so many people have worked in Data Assimilation in the last 50 years, and so many more issues are yet to be resolved. Applying all these concepts to Fire Forecasting is certainly going to take a few more PhDs....
EUROGEN 2009, ECCOMAS Thematic Conference
The second conference was EUROGEN, on Optimization and Control, was held in Krakow, Poland in June. It was organized by
ECCOMAS, ECROFTAC, and CIMNE. The conference was mostly focused on industry problems of optimization, and the very broad range of topics presented in the conference made it difficult to find talks even loosely related to my research. However, after presenting our work on inverse modelling of fire dynamics, I did get very positive feedback and people showed a lot of interest (for some reason people get very excited when they see FDS snapshots).
Photo: Audience of one of the talks (I am on the right)
The eternal question of whether it is better to use gradient based optimization, or whether evolutionary algorithms are the way forward, was very present at this conference. Unfortunately no real discussion on the subject could be established, since each party is absolutely convinced that they are right, and therefore the discussion is not necessary (this actually seems to be accepted by both parties). Even after enquiring on both sides I did not get any useful arguments that would justify preferring either methodology.
It is absolutely necessary at this point to mention the excellent organization of the conference with a very nice venue, outstanding food and an extraordinary gala-dinner at the oldest restaurant in Krakow (established in 1364). Obviously the charm of this beautiful city added its part to the success.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
List of 2009 conferences in Fire and Combustion sciences
This list is has been moved to the permanent link:
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/fire/conferences.html
It will be updated there for the incoming years. Anyone can send to Fire.Research@ed.ac.uk the details of fire-related and combustion-related conferences not listed.
*Events in 2010*
International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security ISTSS 2010, 17–19th March2010, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Sixth International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards, Weetwood Hall, Leeds, UK, April 11th to 16th, 2010.
10th International Conference on Combustion and Energy Utilization to be held in Turkey on the 4th – 8th May 2010.
International Conference Tunnel Safety and Ventilation - New Developments in Tunnel Safety, Graz, Austria, 3-5 May 2010.
6th International Conference on Structures in Fire, SiF’10, June 2-4, 2010 at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, Michigan.
International fire prevention symposium, a two-day international symposium organized by vfdb as part of the INTERSCHUTZ (international trade fair for civil security) at the Congress Center Leipzig from 8 to 9 June 2010, Leipzig, Germany.
8th International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, 16-18 June 2010, Lund University, Sweden.
Interflam, 12th international Conference on Fire Science and Engineering, 5-7 July 2010, University of Nottingham, UK.
33rd International Symposium on Combustion, Tsinghua University, August 1-6, 2010, Beijing, China.
*Past Events*
Fire and Materials 2009 Conference, 26-28 January, San Francisco.
APICI (Spain) 5th International Congress on Fire Safety Engineering, 18-20 February, Madrid.
International Conference on Applications of Structural Fire Engineering, 19-20 February 2009, Prague
SUPDET 2009: Suppression and Detection Research and Applications, February 24-27, 2009 at the International Plaza Resort and Spa in Orlando, FL.
FIRES3, Forecasting and modelling wildfire risk for UK moorlands and heaths, 31 March-1 April 2009, Manchester.
4th European Combustion Meeting (ECM 2009), 14 - 17 April 2009, Vienna.
2nd INTERNATIONAL TUNNEL SAFETY FORUM FOR ROAD AND RAIL, 20 - 22 April 2009, Lyon, France, by Tunnel Management International.
European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2009. 19-24 April 2009 in Vienna. Session NH8.1/BG2.9 on "Spatial and temporal patterns of wildfires: models, theory, and reality".
FRT09: Fire Retardant Technologies 2009, 21 - 23 April 2009, Preston - UK. By the Speciality Chemicals and Applied Materials Chemistry Groups of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
2009 Graduate Lecture, Institution of Fire Engineers - 24th April, Arup Campus, Solihull, UK.
Combustion Colloquia dedicated to Prof. D'Alessio, organized by the Italian Section of The Combustion Institute in Naples on April 26-28, 2009.
2009 NIST Building and Fire Research Annual Fire Conference, April 28 - 30, 2009 at NIST in Gaithersburg, MD.
13th International Symposium on Aerodynamics and Ventilation of Vehicle Tunnels (ISAVVT 13), New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, 13 - 15th May 2009
Symposium: Dust Explosion Hazard Recognition and Control: New Strategies, Baltimore, Maryland, May 13-14, 2009.
20th Annual Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials, June 1-3, 2009, Stamford, CT.
2009 Rasbash Lecture, Institution of Fire Engineers - June 4, Defence Fire & Rescue Service Headquarters, Andover, UK.
6th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium. June 7th to 11th 2009, in Ajaccio, Corsica. Note that a special session dedicated to forest fires is now included in the programme.
Scottish Fire Engineering Network Conference, "Fire Safety Engineering: Enabling Innovation", June 16th 2009, Hosted by Strathclyde Fire & Rescue, SFR HQ Bothwell Road, Hamilton, UK.
Wildfire 2009, 16th & 17th June 2009, Lyndhurst. This is the UK’s only national conference on wildfires.
"Combustion Theory and Modelling" Institute of Physics Spring meeting. London, The Royal College of Pathologists, 24th of June. The 2009 "Huw Edwards Prize for Services to Combustion Physics" will be awarded to Prof Graham Dixon-Lewis during a dinner on the 23rd of June.
86th Annual General Meeting and Conference of The Institution of Fire Engineers, “Fire and Life Safety Engineering – the Impact on Global Communities”, 1 and 2 July, in Glasgow.
4th International Symposia on Human Behaviour in Fire, 13-25 July, Cambridge.
22nd International Colloquium on the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, July 27-31, Minsk, Belarus.
12th European Meeting on Fire Retardant Polymers FRPM, 31 August–3 September 2009, Poznan, Poland.
14th International Conference on Automatic Fire Detection AUBE’09, 8–10 September 2009, Duisburg, Germany
The 4th European Summer School on Hydrogen Safety will be held 7-16 September 2009 in Corsica.
One day meeting on "Soots" by the British Section of the Combustion Institute, 16 Sept 2009 at Shell Thornton Research Centre, Chester, UK. See programmer here.
2009 COCCFEA International Workshop on Combustion Simulation and Modelling, Imperial College, London on 17-18 September 2009
The IOP Combustion Physics Group is holding a one day meeting on Current Research in Combustion: A Forum for Research Students and Early Career Researchers on 22nd September 2009 at Loughborough University.
9th International Water Mist Conference 2009, September 23 - 24 2009, London.
Eurofire 2009, Fire Protection Engineering Conference, A mature way forward to save life and property? 24 & 25 September 2009 in Bruges.
Advanced Research Workshop on Fire Protection and Life Safety in Buildings and Transportation Systems, 15-17 October 2009 in Santander, Spain.
SFPE The Annual Meeting and Professional Development Conference and Exposition in Scottsdale, Arizona, October 17-22, 2009.
Fire and Rescue in the 21st Century. How Science and Engineering Support the Fire Service, 3rd FireSeat, Wednesday 4th November 2009, Edinburgh.
National Telford Institute Technical Workshop: A Unified Framework for Performance-Based Structural Engineering under Exceptional Conditions, 16-17 November 2009, University of Edinburgh.
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/fire/conferences.html
It will be updated there for the incoming years. Anyone can send to Fire.Research@ed.ac.uk the details of fire-related and combustion-related conferences not listed.
*Past Events*
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Blind vs Open fire modelling
I always wanted to start a debate on this topic and now think that a better way is using the blog.
Figure 1: Dalmarnock Fire Test One as seen from the outside, 18.5 min into the fire. (from [ Abecassis-Empis et al, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 2008]).
Figure 2: Evolution of the global heat release rate within the compartment. Comparison of predictions and experimental measurements. (from [Rein et al, Fire Safety Journal 2009]).
Three years after The Dalmarnock Fire Tests, the 'a priori' vs. 'a posteriori' debate in is still not too popular in the fire modelling community. The debate seems to be mostly taking place in personal communications and during the peer reviewing of papers. Unfortunately, not much is happening publicly or at the reach of the fire community as a whole.
Figure 1: Dalmarnock Fire Test One as seen from the outside, 18.5 min into the fire. (from [ Abecassis-Empis et al, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 2008]).The problem is the following (summary). When making comparisons of modelling results to experimental measurements, there are two general approaches that can be followed: a priori (aka blind) and a posteriori (aka open). In a priori simulations, the modeller knows only a description of the initial scenario. The modeller has no access to the experimental measurements of the event and thus will be providing a true forecast of the quantities of interest. In a posteriori simulations, before the simulation is run the modeller knows the initial scenario and also how the fire developed (ie via the experimental measurements). Most fire model validations in fire engineering has been conducted a posteriori.
Only comparison of a priori and a posteriori simulations of the same event allows to investigate the possible effect that maybe has been introduced by prior knowledge of how the event developed. The importance of this effect in fire safety engineering is currently an advanced research topic and under study by different research groups.
The 2006 Dalmarnock Fire Tests conducted in a high-rise building were used to look into the problem. An international study of fire modelling was conducted prior to Dalmarnock Fire Test One. The philosophy behind the tests was to provide measurements in a realistic fire scenario with very high instrumentation density (more than 450 sensors were installed in a 3.50 by 4.75 2.45 m compartment). Each of the seven participating teams independently simulated the test scenario a priori using a common detailed description. Comparison of the modelling results shows a large scatter and considerable disparity among the predictions and between predictions and experimental measurements. These results tend to shock, please and anger the audience in equal parts. See Figure 2 below.
Only comparison of a priori and a posteriori simulations of the same event allows to investigate the possible effect that maybe has been introduced by prior knowledge of how the event developed. The importance of this effect in fire safety engineering is currently an advanced research topic and under study by different research groups.
The 2006 Dalmarnock Fire Tests conducted in a high-rise building were used to look into the problem. An international study of fire modelling was conducted prior to Dalmarnock Fire Test One. The philosophy behind the tests was to provide measurements in a realistic fire scenario with very high instrumentation density (more than 450 sensors were installed in a 3.50 by 4.75 2.45 m compartment). Each of the seven participating teams independently simulated the test scenario a priori using a common detailed description. Comparison of the modelling results shows a large scatter and considerable disparity among the predictions and between predictions and experimental measurements. These results tend to shock, please and anger the audience in equal parts. See Figure 2 below.
An exception to the relative silence of the fire community are the two magazine articles of Dr Alan Beard from Heriot-Watt University. These can be accessed here:
The differences between a priori and a posteriori modelling become patent when comparing the round-robin results with the work conducted after the Dalmarnock data was publicly disseminated. Subsequent studies (Jahn et al. 2007, Jahn et al. 2008 and Lazaro et al. 2008) show that it is possible to conduct a posteriori fire simulations that reproduce the general fire behaviour to a satisfactory level. This was achieved due to the availability experimental data of the real behaviour for reference, allowing for iterations until an adequate input file was found.
I would like to finish with the same final words I use when presenting the results in conferences and seminars. We, the authors of the Dalmarnock round-robin, are professionals of, and supporters of, fire modelling. We want fire modelling to improve and be developed further. Our daily work goes in that direction.
I am interested in hearing your comments.
.Guillermo Rein.
NOTE #1: All the relevant information, book and papers about The Dalmarnock Fire Tests are accessible in open access here.
NOTE #2: There are two points about Dalmarnock that need to be emphasised since are often misunderstood. These are:
NOTE#3: No matter how useful and interesting the results from blind simulations are, only three blind round-robins on fire modelling can be found in the historical records of the discipline. The other two are the 1999 CIB and the 2008 French PROMESIS project. All three round-robins overwhelming agree on the results, but the Dalmarnock one was the first to be publicly communicated and the one providing, by far, the largest instrumentation density.
NOTE #4: I initiated a related discussion on this topic in April 2008 in the FDS forum. See here.
- Reliability of computer models in fire safety design, April 2008 in the magazine Industrial Fire Journal.
- Role Models, Aug 2009 in the magazine Fire Risk Management
The differences between a priori and a posteriori modelling become patent when comparing the round-robin results with the work conducted after the Dalmarnock data was publicly disseminated. Subsequent studies (Jahn et al. 2007, Jahn et al. 2008 and Lazaro et al. 2008) show that it is possible to conduct a posteriori fire simulations that reproduce the general fire behaviour to a satisfactory level. This was achieved due to the availability experimental data of the real behaviour for reference, allowing for iterations until an adequate input file was found.
I would like to finish with the same final words I use when presenting the results in conferences and seminars. We, the authors of the Dalmarnock round-robin, are professionals of, and supporters of, fire modelling. We want fire modelling to improve and be developed further. Our daily work goes in that direction.
I am interested in hearing your comments.
.Guillermo Rein.
NOTE #1: All the relevant information, book and papers about The Dalmarnock Fire Tests are accessible in open access here.
NOTE #2: There are two points about Dalmarnock that need to be emphasised since are often misunderstood. These are:
- The aim of our a priori work was to forecast the test results as accurately as possible, and not to conduct an engineering design with adequate conservative assumptions or safety factors.
- Experimental variability was one of our greatest concerns and that is why the scenario was designed for maximum test reproducibility. The Dalmarnock Fire Test One was benchmarked against a second test to establish the potential experimental variability. Results show that the scatter of the a priori simulations is much larger than the experimental error and the experimental variability together.
NOTE#3: No matter how useful and interesting the results from blind simulations are, only three blind round-robins on fire modelling can be found in the historical records of the discipline. The other two are the 1999 CIB and the 2008 French PROMESIS project. All three round-robins overwhelming agree on the results, but the Dalmarnock one was the first to be publicly communicated and the one providing, by far, the largest instrumentation density.
NOTE #4: I initiated a related discussion on this topic in April 2008 in the FDS forum. See here.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
'International Science Grid This Week' features article on FireGrid
The article on FireGrid that was produced for EPCC News magazine has been adopted by iSGTW (International Science Grid This Week), as their lead article on 29 July 2009:
Feature - Burning down the house (with FireGrid)
http://www.isgtw.org/?pid=1001917
iSGTW, a weekly newsletter promoting grid computing, has an audience of 15,000 people and is jointly funded by the US Department of Energy, the US National Science Foundation, and by the European Commission.
Feature - Burning down the house (with FireGrid)
http://www.isgtw.org/?pid=1001917
iSGTW, a weekly newsletter promoting grid computing, has an audience of 15,000 people and is jointly funded by the US Department of Energy, the US National Science Foundation, and by the European Commission.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Congratulations to Dr Cowlard for his PhD thesis defense
Congratulations to Adam Cowlard who successfully defended his PhD thesis on the 28th of March 2009. The committee agreed to recommend awarding the Phd Degree without changes to his thesis.
The external examiner was Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Pello from the University of California at Berkeley and the internal was Dr Guillermo Rein.
The thesis title and abstract can be found bellow. Adam has led two journal papers directly related to his thesis in [2009] and [2007].
SENSOR and MODEL INTEGRATION for the RAPID PREDICTION of CONCURRENT FLOW FLAME SPREAD (full thesis available in pdf )
by Adam Cowlard, University of Edinburgh, 2009
Supervisor: Prof Jose Torero.
Sponsor: BRE Trust and FireGrid
Abstract:
Fire Safety Engineering is required at every stage in the life cycle of modern-day buildings. Fire safety design, detection and suppression, and emergency response are all vital components of Structural Fire Safety but are usually perceived as independent issues. Sensor deployment and exploitation is now common place in modern buildings for means such as temperature, air quality and security management. Despite the potential wealth of information these sensors could afford fire fighters, the design of sensor networks within buildings is entirely detached from procedures associated to emergency management. The experiences of Dalmarnock Fire Test Two showed that streams of raw data emerging from sensors lead to a rapid information overload and do little to improve the understanding of the complex phenomenon and likely future events during a real fire. Despite current sensor technology in other fields being far more advanced than that of fire, there is no justification for more complex and expensive sensors in this context. In isolation therefore, sensors are not sufficient to aid emergency response.
Fire modelling follows a similar path. Two studies of Dalmarnock Fire Test One demonstrate clearly the current state of the art of fire modelling. A Priori studies by Rein et al. 2009 showed that blind prediction of the evolution of a compartment fire is currently beyond the state of the art of fire modelling practice. A Posteriori studies by Jahn et al. 2007 demonstrated that even with the provision of large quantities of sensor data, video footage, and prior knowledge of the fire; producing a CFD reconstruction was an incredibly difficult, laborious, intuitive and repetitive task.
Issues of accuracy aside, these models demand heavy resources and computational time periods that are far greater than the time associated with the processes being simulated. To be of use to emergency responders, the output would need to be produced faster than the event itself with lead time to enable planning of an intervention strategy. Therefore in isolation, model output is not robust or fast enough to be implemented in an emergency response scenario.
Fire fighting is therefore left as an isolated activity that does not benefit from sensor data or the potential of modelling the event. In isolation sensors and fire modelling are found lacking. Together though they appear to form the perfect compliment. Sensors provide a plethora of information which lacks interpretation. Models provide a method of interpretation but lack the necessary information to make this output robust. Thus a mechanism to achieve accurate, timely predictions by means of theoretical models steered by continuous calibration against sensor measurements is proposed.
The concept of super-real time predictions steered by measurements is studied in the simple yet meaningful scenario of concurrent flow flame spread. Experiments have been conducted with PMMA slabs to feed sensor data into a simple analytical model. Numerous sensing techniques have been adapted to feed a simple algebraic expression from the literature linking flame spread, flame characteristics and pyrolysis evolution in order to model upward flame spread. The measurements are continuously fed to the computations so that projections of the flame spread velocity and flame characteristics can be established at each instant in time, ahead of the real flame. It was observed that as the input parameters in the analytical models were optimised to the scenario, rapid convergence between the evolving experiment and the predictions was attained.
Open access to full thesis at http://hdl.handle.net/1842/2753
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Short report on the FireGrid Workshop "Integrated Fire Protection" at Watford, UK
by Dr Stephen Welch, BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, UK.
BRE Global hosted the FireGrid Workshop "Integrated Fire Protection" on 24 March 2009 at Watford, UK. 10 speakers from academia, industry and the fire service gave presentations on the the proof of concept of this new technology.
FireGrid is an innovative project exploring the use sensor-linked grid-enabled fire simulations to assist emergency responders. Successful completion of the most recent phase of the work, via the project "An integrated Emergency Response System for the Built Environment" funded by the Technology Strategy Board (2006-2009), was marked by a recent a dissemination workshop reporting the progress and outcomes.
The day commenced with an opening reflection on the fact that as airline pilots are utterly dependent on navigation aids, a day may come when fire emergency responders must also learn to "trust their instruments". Subsequent talks covered in detail the vision of FireGrid, the context of pervasive sensors and evolution of "intelligent" buildings, sensor technologies including early detection, and the sensor-linked grid-enabled fire simulations which can provide predictions of future hazards, together with interpretation of the model results to provide information meaningful to an end user. A series of live experiments have demonstrated the individual technology integrations required to fulfil the vision. These culminated in the final project demonstrator, a full-scale fire test at BRE Burn Hall in October 2008, where a prototype FireGrid system was effectively deployed to provide information on fire conditions and possible hazard evolution to "end users", and an assembled audience, via display panels.
With fulfilment of all intended objectives, various avenues are now being pursued to further develop the FireGrid concept.
The slides of the workshop can be found here:
* The FireGrid Project, by Prof Jose Torero, University of Edinburgh.
* FireGrid and the Built Environment, by Dr Debbie Smith, BRE Global
* Sensor Technology, by Peter Mundy, Xtralis.
* System Integration and Future Development, by John Holden, BRE Global
* Data Collection and Communication, by Dr Stephen Potter, University of Edinburgh.
* Computer Modelling, by Dr Suresh Kumar and Dr Jeremy Fraser-Mitchell, BRE Global, and Dr Stephen Welch, University of Edinburgh.
* Case Study - The Final Demonstrator, by Dr George Beckett University of Edinburgh and Paul Jenkins, London Fire Brigade
Stephen Welch
NOTE: The FireGrid Newsletters can be accessed here, No. 1 March 2007 and No. 2 March 2008.
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