A short history of the Dalmarnock building

In 2006, the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering were involved in a series of large fire tests in a tower block in the Dalmarnock area of Glasgow. For details click here.

Did you know…?

A short history of the Dalmarnock building block before and after the Fire Tests.

The area of Dalmarnock was once heavily industrialised¹. Sir William Arrol & Co. had its extensive engineering works there from 1873. From its beginnings in boiler making, the firm later became renowned for its achievements in the field of Structural engineering. Amongst the many bridges constructed throughout Britain by this firm, were the Forth Railway Bridge and Forth Road Bridge, the Humber Bridge and London's Tower Bridge. The company was eventually taken over by Clarke Chapman in 1969 and the Dalmarnock Works closed in 1986.

During the Second World War, the east side of Summerfield Street was bombed. Consequently, as part of the GEAR (Glasgow East Area Renewal) which took place during the '60s and '70s, most of the Victorian red-sandstone tenements from the neighbouring area were demolished, some were renovated, and a new housing scheme was built. The latter consisted of four 23 storey tower blocks and ‘H-block’ maisonettes.

The quartet of 23 storey tower blocks on the Millerfield estate in the south eastern corner of Dalmarnock, Glasgow, was formed by: 4², 40³ and 50⁴ Millerfield Road together with 131⁵ Allan Street. Approved in Phase 1 of the Summerfield project in 1962, construction was carried out by Laidlaw using the Prometo method. The design was by local architects, Parry & Hughes. The buildings were completed in 1964 and contained 132 flats each. Although initially popular with residents for being a vast improvement on the slums that predated post war development, lack of investment and maintenance made the block unpopular and the building housed fewer and fewer tenants.

In a massive regeneration effort to turn Dalmarnock into a potential Commonwealth 2014 Games village, the 4 tower blocks together with twelve maisonettes were demolished in different phases. On Sunday the 3rd of February 2002 at 11 AM, both 40 and 50 Millerfield Road blocks were demolished. They were the first high-rise demolition since a woman was tragically killed in 1993 as she watched the ill-planned implosion of Queen Elizabeth Square. The operation cost Glasgow City Council £1.2m to hire Yorkshire-based Controlled Demolition Group Ltd. Despite doing their best to keep the blow down secret, a small crowd had gathered to watch, but this time none of them were injured.

In January 2005, the decision was made by the Glasgow Housing Association to demolish 131 Allan Street. This came after the two other blocks in the scheme had been demolished 3 years before. All residents were rehoused by August 2006, with East End Community Homes doing their best to accommodate them all within the Dalmarnock/Bridgeton area, although the building was well below capacity. After almost a year preparation, the tower block was blown down in just 5 seconds by Safedem of Dundee and John F. Hunt using 85kg of explosives on the 5th of July 2005.

4 Millerfield Place was the one used for the Dalmarnock Fire Tests⁵ and the last to be demolished. Complications with preparing the building for demolition prevented it from being imploded in late-February 2007 as planned. There’s a version saying that “this was possibly as a result of an experiment into high rise fires conducted by the University of Edinburgh in 2006 affecting the structure's stability”. At 11 AM on the 9th of September 2007, this last block was finally demolished, leaving the entire Millerfield estate empty and awaiting new development which is ongoing by now.

The following is an interesting comment from a former tenant of one of these flats⁶: “I was there when the third multi-story was demolished, same as I was there when the first two came down, it was so sad for all of our families who have moved out of the area and the ones who still live in Dalmarnock as most of them spent their childhood days going to Springfield School in Allen St, if they didn't live in the flats they had friends and family who did. Dalmarnock was always a great place to live, I raised my family in the 70/80s. What a community we were in those days, I am always proud to say my son's came from Sunnybank St. Dalmarnock, getting back to the high flats, I remember in the winter months taking my lads to primary school in Allen St and taking the shortcut through the Millerfield flats, the wind was so strong it would blow us off our feet. I know Dalmarnock is going to be a brilliant place for the Commonwealth village, fingers crossed, let all the athletes come here and see what friendship is all about.”

So as we can see after this short story, there’s a curious succession of events specifically related to the high-rise used for the tests: the area was originally part of a structural engineering firm – notably the one that built both Forth Bridges – then came the very well known Dalmarnock Fire Tests, and finally ending its days being demolished on a 9/11. Recapitulating: structural engineering + Forth Bridge (there’s a photo of the beautiful railway bridge decorating Prof. Torero’s office) + fire tests + 9/11… strange coincidence...? J

By Agustin Majdalani

Demolition videos (131 Allan Street and 4 Millerfield Place):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-HzNwoWwEfQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeObBJjB8Xs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HzNwoWwEfQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BteoagqYYFI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VunUSR5znd8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB4g5rZtL4c&feature=related

Demolition photos:

http://www.gha.org.uk/content/mediaassets/Millerfieldgallery/millerfield/index.htm

Holly Smith receives JM Lessells Travel Scholarships from Royal Society of Edinburgh

The Royal Society of Edinburgh has awarded a JM Lessells Scholarship to the fire group PhD student Holly Smith.

Holly will spend two months at the Department of Civil Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. She will be examining methods of using digital image correlation in support of her PhD work on shear failure of concrete structures during fire, which is supervised by Dr Tim Stratford. This technique has only recently been applied in structural engineering by Dr Andy Take of Queen’s University and as a consequence there are a number of challenges in its use. Her visit to Queen’s University will allow her to gain expertise from Dr Andy Take and Dr Neil Hoult, who have been extending Take’s digital image analysis methods to structural measurements and work on a post-processing technique to interpret the initial results that she has obtained from her first set of experiments. Queen’s University also has concrete structures in fire research activity, led by Dr Mark Green, and working with this group will also be very beneficial for Holly’s research.

The Endemic of the Academics

IAFSS Symposium 2011 recap - personal reflections by a postgraduate student.

As a newcomer to the fire science scene (and a new member of IAFSS) I was disappointed and downhearted by the recent 2011 IAFSS symposium in Maryland. It is not to say that there weren’t some good aspects, the location and conference buildings (barring the marginal on-site student accommodation), the catering, and the welcome team were all excellent, but in general I wonder where I fit in to the field of fire safety engineering, and more importantly why I should want to.

The conference started on the Sunday with a student networking event and workshops session. Both of these I missed due to a delayed flight but if these workshops were similar to the one I attended on the following Friday morning they would have been useful and added value to the conference. This cannot be said for the reaction to the student session that I have enquired about. The student session was apparently organised as a networking opportunity for the students. There was no formal structure to the session and students were left to their own devises and allowed to mingle. This lead to the anticipated reaction of the students interacting only with the people they knew, and therefore there was little networking.

In my opinion, while the students clearly play a role in a successful networking event, a better scenario for a student session is not to network solely with other students but rather with the academics and industry professionals who are present at the conference so that enthusiasm for the sector and for scientific research could be instilled. This could have been achieved by having a student workshop where a few of the well-regarded academic/industry individuals could pose a few issues and then workshop it with the students. This would promote interaction and discussion on fire science but would also allow for people to participate as much or as little as they feel able. A session like this would add value to any conference.

The rest of Sunday was good: the welcome team were very welcoming and registration was accomplished with speed and ease. The symposium welcome reception that evening, being the first official event that I attended, was well attended and had a buzz of excitement and anticipation, as there should be at the start of any major conference, and which I easily got swept up in; this buzz, however, was emphatically swept away by the symposium’s opening keynote.

The opening keynote was, in my opinion, disjointed and virtually impossible to follow. To open a Fire Safety Science symposium by showing a six minute video of a tsunami decimating a town seems inappropriate, unless the keynote was on the dangers of tsunamis for fire safety, which it was in part and was also on risk based design. While I agree that it is good and right to honour those academics and researchers who have contributed to the field, I feel that this should not be done to the detriment of the Association or its symposia. Neither topic was covered properly, nor did either pose clear and important questions to lead to a lively and informative debate.

The opening plenary was not the only one to disappoint, but there were, in my opinion, two strong keynotes worthy of mention. The first of these was by Margaret Simonson McNamee, of SP, with her presentation on “Estimating the Impact of Fire on the Environment”. This presentation raised issues not only relevant to fire safety science but also to a major driver for many endeavours in today’s world, the environment. This issue was apparently lost on the symposium caterers, as an appalling amount of waste was produced during the symposium in terms of plastic plates, cutlery and mugs. Future symposia should demand better environmental controls from the conference venue and catering services.

The second interesting plenary was Charles Fleischmann’s keynote “Is Prescription the Future of Performance Based Design?” This lecture, although with an (intentionally?) oxymoronic title, stimulated debate, especially amongst the structural fire engineers, and generated a genuine scientific and philosophical talking point at meal times. This is one highly desirable outcome of a good plenary or keynote lecture.

Disappointing talks were not limited to keynotes. Many of the presentations did not specify the relevance of the work undertaken and had no obvious conclusions; simply summarising what had already been discussed. In several presentations the use of videos detracted from the information being presented (and in one case the presenter was silent for 2 and a half minutes because of a video). It seemed that some research was undertaken just for the sake of doing some research and the value of it was not clearly communicated to the audience.

I feel that there were also problems with the rigour of work presented, and in the research methods used, particularly in the area of evacuation modelling and analysis, which felt marginal in some cases (although I stress here that I am by no means an expert in this area). The poor-quality feel of work presented at the conference is clearly not solely the fault of the authors and presenters, but also of the scientific committee. The fact that about 50% of the papers submitted were accepted, according to the President’s presentation during the “business” meeting, seemed to be driven largely by the finances of the conference rather than the quality of the work. While this is speculation on my part, I feel that a peer reviewed conference should strive, first and foremost, to increase the quality of the work, however in this case the finances of the conference may have nullified this scientific quality control measure. I am all in favour of peer reviewed conferences; this promotes excellence. But the ambition of running three parallel sessions seems to have muddied the waters and diluted quality. I understand that sufficient funds are needed to cover certain costs, but as a charitable organisation the IAFSS must ask if the costs (and profits) of conferences should be rationalized so that financial drivers do not detract from the scientific quality of the symposia.

The above being said, the parallel sessions were run effectively and efficiently, along with the poster sessions, and so congratulations are due to the chairs of the sessions and the organising committee. There was, however, an issue with the final day of the symposium. The first four days all started at 9.00am with a keynote lecture. The last day, on the morning after the conference banquet, had only 9 talks scheduled. Unfortunately, these started at 8.30am, so it was no surprise that at 8.30am in the morning in the session in which I was presenting (which I am admittedly, slightly bitter about) there were two chairs (one of whom was drafted in last minute), the three presenters and only one other audience member. This scheduling was unfair to those who were asked to present or chair these final sessions. Future symposia should take this into account.

After I left the 2011 IAFSS Symposium, I was left wondering whether it had met the objectives of the association, as presented in the rules of the association given to every member:

“The object of the Association is to promote research into the science of preventing and mitigating the adverse effects of fires and the dissemination of the results of such research. In furtherance of this object the association will organise and support symposia and other educational activities in the field of fire safety science, publish the proceedings of such symposia (provided it shall not undertake any permanent trading activities), seek to co-operate with other organisations concerned with the application of fire safety science and do all such other lawful things as may further the objects of the Association”.

The IAFSS does focus on issues of fire safety science on the international scene, but it is the association aspect of this community that I feel is struggling somewhat. The definition of association, according to Dictionary.com is:

1. an organization of people with a common purpose and having a formal structure.

2. the act of associating or state of being associated.

3. friendship; companionship

On the first two aspects of the word, the conference delivered to some extent, and on the third aspect the working friendships and associations were well represented, but are these professional friendships actually helping or hurting the association – is the association too close? It seemed to me that we accepted the presenters’ statements and ideas, rather than being convinced by them, we did not question enough what people were saying or why they were saying it, and we did not discuss or debate enough the further implications of the work presented. Are we scared of losing our status and no longer being pioneers in the field, let alone the wider world? Do we strive to be noticed and liked rather than producing excellence in our work which might ruffle a few feathers? Are our associations with one another too polite and self-edifying? Do we need to rethink what the association is about, or are we happy with the way things stand?

Food for thought....

By David Rush

Defining the Future of Fire Safety Engineering Education

The 2011 LRET/UoE Global Technical Leadership Seminar in Fire Safety Engineering

Last year, BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh secured a major grant from The Lloyd's Register Educational Trust (LRET), to hold a series of three annual week-long intensive seminars ("think tanks") in areas related to Fire Safety Engineering.

This series of seminars was motivated by the need to have a new generation of leaders in Fire Safety Engineering that can drive the field through the drastic transition it is currently experiencing. An ever evolving construction industry, drastic changes in regulatory environment, multi-disciplinary drivers for innovation, and ever increasing demands for the fire service require a new face of leadership. The seminars are intended to bring together selected leaders of today with the leaders of the future to define a coherent path for different areas of critical importance to the field.

The globally unique initiative was launched this year with The 1st Annual LRET/UoE Global Technical Leadership Seminar in Fire Safety Engineering. The seminar had the theme of "Education for the Future of Fire Safety Engineering," and was held in Scotland between 30 May and 3 June 2011. Participants were selected as key players in defining the future of advanced fire safety engineering as a professional/academic discipline.

The seminar was run as a five day retreat, delivered by the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at a residential venue close to Edinburgh. Each session began with a presentation to be given by one of the participants (see below). This initiated discussions on the relevant issues. A small group of undergraduate and graduate students, some of whose stuudies are also financially supported by The LRET, were also competitively selected to join the seminar, bringing the total number of participants to approximately 20.

The University of Edinburgh further funded a dedicated PhD student (Michael Woodrow) to support the seminar. Along with Edinburgh staff and the seminar participants, Michael will compile the outcomes of the seminar and disseminate these (with the approval of the participants) to the relevant stakeholders. Dissemination activities will include the publication of a "white paper" based on the seminar's discussions and outcomes.

All of the participants felt that the event was a great success and will lead to a number of important changes, actions, and significant progress for fire safety engineering education globally. Feedback icipants has been very positive thus far, and several participants have formulated specific personal action items within their own organizations.


Participants pose for a group photo outside the Seminar venue, Archerfield House Estate, near Gullane, Scotland. From left to right: Sarah Higginson, Michael Franklin, Ieuan Rickard, Eduardo Maciel, Michael Woodrow, David Crowder, Bjorn Karlsson, Jose Torero, Luke Bisby, Peter Johnson, David Mallin, Kathleen Almand, Chris Lawless, Thouria Istephan, Peter Sunderland, Angus Law, Agustin Majdalani, Paul Jenkins, Cristian Maluk (not shown: Neal Butterworth, Maria Garlock)


PROGRAMME AND PARTICIPANTS

The venue for the 2011 seminar was Archerfield House Estate, in Gullane, Scotland. The participants are listed in the table below, in alphabetical order:



The programme for the seminar was built around presentations on issues around fire safety, delivered by selected seminar participants. A list of the presentations is provided below:

“Why The LRET Funded this Programme”
Michael Franklin (Director, The LRET)

“The State of Fire Safety Education”
Jose L. Torero (Director, BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering)

“The Current Needs of Industry/Consultancy”
Peter Johnson (Arup Fire, Australia)

“The Current Needs of Architects”
Thouria Istephan (Foster + Partners, UK)

“The Swedish Model - How Sweden Implemented Change”
Bjorn Karlsson (Director, Iceland Construction Authority)

“Societal Barriers to Technological Knowledge Transfer”
Chris Lawless (Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation, University of Edinburgh)

“The Evolution of Codes and Standards”
Kathleen Almand (Director, Fire Protection Research Foundation, USA)

“Introduction to the Scottish Fire Services College and Firefighter Training in Scotland”
Gary Stewart (Programme Manager – Practical Skills, Scottish Fire Services College)

“How do we train people in the fire service today?”
David Mallin (Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade)

“Tomorrow's Needs of the Fire Service given Current Evolution in Building Design and Regulatory Processes (Knowledge, Training, and Changes in Practice)”
Paul Jenkins (London Fire Brigade)

“Structural Engineering/Architecture/Fire Safety –How are People Educated at Princeton?”
Maria Garlock (Princeton University)

“Fire Protection Engineering Education in the USA”
Peter Sunderland (University of Maryland)

“Learning Lessons from Fire Incidents”
David Crowder (BRE Fire & Security)

“Proposals for the Way Forward”
The LRET Scholars (University of Edinburgh students)

“Conclusions and Discussions on White Paper”
Michael Woodrow (PhD Candidate, University of Edinburgh) and Luke Bisby (Reader, University of Edinburgh)


HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE

Seminar participants were exposed to one full day of training and presentations at the Scottish Fire Services College, in Gullane, Scotland. Activities included introductory breathing apparatus training, hands-on flashover and flame cooling training, and a smoke movement demonstration and training exercise. This unique, practical experience was the first time that most of the participants had participated in such activities, despite most being global leaders within the fire safety community, and was a real eye-opener for everyone involved. On the back of this collaboration between the BRE Centre and the Scottish Fire Services College, discussions are underway to launch additional collaborative and joint training programmes. The most recent issue of the Scottish Fire Services College Newsletter highlights this (see link).



Seminar participants get first-hand experience at tackling real fires in buildings (training activities and photograph graciously provided by Gary Stewart of the Scottish Fire Services Training College, Gullane, Scotland)


INITIAL OUTCOMES

The discussion and ideas generated during the Seminar are being distilled and summarized in a “white paper” on fire safety engineering education. This work is being led by PhD student Michael Woodrow, in collaboration with Dr Bisby and Prof Torero, and it is expected that this will lead to the publication of an archival journal paper. Once published, this work will be circulated widely both within and outwith the fire safety engineering community. It is expected that this will catalyze further discussion on the important issue of education within the broader fire safety community.

Feedback from the applicants has been uniformly positive (see below), and in general there is a clear consensus that the Seminar provided a unique and productive opportunity to think deeply about the significant issues facing the Fire Safety Engineering discipline generally, and about the education of Fire Safety Engineers specifically.

Spontaneous correspondence and communication has occurred between several of the Seminar participants, and independent dialogue is now occurring around the issue of fire safety engineering education. The intangible benefits and possible outcomes of such ongoing communications are difficult to quantify but can only cause positive change within the fire safety community.

The International Association of Fire Safety Sciences has recently reinvigorated its Education Committee under the part leadership of 2011 Seminar participant Prof Björn Karlsson, and it is expected that the seminar outcomes will influence the actions of this committee.


PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK

“I want to say how stimulating the week at Archerfield was to me, and how beneficial it will be to the entire community of Fire Safety Engineering. It is a rare pleasure to have people from such diverse professions come together for a common cause. I learned more than I ever could have imagined. Thanks for including me in this week of stimulating discussions. I have never experienced anything like this before. It was a great experience for me and everyone there. Our entire field will be the beneficiary.”
- Dr Peter Sunderland, University of Maryland

“It was a fantastic week. Very valuable time. I think we are all very grateful to Michael (Franklin) and The LRET for the opportunity. And of course we all loved the fire training, for which we are most grateful to David (Mallin)... I think we all started to learn about the real challenges of fire fighting. Many thanks to you Luke, Jose, and all from the University of Edinburgh for all the organization. An excellent time.”
- Peter Johnson, Arup

“I want to thank you for everything you did during and before this week, I am so glad that you included me in this event. I had a great time, and I had the chance to meet great people. I want to do something in Mexico about (creating) fire engineering courses after I spend a few years learning and getting more experience in Europe, but I think this week helped me to have an idea at least on where to start and where to look for information.”
- Jorge Eduardo Maciel Franco, LRET MSc Scholar

“Thanks again so much for the opportunity to be a part of this workshop. I found it very valuable!”
- Maria Garlock, Princeton University

“Very thought provoking, the process turned my ideas on education around quite a few times and I feel more informed on the subject as a result. The company was wonderful and the surroundings too.”
- Prof Björn Karlsson, Iceland Construction Authority

THANKS

The BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering would like to extend our deepest thanks and appreciation to The Lloyd’s Register Educational Trust for making this unique event possible, and to its Director, Mr Michael Franklin, for his enthusiastic and active participation in the week’s activities and discussions; it is indeed rare to find a patron with such a demonstrated interest in The BRE Centre’s work.

Many thanks to all those who attended!!

Planning is already underway for the 2012 LRET/UoE Global Technical Leadership Seminar... more information will follow... stay tuned...

Dr Belcher takes Earth System Science position at University of Exeter

Congratulation to Dr Claire Belcher who has got an academic position at the University of Exeter as a Senior Lecturer in Earth System Science.

She will join the College of Life and Environmental Sciences there in January 2012 to continue research on the flammable history of the Earth and plans to maintain strong links with us.

She is sorry to be leaving the FireLab but is looking forward to living in the warmer south and setting up her own research group.

NOTE: Yes, you are right. Claire has promoted directly from Research Fellow to Senior Lecturer without resting at the Lecturership level. That I see as the take off of a stellar career indeed.

PhD defense of Jamie Stern-Gottfried on Travelling Fires for Structural Design

Dear All,

I’m very happy to convey the news that Jamie Stern-Gottfried has successfully defended (with flying colours) his PhD viva, “Travelling Fires for Structural Design (pdf)” this morning in Manchester.

The viva was instructive and educational for all (candidate, supervisor (Guillermo Rein), internal examiner (Luke Bisby), and even external examiner (Colin Bailey)), and Jamie has only very minor corrections to make before he can insist (as I'm sure he will!) on being called Doctor.

In the words of Prof Bailey, all of the questions were “extremely well answered” and the thesis was beautifully defended.

Congratulations to Jamie (and to Guillermo) for this novel and important piece of work!! I can only hope that Jamie’s penchant for collaboration with structural engineers continues in the future...

Luke Bisby
Internal Examiner

(sent on Fri, 15 Jul 2011)

Call for papers: Fire Technology special issue on WTC Collapse

Fire Technology, the journal of the National Fire Protection Association published by Springer, is preparing an issue on the 2001 fire and collapse of World Trade Center.

The purpose is to collect research, forensic and engineering output of the highest scholarly standards synthesized in the 10 years passed since the event.

Multidisciplinary and international contributions are especially encouraged. Topics of interests include: WTC 1, 2, 5 and 7, the crash, fires, structural response, collapse, forensic conclusions, experiments, modelling, Fire and Rescue intervention, human behaviour, building design, post-collapse fires and recovery, previous attacks on WTC and related subjects.

Submissions will be accepted until 11th Nov 2011 at: http://fire.edmgr.com (choose article type "World Trace Center") .

The call for papers flyer can do downloaded here. Please spread the word, we are looking for a wide range of high quality submissions.

For further information, contact the Associate Editor of this special issue: G.Rein@ed.ac.uk, Dr Guillermo Rein, The University of Edinburgh.

A New York City fireman calls for 10 more rescue workers to make their way into the rubble of the World Trade Center. Photo form Wikipedia, United States Navy ID 010914-N-3995K-01

Ove Arup Foundation supports groundbreaking Fire Safety Initiative

The Ove Arup Foundation have made a major investment to tackle the obdurate problems surrounding fire safety. Working with Edinburgh Fire Safety Engineers at the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering and Architects at the University of Edinburgh, The Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI) will explore how to ensure the effective adoption of technical advances in the built environment.

The Ove Arup Foundation has agreed to invest £200,000 over the next 5 years in a major interdisciplinary research and knowledge transfer initiative aimed at Integrating Technical and Social Aspects of Fire Safety Engineering Expertise (ITSAFE).

"We are excited to explore new approaches to reducing risks from fire, which still kills too many people. While there have been significant technical advances in fire safety, further progress will be limited without changes in policy and regulation and in the practices and responses of professions and organisations involved and the wider public."

--Sir Duncan Michael, Ove Arup Foundation trustee and former chairman

What are the barriers to adopting the latest improvements in Fire Safety Engineering? Do existing fire safety regulations and systems inhibit the adoption of new and safer materials and techniques? Can we integrate fire safety with other goals such as building aesthetics, security and environmental sustainability? These and other pressing issues will be addressed by the ITSAFE project, which builds on an earlier Arup Foundation award which has helped to establish the world class Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh.

The ITSAFE team – comprising Robin Williams, Stewart Russell, Donald MacKenzie, and Steve Yearley from ISSTI, Luke Bisby and Jose Torero from the BRE Centre, and Remo Pedreschi and Liam Ross from the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture – will examine how changes in policy and professional practice can improve current fire safety.

ISSTI Director Robin Williams welcomed the Ove Arup Foundation's generous support:

"This reflects our success in putting together an interdisciplinary consortium, bringing together social science, fire safety engineering and architectural design, equipped to examine these complex questions".

In the coming year ITSAFE will be recruiting an ambitious scholar to lead this research programme and a PhD student to build expertise in this area. Anyone interested should contact Robin Williams at R.Williams@ed.ac.uk.

Writing a good journal paper introduction

I have been serving as an Associate Editor of an international journal for over two years now. In that time I have seen over 400 papers submitted to the journal and have been responsible for ushering a percentage of them through to publication. What follows is a personal opinion and is not the opinion of any journal or publishing house.

We (the reviewers and editors) frequently guide the authors through one or more revisions to their papers before they are deemed ready for publication. For a number of papers, particularly when they were written by non-English speakers, there is a need for considerable editing of the manuscript to bring it to an acceptable standard in terms of language. I don't mind this. For many papers we require that more explanation or analysis is included in the main content of the paper. This is fine by me.

But one aspect of many papers continues to annoy me. And that is poorly constructed an uninformative introductions.

An unreasonably high number of journal paper introductions contain a section similar to this:

The [topic of interest] was first identified by Researcher et al. (year). Someone & Other (year) studied the problem in more detail. The issue was studied using computer modelling by Modeller & Geek (year). Navier & Stokes (year) compared different modelling techniques within this area. More recently Experimentalist et al. (year) confirmed the existence of the issue in a series of laboratory scale tests.

And so on. Imagine that padded out to a whole page of text. Basically just a list of names and references. The problem I have with this is all it really tells me is which papers the authors have heard of. It doesn't even tell me that the authors have read these papers. It rarely tells me what Someone & Other actually did or what their conclusions were. While these details are actually what I need to know.

This is my plea. If you are writing a journal paper, please do not write introductions like this! A good introduction only needs three elements:

1. A short section explaining to the non-expert reader why the topic under consideration is relevant and worthy of study, and
2. A section summarising the conclusions of past research into the topic. This should not be a list of names, but rather a brief discussion of facts or theories.
3. A very short section which explains why the methodology used in the present study was chosen and why it will provide new insights.

If you intend to work in one field for a significant period of time (e.g. you are doing a PhD) and are likely to publish several papers on related topics, then a great idea is to publish a review paper and simply refer to that in the introductions to all your other papers.

Finally, I would recommend that when you are writing a scientific paper, that you write the main content first, and then go back and write the introduction. You only need to cite papers in your introduction that are actually relevant to your study within the topic. Your introduction only needs to provide the reader with two things:

1. Enough information regarding previous work so that they can understand your work, in context. And,
2. Sufficient references to relevant publications so that the reader can tell that you know enough about the subject that your research / opinion is worthy of consideration.

So, in summary, please keep introductions short and full of content, not names. Thank you.

Water mist in tunnels - First hand experience

What follows are some personal reflections on my attendance at the SOLIT2 project workshop in Gijon, Spain, on 22nd & 23rd June 2011. But first, some context.

As might be expected for somebody who has worked in Fire Safety research for over a decade, I have seen quite a few experimental fires. We regularly fire test things in our lab and I've seen plenty of fires with heat release rates in the range of 300-500 kW. I have also seen fires in our lab as big as 700-800 kW and have seen the reactions of people to fires on this scale. They generally start backing away slowly and start feeling uncomfortable, both with the level of radiant heat they start experiencing and the 'what would happen if...' thoughts that start going through their minds.

Those fires are the limit of what our lab can handle (we can go transiently to 1000 kW - that is, 1 MW - but we rarely go that big). For various reasons, I've also been witness to some larger fire tests in the burn hall at BRE, for example, I've seen a pool fire that was a little over 2 MW and a solid plastic fire that was also about 2 MW. I've stood a few metres away from such fires and know what the radiant heat feels like. 2 MW is a big fire. When we did the Dalmarnock Fire Tests a few years ago, the peak heat release rate (for an entire living room / home office on fire) was around about 5 MW. 5 MW is a big fire.

But when we start talking about design fires for tunnels, we start hearing numbers like 30 MW or 100 MW and its hard to grasp just how big a fire that means.

So when I got the opportunity to witness an alleged '100 MW pool fire' in the San Pedro de Anes test tunnel, well, how could I refuse?

The SOLIT2 workshop was held in a nice hotel in Gijon, Spain, and featured not one but two visits to the nearby TST test tunnel to witness fire tests with water mist. These were allegedly not demonstration tests, but were part of the SOLIT2 test programme, investigating the abilities of a water mist suppression system to mitigate the effects of a fire in a tunnel.

The workshop started at the hotel on Wednesday 22nd June 2011. The first presentation, by Stefan Kratzmeir of IFAB, gave the context of the SOLIT2 project - the aim is to develop and test water mist technology to either:

1. Achieve the same same level of safety in a tunnel with a water mist system at a reduced cost compared to other common tunnel safety systems (i.e. by installing water mist, you can 'trade-off' and reduce the specifications of other safety systems, such as structural fire protection, or ventilation systems, etc.), or
2. Achieve a greater level of safety in a tunnel with a water mist system at the same cost as would be spent on other systems (i.e. still trading off systems).

So it was clear from the outset, the objective of this project was to reduce costs without increasing risk. But enough on the presentations, we were rapidly shipped off to the test site to witness a large pool fire test.

The fire was not 100 MW as advertised. It was probably about 50-60 MW, which is still [insert adjective or expletive of your choice] big! The 700 l of diesel fuel was distributed across 7 large rectangular fuel pans (each at least 2 m.sq). Once lit, the fire grew rapidly in severity (as pool fires do) and soon we (the observers, standing about 45m upstream of the fire) found ourselves looking up at a layer of smoke billowing across the ceiling above us. This is the dreaded phenomenon of 'backlayering' - even though there was a longitudinal flow of about 2 m/s, it wasn't sufficient to drive the smoke away from us.

It became clear that this hadn't been an intentional part of the demonstration. Some of the Fogtec and IFAB people started looking worried. But the water mist system (spanning a stretch of 50m of tunnel straddling the fire location) was started about 90 s after ignition (I think the intention had been to start it after 60 s) and soon the backlayering began to shrink back and ultimately vanish into the mist.

What rapidly became clear was that the water mist was not extinguishing the fire. It was hard to tell from an observer's point of view, but it appeared that the water mist was also not suppressing the fire, at least, not using the dictionary definition of suppressing (which involves concepts like halting growth and reducing size). The fire appeared to burn at about the same level of severity while the water mist operated. However, what the mist achieved was a reduction in backlayering, possibly due to a reduction in smoke production, or possibly due to a reduction in the buoyancy of the smoke. The mist also provided thermal protection for the tunnel structure and (had there been anyone there) from the people in the vicinity of the fire.

After the pool fire test we were returned to the hotel for an odd lunch of nibbles and finger food and an afternoon of fairly uninteresting presentations (in which the same point was made over and over again - you can trade off other systems against water mist. OK. I get it). Apologies to the speakers, if they're reading this, it wasn't that they were all boring, it was just that I'd heard most of it before, and there was a lot of repetition.

Day 2 of the workshop featured another presentation on the findings of the SOLIT2 project and then another coach trip to the test tunnel. This time, the fire test was to involve a 'simulated truckload' - that is, lots and lots of wooden pallets, arranged in the basic shape of a HGV trailer, covered by a tarpaulin and held in place by a steel frame. The fire was lit, the fire was allowed to grow for about 4 minutes, and the water mist system was activated.

Once again, the mist did not extinguish the fire. Indeed, the fire grew from about 3-5 MW at the point of activation of the mist to about 20-25 MW while the mist was active. But in this test, we (the observers) got the chance to put on waterproofs and approach the fire location.

Here's where the context above comes in. I know what it feels like to stand about 2 m away from a 1-2 MW fire. I now know what it feels like to stand about 2 m away from a 15 MW fire (the size when I approached the fire) in water mist. It feels more or less the same. That is, the radiant heat from a 15 MW fire is attenuated by the mist to such a degree that its similar to the heat flux from a fire a tenth of the size without mist.

And I also know just how wet you get in water mist.

And how good the visibility was. That surprised me. Standing beside the wall on one side of the tunnel, I could clearly see the way-finding lights on the opposite wall. In other words, visibility was still of the order of 10 m.

After about half an hour of burning, the fire brigade were sent in to extinguish the fire. This they could do easily. After this we saw another demonstration of a portable mist system on a burning car (in the open air) and were returned to the hotel for another odd lunch of nibbles and a final summing up session.

So I now have first hand experience of what water mist systems can do for fires in tunnels. They can block heat and reduce smoke production / backlayering.

I have published quite a lot on the subject of the limitations of water mist in the past. Has this experience changed my mind? Well, yes and no.

Yes, in that I now consider heat release rate to be a largely irrelevant parameter when assessing the life safety situation in a tunnel with an active water mist system.

No, in that the workshop still has not addressed some of my other questions, the primary one being 'are water mists systems better than conventional sprinkler systems for fires in tunnels?'

But I've got more to think about and more research to do. This won't be the last thing I publish on the subject of water mists.

Rory Hadden PhD defence

Dear all

It is my pleasure to inform you that Rory Hadden has successfully defended his PhD thesis in the viva exam today, subject to minor editorial corrections.  His studies were supervised by Guillermo Rein and the thesis title was:

Smouldering and self-sustaining reactions in solids: an experimental approach 

The external examiner was Dr.-Ing. Martin Schmidt, Head of working group on Flammable Bulk Materials and Dusts, Solid Fuels at BAM (Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing); I was the internal.

Rory had done a great job exploring the diverse topics of smouldering combustion, from fertiliser fires and fire brand ignitions to the pervasive problems of (unwanted) underground coal and peat fires.  So there was no need to haul him over the coals ;)

Well done Rory!

Stephen

-------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Welch

Lecturer in Computational Methods for Fire Safety Engineering
SAFE MSc Course Director
IMFSE Director of Studies

100 Years Ago... The Empire Theatre Fire

“On 9 May 1911 there was a disastrous fire on stage during a performance by The Great Lafayette. The theatre was full to its 3000 seat capacity for the performance by the popular illusionist. Disaster struck during the finale of his act, the “Lion’s Bride”, which involved the use of tapestries, cushions, tents and curtains to create an oriental setting.


As The Great Lafayette took his bow a stage lamp fell and ignited a st age-drape. The audience was a bit slow to recognise the danger, b eing used to Lafayette’s illusions, and only evacuat ed the auditorium after the safety curtain was rapi dly lowered, and the band struck up the National Anthem.

All 3000 members of the audience walked to safety. The fire on stage took three hours to get under control however and eleven people died, including The Great Lafayette. To add to the mystery days before Lafayette’s death he buried his much loved dog Beauty in Edinburgh. This was only allowed on the condition that he was buried alongside.

Unfortunately for Lafayette, the body of his “double”, who was used in his stage show to aid with the illusions, was buried in his place for a while before his body was found in the theatre and laid to rest with his dog. It is rumoured that his ghost still haunts the auditorium and the Scottish Power Gallery…

After the fire, the stage was rebuilt in three months, and the stars returned, but by 1927 the Empire decided to brace itself for the threat of the talkies by equipping itself for bigger shows.”

Source:

http://www.fctt.org.uk/media/pdfs/festHistory.pdf

http://www.chrishobbs.com/sheffield/greatlafayette.htm

PhD in Robust Upscaling of Smouldering Processes at University of Strathclyde

A PhD studentship is available in Robust Upscaling of Smouldering Processes, with a specific focus on linking results from in situ smouldering remediation (Self-sustaining Treatment for Active Remediation or STAR) experiments in the laboratory (0.003 m^3) to field scale (3 m^3 to 300 m^3 and larger) activities. We are most interested in engineers, physicists, chemists and applied mathematicians with experience or at least a strong interest in combustion and fire sciences. This studentship is offered in partnership between the University of Strathclyde, the University of Edinburgh and the company SiREM.

Supervisor: Dr. Christine Switzer

Co-supervisors: Prof. Jose Torero, Dr. Guillermo Rein and Dr. Gavin Grant


The development of in situ smouldering combustion as a remediation technology (STAR) has emphasized small scale experimentation as a vehicle to understand the different processes involved and to optimize the relevant variables such as ignition protocol and flow rates. These tests have served as the basis under which larger scale tests have been conducted. Larger scale tests have been performed with overall success but with different levels of trial and error that has proven not only costly but having some negative effect in the overall performance. The optimized utilization of STAR in real sites needs to have a clear protocol that will help define the conditions that will best allow scaling-up of laboratory data.

Preliminary assessment of the viability of a site will always be done on the basis of small scale experiments. Definition of the details of the large scale implementation requires the inevitable scaling-up of the information obtained. This can be done via modelling but this requires a detailed understanding of the different phenomena involved. This understanding is currently not complete. An excellent source of information that can allow better understanding of the parameters differentiating small from large scale experiments is the thorough a posteriori assessment of the different large scale tests that have been conducted. While some assessment has been done, it has been mostly qualitative and it has never been directly correlated to small scale behaviour.

The proposal for this studentship is based on the need to develop the scale-up understanding from existing (and future) large scale experiments. The analysis of temperature/emissions/igniter/flow data together with the structure of excavation data will allow better understanding of the large scale tests. This information can be fed into existing (analytic and numerical) models to develop up-scaling tools. Furthermore, this information has to be linked to the wide database of small scale experimental data to try to establish an ideal protocol to use bench scale experimentation for the purpose of assessing site viability.

There is one studentship associated with this advertisement and this student will be based at the University of Strathclyde, UK. The studentship is open to individuals within the EEA only and provides a stipend of £13,590 per year. For further information, please contact Dr. Christine Switzer [mailto:christine.switzer@strath.ac.uk]

We are number 1!

FireScienceDegree.com has just posted a list of the 45 best fire science blogs. And we are number 1!

Thanks!

PhD funding on subsurface fires. Earth and Natural Sciences

A PhD studentship to study peat fires between University College Dublin and University of Edinburgh is available to a student of any nationality. We are most interested in engineers, physicists and chemists with a background on thermal sciences, some experience in laboratory work and an interest on Earth sciences. See below a brief description. For information and application, see PhD Programme in Earth and Natural Sciences at UCS.

Project BIO 3: Characterising the dynamics and environmental impact of subsurface
peat fires by controlled experiments

Principal Investigator: Dr Jon Yearsley (UCD) – jon.yearsley@ucd.ie
Collaborators: Claire Belcher (University of Edinburg); Guillermo Rein (University of Edinburg)

Fire is an increasing global threat to the carbon store and ecosystem services provided by peatlands (they contain 1/3 of terrestrial carbon). Peatland wildfires are extreme events that are becoming more frequent both in Ireland and internationally. Smouldering peat produces 5‐40% of annual global carbon emissions, but these are presently not accounted for by the IPCC7. They threaten the environment (e.g. habitat destruction and greenhouse gas emissions) and human health (e.g. air quality), but our understanding of these smouldering fires is poor compared to flaming fires. The core of the project will study sub‐surface peatland fire behaviour by performing experimental peat burns for a range environmental conditions. The student will develop the experimental protocol at the Centre for Fire Safety Engineering (University of Edinburgh) and then installed at UCD for the majority of the experimental manipulations. This project combines fire dynamics and Earth systems research and builds upon an existing collaboration between UCD and University of Edinburgh. The work has relevance to climate change mitigation/adaptation, managing peatland carbon stores against the risk of sub‐surface fires and the fundamental science of smouldering fire. We are looking for an outstanding student with interest in undertaking experimental research on the interface between fire dynamics, Earth systems and ecological modelling.
There is one PhD Studentship associated with this Project and will be based at UCD

Combustion technology for the remediation of soil contaminants

The next IIE Seminar is on Thursday April 21 at 1 pm, AGB seminar room 3rd floor. Pizza will be served at 12.45pm.

"Self-Sustaining Smouldering Combustion for the Remediation of Organic Industrial Liquids in Soil"

by

Jason I. Gerhard (jgerhard@uwo.ca)
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Abstract
Self-sustaining smoldering combustion is an innovative approach for clean-up of sites contaminated with liquid waste from industrial processes. This approach offers significant potential for the destruction of highly recalcitrant compounds, such as coal tar and petroleum hydrocarbons, for which clean-up options are currently limited and very costly.

Smoldering is the flameless combustion of a liquid or solid fuel that derives heat from surface oxidation reactions; smoldering of charcoal in a barbeque is a typical example. This research, pioneered at University of Edinburgh, was the first to demonstrate that liquid tar in soil may be effectively destroyed via smoldering. Further research has revealed that the process has the unique properties of being self-sustaining, self-targeting, and self-terminating, all of which may make it uniquely cost efficient and technically effective.

This presentation will illustrate the scientific principles behind this remediation concept, and summarize the six years of research that has been conducted to date. The results of experiments from proof-of-concept to the first in situ field pilot study will be presented. This research represents an ongoing collaboration between University of Edinburgh, University of Strathclyde, and University of Western Ontario. The technology has been licensed to SiREM, who is developing the technology under the name Self-Sustaining Treatment for Active Remediation (STAR).


Short Bio
Dr. Jason Gerhard has over 15 years of experience leading experiments and modelling for investigating organic industrial contaminants in the subsurface and their remediation. He graduated with an honours B.Sc. (Eng.) in Geological Engineering in 1993 and an M.Sc. (1995) and Ph.D. (2002) in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). From 2002, he was a Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at University of Edinburgh. Since 2007, Dr. Gerhard holds the Canada Research Chair in Geoenvironmental Restoration at The University of Western Ontario (London, Canada) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. At Western, Dr. Gerhard is co-director of the RESTORE Group (Research for Subsurface Transport and Remediation) with more than 20 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, 4 laboratories, and 3 field research programs.

The Twin Towers: 10 years – 10 Lessons on Sustainable Infrastructure

On Monday 14 March 2011, Prof Jose Torero (University of Edinburgh) delivered the public lecture:

The Twin Towers: 10 years – 10 Lessons on Sustainable Infrastructure

Joint event of The Royal Society of Edinburgh and The Royal Academy of Engineering.

The collapse of the World Trade Center towers represents one of the most dramatic failures of modern structural engineering. One of the most exhaustive and expensive failure analyses in history was conducted in the midst of speculation, controversy and conspiracy theories. In parallel, the world has seen an extraordinary evolution of the super-tall building. Seven of the ten tallest buildings in the world have been built after 9/11. These not only include the tallest four, but eight of these buildings are outside the USA. Furthermore, a strong drive towards sustainability has driven tall building design to levels of innovation never seen before. This presentation will extract, from a decade of questioning and innovation, ten lessons on what is sustainable infrastructure.

A summary of the lecture and the 10 lessons can be read here

Seminars on Flame generated species, and on Amazonian Wildland fires

The Fire Group is hosting 2 seminars next week - see details below

ALL WELCOME

--
Tuesday 8 March, at 1pm
Sanderson Classroom 3
Pizza at 12.45 in Sanderson Foyer

Speaker: Dr Johannes Kiefer, Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Aberdeen

Innovative approaches for the detection of flame generated species

The detection of combustion generated species is an important task from many viewpoints. Firstly, it is essential in the field of combustion research where a major aim is to obtain information about the distribution of the fuel and oxidiser, the products, as well as transient intermediates with high spatial and temporal resolution. This allows the complex phenomena of combustion chemistry, turbulence, heat and mass transfer, and their interactions with each other to be studied. Secondly, combustion species detection is important for environmental and safety reasons, in particular in view of toxic and corrosive products that can cause severe problems when human beings or structures are exposed to them. The presentation will give an overview of recent developments in the field of optical combustion diagnostics using innovative light sources. This includes the use of novel ultraviolet light emitting diodes (LEDs) for the quantitative detection of sulphur dioxide at trace level, and the use of alexandrite lasers, which are actually well known for applications in cosmetic surgery, for imaging of flame radicals.

-
Friday 11 March, at 1pm
AGB Seminar Room

Speaker: Dr Saulo Freitas, INPE Brazil, Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos

Wildland fires in Amazonia as seen from the atmosphere

Biomass burning in Amazonia recurrently releases large amounts of trace gases and aerosol particles to the atmosphere. The consequent change from low to very high atmospheric concentrations of oxidants and aerosols therefore affects the radiative, cloud microphysical and chemical properties of the atmosphere over Amazonia. This seminar aims to summarize current studies and numerical regional modeling at INPE of the biomass burning process and its impacts on weather, climate, and air quality. We will also describe the model developments associated with the estimation of biomass burning emissions, the plume rise mechanism and the fully coupled atmospheric chemistry transport model developed to study and forecast smoke aerosol and trace gas concentrations, weather and air quality.

Dr Rushbrook meets the Fire Tornado

Dr Frank Rushbrook, former firemaster of Edinburgh & Lothians Fire Brigade, and one of the leading players in establishing the fire research group in the 1970s, and the 'Rushbrook' fire laboratory in the early 2000s, visited the lab this afternoon. Here is his introduction to the fire tornado experiment.