Prof. Torero is new Chair of Fire Safety at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

Prof. Jose Torero is the new Chair of the Fire & Safety Working Group at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).

The CTBUH, founded in 1969, is an international not-for-profit organization supported by architecture, engineering, planning, development and construction professionals, designed to facilitate exchanges among those involved in all aspects of the planning, design, construction and operation of tall buildings.

The role of the CTBUH Fire & Safety Working Group is to provide a genuine international cross discipline working party that can review current research and offer guidance and support from the basis of supporting tall building design for the sake of developers, tall building designers and local code enforcement agencies. This is essential under the resurgence of interest in Fire and Life Safety of Tall Buildings following the events of 9/11, but also stimulated by the current vogue in building design to reach greater heights than ever before with schemes of increasing complexity and architectural merit.



The CTBUH profile of Prof Torero says:

José Torero is currently BRE Trust/RAEng Professor of Fire Safety Engineering, Head of the Institute for Infrastructure and Environment and Director of the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. José has authored a book in computational methods for fire safety engineering, more than 20 book chapters and more than 300 technical publications in a broad array of subjects associated to fire safety engineering. He has conducted work on prescriptive and performance based design, forensic fire investigation and product development, conducted detailed structural response to fire, fire resistance evaluation, material selection, life safety analysis, smoke evacuation, detection and alarm design as well as standard and advanced fire suppression systems. José was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and awarded the Arthur B. Guise Medal by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (USA) in 2008, both in recognition of eminent achievement in advancing the Science of Fire Protection. He has participated in landmark projects like the NASA Space Shuttle Hangars in Florida, the 80 storey Heron Tower in London, the Clyde and Dartford Tunnel fire safety design, the investigations of the WTC 1, 2 and 7 collapses, the Madrid Windsor Tower Fire, the Texas City and Buncefield Explosions as well as the Ycua Bolanos supermarket fire.

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

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.

Visit by Prof Fernandez-Pello and seminar on wildland fires

Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Pello, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Dean of the Graduate Division at the University of California at Berkeley gave the seminar "Modeling Wildland Fire Propagation and Spotting" on Friday 27th March.

Abstract
This presentation provides an overview of current capabilities for predicting wildland fire spread, with a focus on formation of spot fires (spotting). Under dry, hot, and windy conditions (such as Santa Anna winds in California), spotting is the primary mechanism of fire spread. Each of the main steps of spot fire formation are discussed: 1) ember/particle generation, 2) particle lofting and transport, and 3) ignition of target fuel beds by heated particles or embers. The presentation concludes with an overview of surface fire propagation modeling and its application to a real fire that occurred in California.

NFPA Journal Latinoamericano profiles our researchers

The December 2008 issue of the NFPA Journal Latinoamericano published short interviews with three of our researchers, Freddy Jervis, Dr Pedro Reszka, and Prof. Jose Torero.






In the interview, Prof. Torero said (translation of the text in Spanish presented above) "During the years that I have worked in this profession, I have always believed that the model pursued by John Bryan (Univ of Maryland) and David Lucht (WPI) is the model to follow. This model focuses on education and invests the largest possible effort on unconditional support to the new generations. Those who presented my nomination to the Guise Medal, reaffirm in a very personal way, my believe that this model is still standing. This gives me a great satisfaction and helps me to continue the fight for even higher education standards in fire safety engineering".

Prof. Torero received the 2008 Guise Medal during the Annual Meeting of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (his talk was "Fire Protection Engineering: Quo Vadis?").

Moving a library

The BRE fire research library has been relocated to The University of Edinburgh. The library consists of more than 1300 box files containing countless books, papers and reports which were in danger of being lost. They were moved by a team from the FireGroup who travelled by truck to BRE at the end of February 2009.

After a shaky start, involving calling the AA from Biggar petrol station due to a broken fuel cap, the 10 hour drive went well. All the boxes were packed in an evening and the following day the team returned to Edinburgh.

The library now resides up three flights of stairs on 48 bookcases, which were constructed by members of the FireGroup. The files now await scanning so they can be made publicly available.

KTP Award Winning Partnership

The Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) project led by the BRE Centre of Fire Safety Engineering at The University of Edinburgh with Powerwall Systems Ltd won the Best Partnership Scotland Award given at a 2009 KTP Awards ceremony in London, 5th March. The project sponsor was The Technology Strategy Board



The project developed a methodology for the integral design of Light Steel Framing systems accounting for the global optimization of thermal efficiency, structural strength and fire resistance. The partnership has enhanced Powerwall's Research and Development Department. The experimental and computational work has led to a PhD thesis and several publications.

Powerwall was a sponsor of the 2006 Dalmarnock Fire Tests and helped to install a fully instrumented LSF wall in the experimental compartment.



NOTE: KTP is Europe's leading programme helping businesses to improve their competitiveness through the better use of the knowledge and technology that reside within UK universities.

Invited seminar by Dr Paul Palmer on wildfire emissions observed from space

On 2 March 2009, Dr Paul Palmer from the School of Geosciences at The University of Edinburgh gave the talk "Vertical transport of surface fire emissions observed from space".

Dr Palmer's talk is part of an ongoing collaboration to bridge the gap between Fire science and Earth science with researchers at the BRE Centre of Fire Safety Engineering and School of Geosciences.

Abstract of his talk:
Wildfires are an integral part of the climate system. Only over the past decade have space-based measurements of surface properties and atmospheric chemistry measurements drawn attention to the widespread nature of biomass burning emissions and their subsequent long-range transport of pollutants. Rapid vertical mixing of trace gases associated with intense surface burning can reach the upper troposphere, with serious implications for interpreting resulting trace gas observations, but the frequency and nature of these events is currently unknown. I will outline a new methodology, based on Bayesian inference, to observe this vertical transport using satellite observations of carbon monoxide, a tracer of incomplete combustion. I will evaluate the method using close-by satellite measurements of aerosol optical properties and lidar measurements.

Six Papers and four Awards at Applications of Structural Fire Engineering - Prague 2009

The Centre presented 6 papers at the International Conference Applications of Structural Fire Engineering, celebrated in Prague on 19-20 February 2009.

Dr Luke Bisby got the Best Poster Award (see poster here) and three of our PhD students - Susan Deeny, Angus Law and Kate Anderson - obtained the young researcher award, and their papers will be published in the Acta Polytechnica (the journal of Czech Technical University in Prague).

NOTE: in addition, two papers were presented by PhD alumni from the Centre

Fire in the 'Luna' Nightclub in Edinburgh, Hogmanay 2008-09

This 'YouTube' footage (below) gives an interesting insight into human behaviour in fire. The BBC news website described the incident (in the early hours of 1st January 2009) as follows:

Fireworks cause fire at nightclub

About 400 people had to be evacuated from an Edinburgh nightclub after indoor pyrotechnics set fire to plastic netting stretched across the ceiling.

The netting melted and fell on to the crowd below, slightly burning two women and a member of staff.

They were treated at the scene but were not taken to hospital.

The fire broke out on the ground floor of the Luna nightclub in Picardy Place, just after midnight. Fire officers are investigating.

What the news report doesn't say is that most of the people there didn't evacuate. They stayed to watch the roof burning. Some even started singing the club anthem "the roof is on fire"!

---

Comment from SW:

"Would be interesting to know whether it was clear to occupants that the fire was not going to spread, i.e. ceiling itself apparently non-combustible. If this was not the case then it is quite scary to see the lack of awareness of an impending disaster, after similar fires have lend to multiple fatalities. Fire awareness training needed?!"

Mott MacDonald presents opportunities in Fire Engineering to students

Mott MacDonald will present opportunities in Fire Engineering to students of the University of Edinburgh

Date and time of event: Monday 2nd March, 1pm - 2pm.
Venue: Sanderson Drawing Office, Sanderson Building, KB.

Mott MacDonald's £900 million business spans 120 countries with 14,500 staff working in all sectors from transport, energy, buildings, water and the environment to health and education, industry and communications.

Mott MacDonald is holding an informal lunch presentation to discuss Fire Engineering opportunities. There will be a short presentation covering the company, recent projects and graduate opportunities followed by any questions.

More information at Careers Service

Visit our Youtube channel in Fire Safety Engineering

Our Youtube channel, launched in Oct 2007, now hosts more than 36 videos of presentations, seminars and events related to our work on Fire Safety Engineering. By Feb 2009, the videos had collectively already been seen more that 2,500 times.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=FireSafetyEngineerin&view=videos

Visit of Dr Manzello from NIST

Dr Sam Manzello, from the Fire Research Division of NIST, visit the group and gave a seminar at the University of Edinburgh on Feb 3, 2009 presenting his experimental work on firebrands and structure ignition mechanisms in wildland-urban interface fires.

Dr Manzello is a dynamic and successful researcher bridging the gaps between combustion, fire and structural engineering. His unconventional expertise and original approach to fire problems was very well received by the group.

The Design Process of Landmark Buildings, by David Scott from Arup NY

David Scott, structural engineer and Principal at Arup New York, has visited the fire group and gave the seminar "The Design Process of Landmark Buildings" on Feb 2nd 2009.

Abstract
The current tallest building in the world is Taipei 101 at 508m; Emaar’s Burj Dubai, by SOM, now under construction, will set the new world record when it tops out at approximately 750m. These buildings are enormous and demonstrate a very high level of confidence in the performance of tall buildings. But few new buildings are targeting the tallest spot, and the drive to be tallest has moved out of reach for most developers. New technology, however, is changing the design landscape faster than ever. Scott will discuss his involvement in a wide variety of very tall and significant building projects around the world and his work toward a better understanding of the key issues that affect tall building design.


Scott's Vita
David Scott, a structural engineer and principal at Arup (New York). He is chair of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, an international body and leading independent authority on planning, design, construction and operation of tall buildings and urban areas.

David graduated with a first class BSc in Engineering from The University of Edinburgh and joined the London office of Arup in 1977 as a structural engineer.

Scott has led Arup’s structural design work on numerous large and prestigious building projects throughout the world. His career in tall buildings started with Sir Norman Foster’s Hong Kong Bank in 1981, where he was involved from concept to completion, as designer to site engineer. He has worked on high-rise buildings throughout the world in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Based in New York since 1998, he has been involved in projects such as the master planning and structural schemes for the Freedom Tower with Daniel Libeskind, and overseas projects in London and Korea. Scott’s additional assignments have included the award-winning design for the international terminal at Hong Kong Airport, the 300m Cheung Kong Center and the 425m Landmark Tower in Hong Kong; the Orca tower in Warsaw, Poland; and the Northeast Asia Tower in Songdo, Korea. He was a team leader working with contractors on the search, recovery and clean-up of the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 attack and was extensively involved in the subsequent industry review of building design and standards. He has authored papers on seismic design, wind engineering, the performance of tall buildings in fire, composite structures and the design of long-span roofs.

2nd call for papers for the 6th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium

In the name of Prof. Albert Simeoni, find attached the 2nd call for papers for the 6th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium to be hold in Island of Corsica in June 2009. Note that deadline for submission of papers has been extended to 1st of March.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Colleagues,


Please find attached the second announcement of the Sixth
Mediterranean Combustion Symposium which will take place on next June,
7-11 in Ajaccio, France.

You are warmly invited to send us a contribution. Please mark your
dairy and distribute this announcement to your colleagues and people
who are interested in combustion science. We look for new results,
from fundamental research to application.

The deadline to submit a full paper (no more than 12 pages, see here) is March 1, 2009.

We remind you that selected papers presented at the Symposium, after a
peer review process, will be published in special issues of:

* Combustion Science and Technology


* Experimental Thermal and Fluid
Science


*Turkish Journal of Engineering and Environmental Sciences



The deadline for sending abstracts for work in progress presentation
(posters) is April, 15.

We will also hold a workshop on Forest Fires the day before the
Conference (June, 7) as it is one of the main research topics of the
University of Corsica. Please add this event in your diary. We will
send you more information soon.

We will do our best to have an excellent Symposium, as it was in
Monastir in 2007, Lisbon in 2005, Marrakech in 2003, Sharm El-Sheikh
in 2002 and Antalya in 1999.

We look very much forward to meeting you in Corsica.

On behalf of the local organizing committee,

Albert Simeoni.

Sixth Mediterranean Combustion Symposium
Porticcio, Ajaccio, France
Date: 7 - 11 June 2009
http://www.ichmt.org/mcs-09

Short report on the 32nd International Symposium on Combustion - Montreal

by Dr Guillermo Rein, The University of Edinburgh.


More than 1,100 delegates from 40 countries participated in the 32nd International Symposium on Combustion in Montreal where 7 parallel sessions took place with 5 plenaries, 554 presentations and about 330 posters during the five-day long event. The McGill campus and the city of Montreal were brilliant choices for the venue, providing easy international access, the right facilities and a vibrant cultural atmosphere. The organization was flawless.

This was the third combustion symposium that I attended. I found it very interesting - not only because I learnt about some of the latest developments in combustion science but also because I met some extraordinary people. By attending the ISC, I continue on discovering the roots of the combustion community, the reasons for the path taken in the past and its current aims.

The fire group in Edinburgh presented three papers:

. Small-scale forward smouldering experiments for remediation of coal tar in inert media

. Carbon emissions from smouldering peat in shallow and strong fronts

. Transport mechanisms controlling soot production inside a non-buoyant laminar diffusion flame

Judging from the Symposium plenaries and paper presentations that I attended or read (about 40 of them), the combustion research community has largely focused again on the fundamental research of topics like detailed chemistry, turbulence models and engines/turbines. This feeling is confirmed by reviewing the programme where these three topics were the focus of 35-45% of the talks. Of the 12 colloquia that made the programme, one was dedicated to Fire Research, my expertise. In this colloquium, there were 31 presentations and 20 work-in-progress posters on fire topics that included fundamental aspects of fires, flame spread, radiation effects, combustion suppression, and fire and the environment.

At times, I had the impression that I had already been there. Similarities, in general lines, with previous symposium contents were patent. From my point of view, there were not many breakthroughs but a general lack of exciting topics, with a few exceptions like the plenary lecture of Prof. Sawyer on energy and environmental problems, the talk of Dr Linne on ballistic imaging, and others. The Symposium contained little applied research and little new topics (ie. less that 3% of the papers addressed new technology concepts). In the meantime, some of the biggest scientific concerns of our time are directly linked to combustion processes but largely ignored by the combustion community for some reasons. For example, emissions, energy and environmental problems were the focus of less than 1% of the papers.

For the next symposium in Beijing 2010, I personally look forward a wave of stimulating applied research, and fresh ideas from outside the box in addition to new detailed fundamental studies of older topics.

I appreciate the partial financial support of the British Section of the Combustion Institute to attend the symposium.

Dr G. Rein

***

NOTE I: Parts of this report has been published in the 2009 Spring Newsletters of the British Section of the Combustion Institute and The International Association of Fire Safety Science .

NOTE II: I asked Prof. Sawyer via the Combustion Institute website if we were doing enough given the great importance of the energy and environment combustion problems? He replied by saying "The debate over the Combustion Institute's role, whether to focus solely on high quality science or to venture into advocacy, has been ongoing for decades. Past decisions to avoid advocacy deserve review. The participation of the new generation of combustion scientists in this debate is essential"

NOTE III: The 5 Plenary Lectures of the Symposium can be watch here

Short report on the 9th IAFSS Symposium in Karlsruhe

by Guillermo Rein, BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, UK.



NOTE: See announcement on papers and awards at the 9th IAFSS Symposium

The 9th Symposium of The International Association of Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) was the first IAFSS symposium that I attended; it was a positive experience all together.

The venue was a good choice. The city of Karlsruhe is an appealing town that offers very good communications, diverse cultural atmosphere, and decent weather (in Sept at least). The conference centre held all the talks, breaks and poster sessions within a small area that helped the attendees have frequent and extensive interactions. The organization and events were impeccable (congratulations to Dieter Brein and his team).

The audience was largely composed of academics and some industrial presence was noted. I would be interested in knowing with more accuracy the average age of the attendees, but I would venture it was around 45 years old. I attended about 20 or 22 paper presentations. My favourite papers were those presented by Lonnermark, Matala, Koo, Rangwala, Hostikka and Marshall. They all have three things in common; the papers were of high quality, the topic was original and relevant, and the presenter was a promising, young, communicative researcher.

The most interesting Plenary Lecture was clearly that of Andy Buchanan, who provided not only a review of the challenges in the field of structures and fires but also a philosophy to understand the problem. Ingason's lecture on tunnel fires and Hadjisophocleous's lecture on design fires were also good. I was rather disappointed with the presentation of the Howard Emmons Invited Lecture since it did not present much science and I personally barely learnt anything from it.

One of the most engaging and substantial part of the IAFSS symposium were the Sunday workshops. They were held on the Sunday afternoon before the start of the 9th Symposium in Karlsruhe. This was the first time such workshops have been held. The workshop topicc were:

.Flame spread modelling
.Structural fire engineering
.Egress modelling

All three workshops were well-attended and feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive. At least the one that I attended (Structural Fire Engineering). We truly had a sincere exchange of ideas from very different views of the problem. Following is a participant's comment on one of the workshops (Structural fire engineering) also published in the IAFSS Spring 2008 Newsletter.

-------
Short Report on the Structural Fire Workshop,
by Allan Jowsey, Arup Fire London

The Structural Fire Workshop organised by IAFSS provided a valuable opportunity for both consultants and researchers in the field to discuss their opinions regarding current practices, techniques and future research opportunities. The workshop provoked good discussion by specifically addressing an issue which relates not only to structural issues, but also fire dynamics and the role that it plays as a fundamental input to structural analyses. It brought together those involved in both sides of the storey as it were - a feature that is commonly lost when a conference creates parallel sessions that effectively separate the two, or indeed separate conferences entirely.

The workshop also provided a good platform for different presentation topics. It was well structured and organised to introduce the topic with an overview of the subject followed by a series of technical presentations and case studies that reflected how the field of structural fire engineering has evolved, is currently being applied in industry and where it may be heading in the future.

Not only did the workshop provide an insight into various aspects of structural fire engineering, but it provided a context into which they could be put. This in itself is valuable for young researchers to appreciate how their work can influence designs in the wider world.
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RAE 2008 results: Edinburgh is 3rd UK Engineering

The RAE 2008 results have now been published.

The Fire Group was part of the School of Engineering submission that was ranked 3rd in the UK and 1st in Scotland in research quality and quantity. According to the analysis by Research Fortnight, in terms of total volume of world-leading research in engineering the top 2 are Cambridge and Oxford. Edinburgh is 3rd and Imperial College 4th.

The Head of School said "This is an extremely encouraging result that recognises the quality, scope and volume of research in our interdisciplinary Research Institutes, addressing major research challenges that include Energy, Bio-Engineering and Fire Safety". It is not often that we see energy and bio associated to fire in an multidisciplinary institution with nearly 100 research staff members (!!).

In other disciplines, Edinburgh was ranked at the very top in Computer Science, Chemistry, Medicine, Architecture, Mathematics, Linguistics, English Literature among others.

The RAE is one of two main sources of research money in UK higher education. Sixty-seven panels of 900 experts look at the work of researchers in discipline and award stars. The higher-education funding councils that mount the RAE use this information to award grants to universities.

* UK research funding and RAE issues are better explained in this article of The Economist: University funding. Chronicle of a death foretold, Jun 22nd 2006
From The Economist.

*Clips and more on the RAE 2008 results at University's website (accessible only from the @ed domain).

* An explanation of RAE results in the context of Computer Science is provided here

Paper downloads Aug 07- Nov 08

These are the statistics per paper in our ERA collection in the period in from Aug 07 to Nov 08.

Take a look and see the most 'popular' ones.

Number of downloads per paper

1,836 The behaviour of concrete structures in fire
1,796 Light Steel Framing: Improving the Integral Design
1,595 How did the WTC towers collapse: a new theory
1,560 Fire Size in Tunnels
1,458 Determination of Fire Induced Collapse Mechanisms of Multi-Storey Steel Framed Structures
1,298 Large-scale pool fires
1,188 A Study of Fire Durability for a Road Tunnel: Comparing CFD and Simple Analytical Models
1,072 Multi-story Fire Analysis for High-Rise Buildings
1,071 Fire Safety in High-rise Buildings, Lessons Learned from the WTC
977 Behavior of Structures in Fire and Real Design - A Case Study
950 Performance of concrete in fire: a review of the state of the art, with a case study of the windsor tower fire
822 Model-based analysis of a concrete building subjected to fire
798 Tall building collapse mechanisms initiated by fire
602 BRE large compartment fire tests – characterising post-flashover fires for model validation
577 Fire Size and Fire Spread in Tunnels with Longitudinal Ventilation Systems.
573 A Case Study on Building Specifications
561 Application of Genetic Algorithms and Thermogravimetry to Determine the Kinetics of Polyurethane Foam in Smoldering Combustion
505 Applications of Computer Modelling to Fire Safety Design
491 Collapse scenarios of WTC 1 & 2 with extension to generic tall buildings
456 Characterisation of Dalmarnock Fire Test 1
449 Caractérisation de la fraction volumique et de la température des suies d'une flamme de diffusion établie en micropesanteur
440 Clyde Tunnel refurbishment: Modelling the performance of the new lining system and drainage channel in the event of a fire
436 Development and validation of a generalised engineering methodology for thermal analysis of structural members in fire
419 Modelling of Structures in Fire: An Example of the Boundary Condition
414 Ignition Performance of New and Used Motor Vehicle Upholstery Fabrics
388 The Application of a Genetic Algorithm to Estimate Material Properties for Fire Modeling from Bench-Scale Fire Test Data
377 The contribution of asphalt road surfaces to fire risk in tunnel fires: Preliminary findings
366 Analysis of thermal fields generated by natural fires on the structural elements of tall buildings
349 Application of a generalised engineering methodology for thermal analysis of structural members in fire
342 Treatment of Design Fire Uncertainty using Quadrature Method of Moments
336 Experimental Observations on the Thermal Degradation of a Porous Bed of Tires
327 In-Depth Temperature Measurements of Timber in Fires
312 Characterisation of the Thermal and Chemical Effects of Energetic Materials not Likely to Detonate
290 Development of an engineering methodology for thermal analysis of protected structural members in fire
288 The Risk Imposed by Fire to Buildings and How to Address It
272 Heat and Mass Transfer in Fires: Scaling Laws and their Application
261 Modeling of One-Dimensional Smoldering of Polyurethane in Microgravity Conditions
260 Modelling the Propagation of Forward and Opposed Smouldering Combustion
256 Smoke buildup and light scattering in a cylindrical cavity above a uniform flow
252 Soot Volume Fraction Measurements in a Three-Dimensional Laminar Diffusion Flame established in Microgravity
248 Sooting Behaviour Dynamics of a Non-Bouyant Laminar Diffusion Flame
245 Computational Model of Forward and Opposed Smoldering Combustion in Microgravity
243 Experiments and Observation of Peat Smouldering Fires
231 Evaluation of a Large Eddy Simulation's Applicability to a Worst Case Fire Scenario
219 Multi-story Fire Analysis for High-Rise Buildings
217 Material Properties that Control Ignition and Spread of a Fire in Micro-Gravity Environments
199 The role of secondary char oxidation in the transition from smoldering to flaming
169 Evaluation of the Extinction Factor in a Laminar Flame Established over a PMMA Plate in Microgravity
166 A novel engineering tool for thermal analysis of structural members in natural fires

Fire Investigation & Fire Dynamics CPD courses in 2009

The BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering offers the following Continuing Professional Development courses for the spring of 2009:

*23rd Fire Science & Fire Investigation, 30 March - 3 April 2009 [Information]. Well-established and popular course, accredited by the Institution of Fire Engineers.


* 4th Fire Dynamics & Fire Safety Engineering Design, 6 to 8 April 2009 2009 [Information]. Invited speakers from Arup and BRE.