Visit by Dr Jomaas and seminar on Spherical Flames

Dr Grunde Jomaas, Lecturer in Fire Safety at Technical University of Denmark (DTU), is visiting the fire group and will give a seminar on Wed 2 Sept at 1pm in the Alexander Graham Bell Bldg. seminar room (3rd floor).

Dr Jomaas is a 2008 PhD graduate from Princeton University. In 2001, he got a BSc in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland (where he worked with Prof Jose Torero). After a year of research at Ecole Centrale Paris, he move to DTU Denmark in 2009. On top of his academic position, he is active in consultancy as a fire safety and combustion expert.


Seminar Abstract:
Experimental Observations of Propagation and Stability of Spherical Flames

High-fidelity experiments were conducted to define the transition boundaries of both cellular and spiral flame front instabilities, and also to determine cellular flame acceleration constants for outwardly propagating spherical flames in a dual-chamber design that allows near-constant experimental pressures up to 60 atmospheres. The flamefront movement was monitored using schlieren cinematography and recorded with a high-speed digital camera. The instant of transition to cellularity was experimentally determined for various fuels and fuel mixtures and subsequently interpreted on the basis of hydrodynamic and diffusional-thermal instabilities. Furthermore, exciting observations of spiral waves and target patterns over propagating flame surfaces in rich hydrogen-air, rich hydrogen-oxygen, and lean butane-oxygen-helium mixtures are shown to be well described by the Sivashinsky criterion for instability.



* See 2007 paper on Journal of Fluid Mechanics, "On transition to cellularity in expanding spherical flames".

Blind vs Open fire modelling

I always wanted to start a debate on this topic and now think that a better way is using the blog.

Three years after The Dalmarnock Fire Tests, the 'a priori' vs. 'a posteriori' debate in is still not too popular in the fire modelling community. The debate seems to be mostly taking place in personal communications and during the peer reviewing of papers. Unfortunately, not much is happening publicly or at the reach of the fire community as a whole.

Figure 1: Dalmarnock Fire Test One as seen from the outside, 18.5 min into the fire. (from [ Abecassis-Empis et al, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 2008]).

The problem is the following (summary). When making comparisons of modelling results to experimental measurements, there are two general approaches that can be followed: a priori (aka blind) and a posteriori (aka open). In a priori simulations, the modeller knows only a description of the initial scenario. The modeller has no access to the experimental measurements of the event and thus will be providing a true forecast of the quantities of interest. In a posteriori simulations, before the simulation is run the modeller knows the initial scenario and also how the fire developed (ie via the experimental measurements). Most fire model validations in fire engineering has been conducted a posteriori.

Only comparison of a priori and a posteriori simulations of the same event allows to investigate the possible effect that maybe has been introduced by prior knowledge of how the event developed. The importance of this effect in fire safety engineering is currently an advanced research topic and under study by different research groups.

The 2006 Dalmarnock Fire Tests conducted in a high-rise building were used to look into the problem. An international study of fire modelling was conducted prior to Dalmarnock Fire Test One. The philosophy behind the tests was to provide measurements in a realistic fire scenario with very high instrumentation density (more than 450 sensors were installed in a 3.50 by 4.75 2.45 m compartment). Each of the seven participating teams independently simulated the test scenario a priori using a common detailed description. Comparison of the modelling results shows a large scatter and considerable disparity among the predictions and between predictions and experimental measurements. These results tend to shock, please and anger the audience in equal parts. See Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Evolution of the global heat release rate within the compartment. Comparison of predictions and experimental measurements. (from [Rein et al, Fire Safety Journal 2009]).

An exception to the relative silence of the fire community are the two magazine articles of Dr Alan Beard from Heriot-Watt University. These can be accessed here:

• Reliability of computer models in fire safety design, April 2008 in the magazine Industrial Fire Journal.
• Role Models, Aug 2009 in the magazine Fire Risk Management

First note that I disagree with blanket statements like "a predicted result from a model cannot be assumed to be accurate; ie to reflect the real world". Our work also shows that fire simulations provides fire features that may be good enough to be applied towards engineering problems if a robust and conservative methodology is defined. A prerequisite for this methodology is that it can use predictions with crude levels of accuracy and that it applies appropriate safety factors. But Dr Beard has an important point in that 'real world' fire engineering applications are most frequently applied to simulate events which real behaviour had not been (and will never be) measured. These simulations are a priori simulation, not a posteriori. However, most fire model validations in fire engineering has been conducted a posteriori. I certainly agree with Dr Beard on this one; we need more a priori comparisons of fire modelling and address full model validation. What is the effect of prior knowledge of the fire development? Would the validations provide the same conclusions if conducted a priori? The problem is not unique to fire engineering and any discipline dealing with complex simulations tools should be facing this question. I do not know how other disciplines cope with it.

The differences between a priori and a posteriori modelling become patent when comparing the round-robin results with the work conducted after the Dalmarnock data was publicly disseminated. Subsequent studies (Jahn et al. 2007, Jahn et al. 2008 and Lazaro et al. 2008) show that it is possible to conduct a posteriori fire simulations that reproduce the general fire behaviour to a satisfactory level. This was achieved due to the availability experimental data of the real behaviour for reference, allowing for iterations until an adequate input file was found.

I would like to finish with the same final words I use when presenting the results in conferences and seminars. We, the authors of the Dalmarnock round-robin, are professionals of, and supporters of, fire modelling. We want fire modelling to improve and be developed further. Our daily work goes in that direction.


I am interested in hearing your comments.
.Guillermo Rein.




NOTE #1: All the relevant information, book and papers about The Dalmarnock Fire Tests are accessible in open access here.

NOTE #2: There are two points about Dalmarnock that need to be emphasised since are often misunderstood. These are:

• The aim of our a priori work was to forecast the test results as accurately as possible, and not to conduct an engineering design with adequate conservative assumptions or safety factors.
• Experimental variability was one of our greatest concerns and that is why the scenario was designed for maximum test reproducibility. The Dalmarnock Fire Test One was benchmarked against a second test to establish the potential experimental variability. Results show that the scatter of the a priori simulations is much larger than the experimental error and the experimental variability together.

NOTE#3: No matter how useful and interesting the results from blind simulations are, only three blind round-robins on fire modelling can be found in the historical records of the discipline. The other two are the 1999 CIB and the 2008 French PROMESIS project. All three round-robins overwhelming agree on the results, but the Dalmarnock one was the first to be publicly communicated and the one providing, by far, the largest instrumentation density.

NOTE #4: I initiated a related discussion on this topic in April 2008 in the FDS forum. See here.

Important accidental fires covered by the media - updated

This is a list updated once in a while with the most interesting fire accidents and events in the media.

PD: Special thanks to Cecilia and Adam for providing most of the information here.
---

* Oct 2009 - Peat fire burning since September in the Spanish National Park Las Tablas de Daimiel in Castilla la Mancha is caused by prologued drought and clearly shows the pipe system feeding air to the subsurface fire. In Oct it was affecting 5 ha of land. The Guardian. El Pais (in Spanish), El Pais 2(in Spanish) (video).




* August 2009 - Peat fires in Indonesia have now become perennial during dry seasons Jakarta Post. See here satellite imagines of Borneo on September 15, 2009. Special report on The Economist.




* August 2009 - Los Angeles Fires out of control NYT. A wildfire raging in the mountains north of Los Angeles spread consuming thousands of acres of national forest land and threatening at least 10,000 homes. The fire was blamed in the deaths of two firefighters who were retreating from flames that overran a camp.



* August 2009 - Greek fires roar with gale force winds. BBC News(video) timesonline. About fifteen thousand residents of Athens's northern suburbs were forced to leave their homes as large areas of forest were burnt. Some residents have refused to leave, choosing to fight the fires with whatever they can lay their hands on. Nearly 2,000 firefighters and soldiers are engaging the blaze on the ground, together with hundreds of volunteers.



* August 2009 - Blame it on turbulent eddies. Timesonline (video). The attempt to break a world record by igniting 114,000 fireworks in less than a minute ended up in a 6.5s explosion witnessed by 200,000 people who lined the seafront in Bournemouth, UK. The managing director blame on the weather forecast.

* August 2009 - Report of Australia's worst peacetime disaster has called for a radical overhaul of the bushfire warning system. BBC News

* August 2009 - Fire chiefs support "fire safe" cigarettes in Scotland. BBC News. Some 44.8% of fire deaths in Scotland in 2007/08 were attributed to the smoking problem. The state of Vermont in the US introduced legislation in 2005 to ensure that all cigarettes were fire safe - and subsequently recorded no fire deaths attributed to cigarettes in 2007 and 2008.

* August 2009 - 4,000 people evacuated in Canary islands. Timesonline. Some 250 firefighters, two helicopters and five planes are involved in tackling a forest fire in island of La Palma, the cause of which is unknown.

* July 2009 - Fire claims four lives in Spain. BBC News(video) CNN. Four firefighters in Spain have been killed while trying to tackle a blaze at a nature reserve in the north-east of the country. Two firefighters also suffered injuries in the incident, the worst to occur since 11 firefighters died nearby in 2005. The fire in Horta de Sant Joan in Tarragona province had been under control but winds revived it, trapping the four firefighters. Some 8,000 hectares (nearly 20,000 acres) have already burned in Aragon, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,600 people. More than 800 Spanish troops are also fighting numerous forest fires across Spain.

* July 2009 - Firefighter dies in Edinburgh pub blaze as floor collapses. guardian.co.uk BBC News(video)

* July 2009 - Indonesia may experience more severe peat fires this year because of an extended dry season raising the prospect of choking smoke blowing across neighbouring states. Reuters.

* July 2009 - Dozens of fire-fighters battled a massive blaze at a club in Edinburgh BBC News



* July 2009 - 17,000 residents flee wildfires in Canada. BBC News(video). Wildfires near a western Canadian city have forced the evacuation of around 17,000 people. More than 150 firefighters are tackling the blazes in British Columbia, with support from 10 helicopters and eight water bomber planes.

* July 2009 - Blaze in Soho, London. BBC News (video) Timesonline (video). A fire at a four-storey office building in Dean Street, Soho, in the historic area of London. 60 firefighters and 12 fire engines attended the fire which witnesses said started in an air conditioning duct in the building.

* July 2009 - Hundreds flee as military drill sparks bushfire in Marseille. Timesonline(video).

* July 2009 - London: Three children and three adults have died after a fire swept through a tower block. BBC News and BBC News



* July 2009 - Accounts of "volcano of fire" around the town of Mojacar in Spain. BBC News(video).

* July 2009 - The derailment of a freight train carrying liquid gas triggered a
massive explosion killing at least 14 people. timesonline(video).

* July 2009 - Aircraft burst into flames on landing at an airport in northern Iran, killing at least 17 passengers. BBC News(video).

*June 2009 - Four escape firebombed restaurant: three bottles of accelerant were thrown through the window. BBC News

*June 2009 - Mexican nursery fire kills many
BBC News. At least 38 children have been killed in a fire that swept through a state-run day-care centre in north-western Mexico, city of Hermosillo. The fire appears to have started in a tyre depot.

*June 2009 Man sentenced to death penalty for 2006 California wildfires BBC News. A court has sentenced a man to death for the first-degree murder of five firefighters by starting an October 2006 forest blaze.

*June 2009 Bus fire kills 25 in Chinese city
BBC News (video). At least 25 people have been killed and 78 wounded in a bus fire in central China, state media reports.

*May 2009 Building fire in frost Antarctica
BBC News. An isolated hut in Antarctica favoured by explorer Sir Edmund Hillary has burnt down after a fuel leak during a routine inspection at minus 35C.

*May 2009 Firefighters tackle blaze in Edinburgh. BBC News. Dozens of firefighters have been tackling a major blaze in the Dalry area of Edinburgh. When the Lothian and Borders firefighters arrived, they found a two-storey warehouse well alight.

*May 2009 Fire in the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels. BBC News(video). Timesonline. "Journalists working in the press room, known as "the bunker", said they had noticed a steady build-up of smoke for 20 minutes before then, but that the smoke detectors had failed to react." There's a "human behaviour in fire" observation. They were aware of smoke for 20 minutes but because nobody raised the alarm, they didn't leave the building! Would the EU increase funding in fire safety now?



*May 2009 Blaze breaks out at Fire Service College in Gloucestershire BBC News(video). "Twelve fire engines are stored in the building at the college in Moreton-in-Marsh along with 1,200 litres of diesel and 500 litres of hydraulic oil. Eleven of the fire engines have been destroyed at a cost of £116,000 each"

*May 2009 Gas Pipe Fire in Russia, 100 m high flames. BBC News(video)
BBC News(video). "A gas pipeline has exploded in Moscow sending flames 100 metres into the air and setting fire to a nearby building. The Russian authorities have shut off the gas supply to the area and are investigating the cause of the blast"



*May 2009 Californians flee deadly wildfire
BBC News(video). "Thousands of people in California have left their homes as a wildfire threatens the town of Santa Barbara. The rapidly-moving blaze has burned nearly 3,000 acres, leading California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency. "

*May 2009 Gaming hall fire in Ukraine
BBC News(video). "10 people have been killed after a fire swept through a gaming hall in eastern Ukraine"

*April 2009 Commuter train on fire
BBC News. "A commuter train had to be evacuated during the morning rush hour after smoke was spotted coming from underneath the train."



*April 2009 Fire in the Coca-Cola building, London BBC News(video)
The Telegraph. "A fire that broke out in building in Hammersmith, west London, has disrupted bus and Tube services. A fire brigade spokesman said the blaze began in an electrical sub-station on the 6th floor of the Coca Cola building in Queen Caroline Street".

Prof Howard Emmons applied the first fire model in 1980

I just found this interesting old TV show where Howard Emmons speaks of the 1980 MGM Las Vegas fire and of the fire code Harvard. Howard Emmons, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University was one of the fathers of modern fire science. In this fire investigation, Prof. Emmons used a computer fire simulation to study a real fire for the first time in history.



-Go to min 1.52 into the video to watch the interview with Prof. Emmons.
-Go to min 6.40 and 8.00 to watch the fire code Harvard.
-Go to min 7.18 to watch David Lucht and Cone Calorimeter experiments conducted at WPI.


I never met Prof. Emmons, so I really appreciate the opportunity to hear and watch him talk about fire science and fire modelling.

A day off from studies at the Highland Games in North Berwick

by Anna M Jonsdottir, 2009 MSc student in Structural and Fire Safety Engineering.



When there are 10 days until your deadline for the MS.c dissertation what is better than taking the day off to go and breath in the local culture? Well maybe it would have been more logical to sit at home and work, work, work but since my brain was on the verge of overflow or short circuit, the day off was absolutely necessary.

And what a treat! Last Saturday was dry (yes, ALL day!!) and mostly sunny and off I was to the Highland Games in North Berwick. This beautiful small town was full of life and on the ground of the games families sat having picnic and I just walked around taking in the scene.
There were so many different competitions that I cannot name but enjoyed watching nevertheless.



I have always had a thing for men in Kilts and boy did I get my money worth that day! They came in all shapes and sizes (and all ages to!)

At the end of the day all the pipe-bands (around 1500 drummers and pipers) marched through the town and the atmosphere was wonderful.

Even though all this piping still rang in my ears when I lay down on my pillow that night, this day was wonderful and I believe Sunday was more productive in my dissertation work than it would have been if I had not taken this day off.



Anna M. Jonsdottir

Video: Fire Safety in Tunnels: Are Suppression Systems the Answer?

This is a video of the presentation that was given as part of the Institution of Fire Engineers' "Rasbash Lecture" in June 2009. It is presented in two parts.

1974: What is Fire Safety Engineering? by Prof Rasbash

NEW VARIATION ON AN OLD THEME. What is Fire Safety Engineering?

Opening and concluding paragraphs of the Inaugural Lecture presented by Professor D. J. Rasbash on 14 November 1974 at Appleton Tower, The University of Edinburgh.


Opening Paragraph

Well, my Department is called the Department of Fire Safety Engineering. It is a very rare department indeed in a University. Nowhere else in Europe is there a similar animal. There are a few close relatives in North America, but, you might say, many exotic flowers blossom there. Perhaps I imagine a tendency to turn with a sympathetic but questioning eye, asking-"What is this peculiar specimen cast up on the beautiful beach that compromises the academic world of this ancient university?" As Trincolo exclaimed in The Tempest when he stumbled across Caliban on the beach, "Is it man or fish? Methinks it has a very ancient and fish-like smell!"


Concluding Paragraph

Could it be that my subject is neither man nor fish but a gawky representative of a new species? This species could have as its discipline the understanding and thence the bringing of a modicum of control to the hitherto intractable quality called "Safety", a word whose aura must surely extend beyond ourselves to our fellows, to those that follow us and even to mankind. And in the shadow of Safety there is always Risk which comes strongly into the light when the emphasis of our studies turns to the adventurous journey of mankind through time, space and such as might lie between. In pursuit of gaining the measure of Safety and Risk we could well find ourselves ranging unashamedly from Physics to History, why even beyond. For will we not be concerned with bringing what has been called "Acts of God", amongst which Fire has had such a terrible ranking, into the regime under man's control? What impudence, but if true it would be New Variation on an Old Theme indeed!



(This text has been extracted from the "Sabbatical Report" of Dr Jack Watts written while visiting Edinburgh in 1979-1980 describing the rara avis of the Department/Degrees of Fire Safety Engineering in order to draw suggestions for a similar programme in the USA)

'International Science Grid This Week' features article on FireGrid

The article on FireGrid that was produced for EPCC News magazine has been adopted by iSGTW (International Science Grid This Week), as their lead article on 29 July 2009:


Feature - Burning down the house (with FireGrid)
http://www.isgtw.org/?pid=1001917

iSGTW, a weekly newsletter promoting grid computing, has an audience of 15,000 people and is jointly funded by the US Department of Energy, the US National Science Foundation, and by the European Commission.

New International Master in Fire Safety Engineering between Edinburgh, Ghent and Lund approved by Erasmus Mundus

The new International Master of Science in Fire Safety Engineering has been approved by Erasmus Mundus (the European commission's cooperation and mobility programme in the field of European higher education). The joint degree starts in Sept 2010 and involves the universities of Edinburgh (UK), Ghent (Belgium) and Lund (Sweden).

The curriculum concerns a two-year program in four semesters in total. The structure is such that the students benefit from the expertise of each of the partners. The first semester, covering basic topics in fire safety engineering, is taught in Ghent or Edinburgh (student's choice). All students spend the second semester in Lund, with emphasis on enclosure fire dynamics, risk analysis and human behaviour. The third semester is again taught in Ghent (focus on general fire safety engineering) or Edinburgh (focus on fire and structures). The fourth semester is devoted to the Master’s thesis, hosted by one or more of the three institutions.

A number of scholarships would be available for EU and non-EU students.







NOTE: this blog entry has been related to a later entry in the SFPE blog.

Review of the 6th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium

The 6th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium was held in Porticcio, Corsica (7 – 11 June 2009 and was organised by the Universitiá di Corsica Pasquale Paoli.

The conference was well attended by 197 (mostly academic) delegates from institutions all around the world. Topics included many of the usual in combustion science including turbulent combustion, solid fuels, propulsion and engines, pollutant formation, reaction kinetics and new combustion technologies. There were also sessions on applied research in the fields of fire and explosions and forest fires. There was a strong emphasis during the conference on bridging the gap between fundamental combustion research and applied forest fire research.

This was realised by a special workshop session as well as 3 sessions of talks on forest fire research throughout the week. These brought together the combustion, forest fire and fire safety communities to address some of the open questions in the field. The workshop included talks from the leaders in the communities who detailed their concerns and their views on the direction in which they felt the field should be taken. It focussed heavily on the work needed to create robust models to predict wildfire spread. The key aspect that came from this session was the need for the research to unite and determine a common framework within which individual research could be undertaken. However, it seems a leader has yet to emerge.

Many of the presentations in the forest fires sessions were the highlight of the symposium presenting new approaches to modelling. Of particular originality was the paper by Rossi et al. on the use of stereovision to determine geometric fire front characteristics imaging of wildfires. Another excellent paper was written by Pérez et al. on the use of infrared data to determine the effectiveness of aerial forest fire suppression.

The plenary lectures generally focussed on detailed research on the state of the art of combustion research. An excellent talk was given by Prof. Hai Wang of the University of Southern California in which he presented a novel use of combustion in the production of dye sensitised solar cells. Such work provides an accessible and novel contribution of combustion science to relevant problems.

It was reassuring to see some papers presented by young researchers in the early stages of their careers. I hope that this continues to allow new ideas to propagate through the field and allow new collaborations between many research groups. Young researchers were again well represented in the poster session which gave a broad insight into the early stages of a wide range of combustion research.

In general, the conference was a success. Though very academic in nature with few delegates from industry, strengthening these links could allow for more novel applied research to be undertaken allowing the community to grow. The location and hospitality were excellent (especially the food) and the timetable was well designed allowing plenty of time between sessions to allow discussions and networking (as well as trips to the beach!).

D. Peter Lund Award 2009

Prof Dougal Drysdale has been named as a recipient of the SFPE's 'D. Peter Lund Award' for 2009. The award presentation will take place at the SFPE annual meeting in Arizona on October 19th.

The D. Peter Lund Award was established in 1997 to recognise 'significant contributions to the advancement of the professional recognition of the fire protection engineer'.

The award this year is shared between the seven editors of the SFPE handbook of fire protection engineering.

International excellence in consultancy in fire safety

Edinburgh Global profiles the Fire Group work as "world class expertise that puts Edinburgh on the map as a leading centre for consultancy in fire safety".

Short Review of 20th BCC Flame Retardancy Conference, Stamford, June 2009

by Nicolas Bal and Guillermo Rein, University of Edinburgh.



The 20th Annual Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials, was held in Stamford, Connecticut, on June 1-3, 2009. The venue was well chosen (as had been in previous years), specially for its good location near NYC, and nearby airports. The organization was flawless. In total, 35 papers were presented arranged in six sessions (General Papers, Halogen Flame Retardants, Nanocomposites, Industrial Applications, Environmental and Toxicity Issues, and Testing). The audience, about 70 people, came primary from the USA and Europe and a significant fraction were industry representative.

The conference had its two main strengths in the emphasis on the needs of industry, and the diversity of speakers, which allowed to see a broad range of points of view on flame retardants' future (fire, chemistry, new polymer formulas, regulations, toxicity...). However, the majority of the presentations focused on the detailed decomposition chemistry of retardant formulas in small samples (miligrams to grams) rather than on the burning behaviour at the real scale (~kilograms). Maybe, this is partially due to the historical focus of the retardant industry on passing the flammability tests rather than on real-world behaviour, which unfortunately seem to be significantly different.

The Fire Group at Edinburgh was represented by a invited paper (written by Guillermo & Nicolas) in the first session “General papers and reviews”. The talk, entitled “Solid ignition at high fluxes”, presented the numerical results of solid ignition to explain the unexpected trend in the time to ignition at high heat fluxes (up to 200 kW/m²) in PMMA samples. Results support that the mechanism causing this is in-depth radiation absorption.

Marianne Foley on BBC Woman's Hour

On Monday 8th June, the day before she and her team won the 40th MacRobert Award, Fire Group alumnus Marianne Foley was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

You can listen to the interview here [mp3 | 8 minutes | 3.7 Mb].

Many Congratulations!

Many congratulations to Dr Guillermo Rein (the main contributor to this blog!) and Dr Blanca Antizar-Ladislao (our colleague who works in Environmental Engineering) who are both getting married next month; though not to each other! Guillermo and Cecile are getting married in Edinburgh on the 4th of July, while Blanca and Juan are getting married in Spain a week later.

Blanca & Guillermo at the IIE end of term celebration, Wednesday 17th June 2009.

Alumnus wins UK's biggest engineering prize

Former Univ. of Edinburgh Fire Group member Dr Marianne Foley is part of the team that wom the 40th MacRobert Award, the UK's biggest prize for engineering innovation in Arup's visionary Beijing Aquatic Centre, known as the Water Cube.





Dr Marianne Foley is now a Senior Associate and Fire Safety Specialist in the Arup's Sydney Office. She has been awarded for her innovative work on the Water Cube by the National Association of Women in Construction, the Fire Prevention and Fire Engineers Journal in the UK, and also internally within Arup (the Margaret Law Award for Excellence in Fire Engineering).

Marianne graduated with an MEng at the University of Leeds and then joined the University of Edinburgh to do a PhD in Fire Safety Engineering under the supervision of Prof Dougal Drysdale - thesis entitled "The use of small scale fire test data for the hazard assessment of bulk materials". The project was supported by EPSRC and HSE (the Buxton Laboratory). After graduation in 1995, Marianne stayed on for a couple of years as an Research Associate, continuing with the project.


Follow this link to hear Marianne’s interview on BBC Woman’s Hour.

Short Review of 4th European Combustion Meeting, Vienna, April 2009

by Dr Albert Simeoni, University of Corsica and University of Edinburgh.


The 4th European Combustion Meeting (ECM) was held in Vienna on 14-17 April 2009, organised by the Vienna University of Technology.

It covered most aspects of combustion science and technology, from fundamental physics and chemical kinetics (laminar and turbulent flames, combustion diagnostics, gasification, spray and droplet combustion) to energy systems and technological topics (burners, coal & biomass combustion, oxyfuel combustion, fires, fluidized bed combustors).

The conference was attended by more than 300 delegates, including many students. The conference was structured as the previous ECM meetings around poster presentations and plenary lectures only (no paper presentations). Plenary lectures were given on the following topics:
• Co-firing biomass with coal in fluidized bed combustion systems (Prof. Nevin Selcuk).
• High power density engines - combustion diagnostic challenges and solutions in the industrial engine development process (Dr. Ernst Winklhofer).
• Developments and Applications of Laser Techniques for Combustion Diagnostics (Prof. Marcus Alden)
• Detailed Chemical Kinetic Mechanisms for Combustion (Dr. Henry Curran).
• Chemical Looping Combustion: The Answer to Sequestering Carbon Dioxide (Dr. John S. Dennis).

I found two main advantages in this meeting: the number of delegates and the discussions in front of the posters. The number of delegates – covering almost all topics and research groups involved in combustion in Europe and aboard – made the work presented very diverse and of high quality. The 2:30 long posters sessions, with the possibility to walk around six different exhibitions classified by topic, allowed having good discussions with new and fresh ideas as the work was often presented by PhD students.

The Group in Edinburgh was represented by the work on forest fires conducted in collaboration with the University of Corsica. At the beginning of the fire session, few people stopped at the poster and of these, many were surprised to see such an original topic (forest fires) in ECM. However, after an hour, when people seemed to had seen what was presented in their own topics of expertise, they came back with plenty of questions on our poster and we had good discussions until the end of the session.

This meeting allowed us to have a global and updated view on the work conducted in Europe and very good interactions. The only regret is related to the organisation as some aspects of it, for example the registration procedures and the catering, did not match our expectations.

Fire Engineers' Car Fire up in Flames: a case study

...and on a more personal note, a car fire. The car I was driving last night 'spontaneously ignited' (we think it was a short-circuit - even though that's the general flimsy excuse for when people don't know how fires started, in this case, it IS highly plausible!).

I started by seeing smoke coming off the bonnet. We opened the window and it smelt like smoke. We got out and through the side slit I could see flaming inside the bonnet (I think it started behind the left head light). Luckily we had lots of water in the boot. We started dowsing the bonnet in water but the handle for opening the bonnet was broken so I couldn't get it open.

After two 5 litre bottles of water and no apparent change to the fire, I stood back to call the fire brigade while Dr. Cowlard braved the fire and continued emptying bottle after bottle of water over the hood...nevertheless, he soon spotted flames 'licking' out of the left tyre cap and told me to "get away from the car, now!". Since we were far down a winding dirt track we had to run down and station ourselves at two main turn-offs along the route from the main road to show the fire trucks where to go...I stayed at the closer turn-off and soon saw Dr. Cowlard whiz past, hanging out of a fire truck window. Apparently, by the time the fire crew got to the car, the flames were ~1.5m high off the bonnet. Luckily the fire was extinguished within minutes and hadn't spread past the bonnet and left tyre, but they had to open the hood with a crow bar!

I've attached photos of the 'aftermath'. The poor car is a right-off...luckily the fire brigade arrived when they did as the fields around there are all dry undergrowth!!! We thought we might have to resign from our 'profession', had we started a bush fire!

Anyway - I copied you in on this as before I get rid of the car I was wondering if any more specific photos of it would be useful for anything? Perhaps for the 'fire investigation' course?

Cecilia Abecassis Empis
PhD Student

BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering

Fire is a serious natural disaster but not worth much attention??

A survey commissioned by the Society for Fire Protection Engineers and conducted in Feb 2009 reveals that Americans ranked building safety, comfort and amenities higher than fire safety. Only environmental friendliness was ranked below fire.

The survey reveals that 45% believe fire is the natural disasters that will most likely cause harm to them or their family. Included in this list were lighting strikes (18%), hurricanes (15%), earthquakes (12%) and floods (10%).

58% worry about the dangers of fire less than once a year. At the same time, wealthy Americans think about the risk of fire less frequently than those with lower incomes.

More information at "Society of Fire Protection Engineers Release Results of Public Opinion Poll".

Congratulations to Dr Fletcher for his PhD thesis defense

Ian Fletcher successfully defended his PhD thesis on the 11th of May 2009.

The external examiner was Prof. Ali Nadjai from University of Ulster and the internal was Prof Asif Usmani. The PhD supervisor of Ian is Dr Stephen Welch.

The thesis title is "Tall concrete buildings subjected to vertically moving fires - a case study approach". Ian has published five papers; one review on the behaviour of concrete structures in fire), three papers on the 2005 Windsor Tower fire (2006 SiF, 2006 Fire Safety in Tall Buildings and 2007 Fire Computer Modelling) and a chapter in the book The Dalmarnock Fire Tests: Experiments and Modelling.