11th IAFSS Proceedings Published

The final version of the Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science are now available online in our digital archive. Prof. Patrick van Hees from Lund University, Sweden edited the volume.

With our papers now indexed by Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic and others, citations and other relevant information should appear soon. Note however that other providers index our papers using their “robots” or “crawlers”, so we do not control how publications are represented once indexed. If you have questions about specific articles, please contact [email protected] and we will do our best to resolve any issues.

We would like to thank Terry Fay of Jensen Hughes for countless hours of technical work which enabled posting and archiving of these publications. 

Philip J. DiNenno

NFPA’s Philip J. DiNenno Prize Awarded to the Affordable Home Smoke Alarm

Philip J. DiNenno
Philip J. DiNenno

In honor of the late Philip J. DiNenno, the highly regarded former CEO of Hughes Associates who passed away in 2013, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Hughes Associates have established the DiNenno Prize to recognize significant technical developments that enhance fire safety. 

The DiNenno Prize was established to create a legacy in the name of Philip DiNenno. In addition to honoring his memory, the DiNenno Prize will encourage and recognize significant technical developments that have an impact on public safety, including building, fire, and electrical safety. A prize committee will consider nominations submitted from around the world. More information can be found at www.nfpa.org/dinenno.

“Phil will be remembered as one of the most outstanding leaders that NFPA has ever had,” said NFPA President Jim Shannon. “He was an extraordinarily effective advocate for fire safety and the most respected person in fire protection engineering of his generation. NFPA is honored to join with Hughes Associates to establish the DiNenno Prize.“

DiNenno was recognized for his many accomplishments in the fire protection field including the NFPA Standards Medal and the Lamb Award. Throughout his career he provided leadership to the fire protection engineering profession, most recently as CEO of Hughes Associates. He served in a number of leadership roles in the Society of Fire Protection Engineering (SFPE), including president, and was awarded the Guise Medal, SFPE’s highest honor. He was the founding editor of the SFPE Fire Protection Engineering Handbook and provided the direction of excellence that is still the charge today. DiNenno also provided leadership to NFPA within technical committees, as chair of the Standards Council, and as a member of the Board of Directors. He was a pioneer in the use of computer fire modeling to understand the growth and effects of fire. He played a significant role in the development of non-ozone depleting fire suppression technologies, working with industry, NFPA, U.S. EPA, the World Bank, and the United Nations. 

“It is our honor at Hughes Associates to not only memorialize our friend, colleague and mentor, but to inspire others to reach further to enhance public safety, just as Phil strived to do in so many different ways for his entire career,” said Wayne Moore of Hughes Associates.

AOSFST 2015 Early Registration Deadline Extended to Aug. 15

A near-final program of the Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology (AOSFST2015), to be held 5-7 October in Tsukuba, Japan, has been announced by the Program Committee. Because notice of the program was nearly one month behind schedule, the due date of the early bird registration has been extended until the 21st of August. The registration discount will be applied if the payment is received on or before August 21, 2015. 

To access the draft program, register for the conference or to learn more about the event, please visit http://aosfst2015.com/. Remember, IAFSS members can register for the symposium at a special discount rate. The IAFSS will also be sponsoring several best paper awards at the conference. 

Fire Safety Science News #37 – December, 2014

The December, 2014 edition of Fire Safety Science News, the official newsletter of the IAFSS is now available online. The latest issue reviews the 11th Symposium in Christchurch, New Zealand and offers many other contributed pieces with fire safety science news from around the world.

 

Fire Safety Science News #37

 

Click here to directly download a PDF of #37 – Fire Safety Science News

2nd European Symposium of Fire Safety Science

With great pleasure, on behalf of the Program and the Local Organizing Committees I announce to you the forthcoming 2nd European Symposium on Fire Safety Science that will take place in the Cultural Centre of European University Cyprus in Nicosia, Cyprus between the 16th and 18th of June 2015.

The 2nd European Symposium on Fire Safety Science aims to bring together young and experienced researchers from Europe and beyond in 5 interesting topics.  The Symposium will be revolved around 5 themes, with the following keynote lectures:

–              Fire Hazards with New Energy Carriers – Guy Marlair (INERIS)

–              Fire Suppression in Large Facilities – Bert Yu (FM Global)

–              Probabilistic Structural Fire Engineering – Luke Bisby (The University of Edinburgh)

–              Forest Fire Research – Domingos Viegas (Coimbra)

–              Fire Research for the Fire Service – Stefan Svensson (Lund University)

Five half-day sessions will be organized, one in each of the above mentioned themes. Each session starts with a keynote lecture, followed by a poster session and finalized with a workshop with summarizing discussions.

For more questions contact the organizers at: [email protected] and visit their website: http://2ndesfss.com/

Survey on fire source modelling from the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors

 There is a lot of activity around the world in the area of fire source modelling [1], and as members of the IAFSS, you have been identified as one of the leading teams working on this topic.  In order to identify research needs and possibly initiate a collaborative effort in this area, the FORUM has decided to develop a review paper of the state-of-the-art in fire source modelling. Your response to the following survey will provide valuable input for this review. Please return completed surveys to Eric Guillaume ([email protected]) before September, 20th 2014.

 In this survey, a distinction is made between the following fire source modelling approaches:

 Category 1: The least complex approach relies on empirical models that predict the burning rate under specified thermal exposure conditions directly based on ignition, heat release rate and/or mass loss rate data measured in a calorimeter.

 Category 2: A slightly more complex approach involves simple analytical models. In this case the burning rate is calculated based on apparatus-independent material properties that are deduced from small-scale calorimeter data (e.g., heat of gasification). As with the previous approach, there is an ignition and a burning rate component.

 Category 3: The third approach is based on detailed pyrolysis models without chemical kinetics. These models obtain a numerical solution of the equations describing the heat transfer through the virgin material and its char (if present) and assume that pyrolysis occurs at a fixed material-dependent temperature. The heat-up to ignition is an integral part of the model calculations.

Category 4: The most complex approach is similar to the previous approach, except that pyrolysis is assumed to occur over a range of temperatures and the rate of pyrolysis is controlled by the kinetics of the thermal degradation reactions.

 If your organization uses different fire source modelling approaches, it would be helpful if you could complete a separate survey for each approach.

Please download the survey to complete and send in here.


[1] With “fire source models” we mean sub-models that are used to predict the generation rate of mass, heat, and species (i.e., the source terms) in fire growth models such as CFAST and FDS.  The focus of the survey is on models that predict the pyrolysis rate of solids.

10th AOSFST

The 10th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology (10th AOSFST) is to be held on October 5-7, 2015 in Tsukuba, Japan.

The first AOSFST was held in 1992 by the Asia-Oceania Association for Fire Science and Technology (AOAFST), which was established under the umbrella of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). The AOSFST has been held periodically about 3 year interval at the midterm of the IAFSS international symposia. The two most recent Asia-Oceania symposia were held successfully in Melbourne, Australia and Hefei, China in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

The 10th AOSFST will include presentations of peer-reviewed papers, key-note lectures by fire researchers invited from the world and poster sessions for a variety of topics and some exciting events.

Asia-Oceania region is among the areas where fire science and technology are developing most rapidly. We heartily invite your participation, not only from Asia-Oceania region but also from regions in the world.

For more information, please visit the symposium website:  http://aosfst2015.com/

 

Timeline of 10th AOSFST

A paper in full manuscript be submitted electronically through EasyChair system. The submitted papers are subjected to at least two independent reviewers. The time line for processing the papers are provisionary planned as below.

Dr. Rita Fahy Appointed Editor of Fire Safety Science News

Rita Fahy @ LundRita Fahy @ LundFrom June 1st, 2014, Dr. Rita Fahy from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has taken over the role as editor for Fire Safety Science News, the official IAFSS newsletter. She will succeed Dr. Guillermo Rein (Imperial College) who has brought our newsletter to a high level both in content and participation of members. I would like to thank Guillermo for his excellent work he did during the years he was editor of the newsletter.
 Rita Fahy @ Lund
Fire Safety Science News aims to be a platform for spreading the work of IAFSS members, and to be the place where fire safety scientists can read what is not readily found elsewhere, thus favoring news and trending research in the field. A digital archive of previous issues can be found online.
I would like to wish Dr. Rita Fahy good luck in her important new role for our organization. She will soon be in contact with all previous contributors and members of the association. If you or your organization is interested in contributing content to the next edition of Fire Safety Science News, please contact Rita directly.
Many Regards,
Prof. Patrick Van Hees
IAFSS Chairman

IAFSS Workshop Reports Released

On Sunday, February 9, 2014, 5 workshops were held on topics deemed as challenging and relevant for fire safety science in the foreseeable future. Efforts on these topics are continuing and participation in this process is encouraged. The main outcome of these workshops is summarized in the reports below. For more information, workshop summaries are available and the workshop leaders can be contacted directly.

Brian Meacham and Margaret McNamee presenting at the Multi-Objective Fire Safety System Design Workshop
Brian Meacham and Margaret McNamee presenting at the Multi-Objective Fire Safety System Design Workshop

Reports

Wildfires and Climate Change

Multi-Objective Fire Safety System Design – Economy, Sustainability and Aesthetics

Education

Benchmarking / Data Sharing 
Evacuation Modeling – Issues and Challenges