The August, 2012 edition of Fire Safety Science News, the newly-renamed official newsletter of the IAFSS newsletter is now available online. The latest issues includes three featured articles on the toxicity and effectiveness of fire retardants, news from the membership, upcoming events and much more.
UMD FPE Team Submits Entry to Flame Challenge
A group of FPE students, research staff and faculty members has teamed up during the last two weeks of March to prepare a video response to the question “What is a flame?” The question was asked by Alan Alda, actor, director, writer and science popularizer, in the form of an open science-outreach competition organized by Stony Brook University’s Center for Communicating Science. This apparently simple question is seen as an example of the type of challenges faced by engineers and scientists who typically struggle to communicate to the general public the relevance, interest and excitement of their work. To make things even worse (as well as more interesting), the “Flame Challenge” question was to be answered in a way that an 11-year-old would find intelligible and maybe even fun.
Because of mid-term exams and Spring Break, the FPE team was composed mostly of graduate students. The team included Paul Marcus Anderson (PhD student), Luis Bravo (PhD student), Haiwen Ding (former FPE graduate, currently a staff member of the UM Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute), Haiqing Guo (PhD student), Vivien Lecoustre (Research Associate), Isaac Leventon (PhD student) and Rosalie Wills (BS student). The team was advised by Professors Stas Stoliarov, Peter Sunderland and Arnaud Trouvé.
Entries to the “Flame Challenge” were accepted in different formats, including writing, video or graphics; the FPE team decided to submit a video. In a matter of a few days, the FPE team wrote a script, performed several experiments, made video recordings, enlisted two 10-year-old children (Jamel Johnson and Anthony Romero) from a local school (Mount Rainier Elementary School) to recite the text, and produced a movie that was then submitted by the April 2 deadline.
Entries have been submitted from all over the world and number up to several hundred (perhaps more than 1,000). Entries will be judged in part by panels of 11-year-olds (the Center for Communicating Science is working towards a goal of more than 10,000 young judges). Go Terps!
To learn more on the “Flame Challenge”, visit the “Flame Challenge” web site, the Center for Communicating Science web site or listen to the NPR interview of Alan Alda by Ira Flatow during the Science Friday show recorded on March 23, 2012.
For more information on the FPE entry to the “Flame Challenge” competition, please contact:
Prof. Arnaud Trouvé
Email: atrouve@umd.edu
Phone: 301-405-8209
A ‘Sound’ Experiment – DARPA Extinguishes Flames with Sound
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is showing off a new system that can put out flames using only sound [1]. It’s part of the U.S. defense agency’s Instant Fire Suppression program. Using two speakers arranged on either side of a pool fire, an acoustic field was emitted and engulfed the flame. The sound increases air velocity, which thins the boundary layer of the flame, making it weak and much easier to douse. “We have shown that the physics of combustion still has surprises in store for us” commented DARPA manager Matthew Goodman in a statement. “Perhaps these results will spur new ideas and applications in combustion research”. Lest you think this is really surprising, here are a couple of earlier mentions of the concept.
First, a Google search leads quickly to the Wikipedia entry for Charles Kellog [2] which cites the following from a 1926 newspaper article: “In The Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday, February 4, année 1926: Sound vibration – Extinguishes Fire: New-York, Feb. 2. 1926: Mr Charles Kellogg, a Californian scientist, give firemen here a demonstration of extinguishing a gas flame two feet high by tonal vibration. Mr Kellogg passed a bow, like an enlarged violin bow, swiftly across an aluminium tuning fork, producing a screech like an intense radio static. Instantly the yellow flame subsided to six inches and became a sputtering blue flare. Another movement of the bow completely extinguished the flame. Mr Kellogg claimed that in future buildings would have a scientifically-determined pitch, with a screech for extinguishing fires tuned in from a central firehouse, where it would be produced by a much larger bow. He said that the General Electric Company was experimenting with the matter”.
Second, from a book The Theory of Sound published in 1896 by Lord Rayleigh, 1904 Nobel Prize winner for Physics [3]: “Singing flames may sometimes replace electrically maintained tuning-forks for the production of pure tones, when absolute constancy of pitch is not insisted upon. In order to avoid progressive deterioration of the air, it is advisable to use a resonator open above as well as below. A bulbous chimney, such as are often used with paraffin lamps, meets this requirement, and at the same time emits a pure tone. Or an otherwise cylindrical pipe may be blocked in the middle by a loosely fitting plug (Phil. Mag. vol. vii. p. 149, 1879).
Vibrations capable of being maintained are not always self-starting. The initial impulse may be given by a blow administered to the resonator, or by a gentle blast directed across the mouth. In the striking experiments of Schaff’gotsch and Tyndall (Sound, 3rd edition, p. 224, 1875) a flame, previously silent, responds to a sound in unison with its own. In some cases the vibrations thus initiated rise to such intensity as to extinguish the flame.”
by Jack Watts. Fire Safety Institute, USA, and Associate Editor of Fire Safety Science News REFERENCES 1. Video: Darpa’s ‘Wall-of-Sound’ Fire Extinguisher, Wired, July 13, 2012. http://www.wired.com/
FREE Student Membership
The Committee of the IAFSS are inviting all Fire Science and Engineering Students enrolled in bonafide courses or with registered PhDs to apply for Free membership of the Association. Membership will be valid until their studies have been completed. Go to Membership Page for details.
Obituary: Nora Helen Jason
After receiving her master’s degree, she accepted a position as cataloger, Sacramento State College, California. Areas of responsibility were: music, American history, psychology.
In 1967 she was selected as an Administrative Librarian with the Special Services Libraries, Germany. Two medium sized libraries in the Stuttgart area serving the service men and women and dependents provided managerial challenges with the American and German staff, library collection building, public relations, programs for the “troops,” including non-reading adults.
In 1969 Ms. Jason was promoted to Head Librarian, Special Services Libraries at McGraw Kaserne (Munich), Hospital Library and Dachau Library. With an Assistant Librarian and Larger staff it was possible to offer many more of the same activities except for a more diverse user population which also included University of Maryland students and retirees.
In 1971 Ms. Jason joined the Office of Fire Research and Safety staff to build a fire safety database for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Aerospace Safety Research and Data Institute (ASRDI). In a short time she was made the ASRDI Project Leader and successfully built the database which is now part of NASA RECON (their bibliographic database). The NASA work stimulated the beginning of the Fire Research Information Services and the building of the fire research collection. The collection has grown from zero to over 60,000 items during this time period. Access to the collection has been automated and national and international users can access the database, FIREDOC, from their home or office via modem, Web or Internet. FIREDOC contains the bibliographic reference, keywords, identifiers and (where possible) abstracts to the items in the collection.
In her capacity as Supervisor of the Fire Research Information Services, Ms. Jason has established national and international document exchange programs with her counterparts. As one of the driving forces of inFIRE (international network of Fire Information and Reference Exchange) she has been instrumental in developing products, e.g., a Union List of Serials, for use by the fire information community. Special projects also have been done for government agencies; for example, NASA, Minerals Management Service. Ms. Jason was an observer at the Federal Pre-White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services held at the National Library of Medicine in November 1990 and the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Service, 1991. Ms. Jason was awarded the US Department of Commerce Bronze Medal in 1977 and 1999. She was awarded the Society of Fire Protection Engineers Director’s Award for the 1992 Outstanding Committee Chair, as the Chair of the inFIRE Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Special Libraries Association, inFIRE, and the Textile Information Users Council.
As a Guest Researcher, Ms. Jason was the Associated Editor of FIRE.GOV. It is an electronic newsletter for the fire service worldwide, bringing news of current international research to them. Technical reports, photographs, videos, and websites provide greater insight to the reader.
Dr Natalia Flores-Quiroz is a researcher with experience in fire safety engineering. She worked for five years as a fire safety engineer in the mining industry before joining academia. She holds a MSc in fire safety from Ghent University, and her PhD focused on Fire investigations in Informal Settlements. Currently she is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University, where her main research areas are reconstruction of incidents in low-income settlements (i.e., informal settlements, refugee camps) and wildland urban interface (WUI) fires.
Bronwyn Forrest is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Waterloo, conducting multi-disciplinary research investigating human physiological response to fire exposure. Bronwyn graduated in 2017 with a BSc. Honours Kinesiology and in 2020 with a MASc. Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering (Heat Release Rate in Ventilation-Limited Furniture Fires) before merging her two degrees in her PhD research. As a senior graduate student in the Fire Research Group, Bronwyn spear-heads large-scale fire experiments, mentors junior graduate and undergraduate students, and has recently set-up a new ‘human exposure lab’ at the Fire Research Facility where she leads new research in that area. Since her induction into the world of fire science, Bronwyn has grown more and more passionate about the multi-faceted nature of emerging fire safety challenges. Through innovative research, she hopes to make meaningful contributions that help shape changes to fire safety over the course of her career.
Dr. (HDR) Eric Guillaume has worked in fire sciences since 1998. He formerly led the fire behaviour department of SNCF (French Railway), then changed company in 2005 to join LNE (The French National Laboratory for Testing and Metrology) as head of Fire safety studies department, and later as head of research for whole testing activities of LNE. Nowadays (since 2015), he works for Efectis France, first as Technical Director and more recently as General Manager of the company, leading one of the most important fire testing and fire safety engineering companies in Europe (With approx. 180 people and 28 M€ turnover)
Dr. Albert Simeoni is Professor and the Department Head of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is the WPI site director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC), an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States. Dr. Simeoni has served IAFSS by being chair or co-chair of the Wildland Fire track (2014, 2020 and 2023), Co-chair of the Awards Committee for the Best Thesis Awards (2023), Associate-Editor of Fire Safety Journal (2010-2015), member of the Editorial Board of Fire Safety Journal (since 2016), and Contributing Editor of Fire Safety Science News (since 2011).
Brian J. Meacham, PhD, PE (CT&MA), EUR ING, CEng (UK), FIFireE, FSFPE, is the Managing Principal of Meacham Associates. He develops risk-informed performance-based solutions to complex building and infrastructure challenges, provides peer-review services, and undertakes building and fire regulatory system studies. He also conducts research in these areas as well as in sustainable and fire resilient built environments and fire safety technologies. Brian has authored more than 300 publications, given more than 300 presentations and has been awarded more than $4M in research funding. His prior positions include Associate Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Principal at Arup, Technical Director and Research Director at SFPE, and fire safety engineer in Europe and the USA. Brian is Chair of the ICC Performance Code Committee, Chair of the NFPA Technical Committee on Fire Risk Assessment Methods, Immediate Past Chair of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS), a Past President of the SFPE, and a past Chair of the Inter-jurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration Committee (IRCC). He is a licensed Professional Engineer in CT and MA, a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), a registered European Engineer (EUR ING), a Fellow of the SFPE, and a Fulbright Global Scholar.
Kazunori Harada is a professor of architecture & architectural engineering at Kyoto University, Japan. He has a career in fire research for over 35 years. He has authored 14 IAFSS symposium papers. His expertise covers the fire resistance of construction materials, smoke movement and control, burning of combustibles in open and compartment, performance-based code & design of buildings and so on. He serves as a vice president of AOAFST, Asia-Oceania Association of Fire Science and Technology. He also serves as the Convenor of ISO/TC92/SC4 WG9, calculation methods for fire safety engineering (FSE), which develops calculation standards concerning FSE.
Enrico Ronchi is an Associate Professor at Lund University, Sweden. His research and education activities are focused on evacuation and human behaviour in case of building fires and wildfires. His work has been published in over 150 publications (including >90 peer-reviewed journal papers). He is currently Associate Editor for the journals Fire Technology and Safety Science and member of the editorial board of the Fire Safety Journal.
Jennifer Wen is currently Professor of Energy Resilience in the School of Mechanical Engineering Sciences, University of Surrey as Professor. Previously, Jennifer held positions at Computational Dynamics Limited (founding vendor of STAR-CCM), British Gas plc, South Bank University, Kingston University London, and University of Warwick. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Vice-Chair for Research for the International Association for Fire Safety Science. Jennifer is also a member and sub-task leader of the European Safety Panel on Hydrogen Safety (EHSP) established by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (now Clean Hydrogen Partnership) of the European Commission. She is an Associate Editor for the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute.
Dr Wojciech Węgrzyński is with ITB, that is the Polish Building Research Institute in Warsaw. He currently holds the position of the Deputy Head of Fire Research Department and the Professor of the Institute, and a Director at SFPE Europe. He is the Author of 40 peer-reviewed papers published in all of the primary FSE journals. His main area of interest is the fundamentals of compartment fire dynamics and standardized fire testing, and also: use of computational fluid dynamics in fire, wind and fire interaction and evaluation of the effects of the spread of smoke in buildings. His research is focused on the impact of the architectural context of the building on the smoke control performance, as well as finding solutions to make the smoke exhaust systems cheaper and more efficient. Member of the Sub-committee for Research of the IAFSS. 2018 NFPA Harry C. Bigglestone Award Recipient; 2019 Jack Watts Award Recipient; 2020 SFPE 5 Under 35 Award Recipient. Member of Editorial Board of ‘Fire Technology. Hosts a fire podcast at 
Dr. Shuna Ni is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her Ph.D. degree at Texas A&M University in 2018 and her Master’s degree at Tongji University in 2013. Dr. Ni’s research focuses on fire forensics, structural fire engineering, WUI fire resilience, fire safety of tall mass-timber buildings and fire-related multiple hazards. Her research has been funded by National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, Fire Protection Research Foundation, University Transportation Centers under the Department of Transportation, Grand Challenges Grants Program at the University of Maryland and industrial partners.
Brian Lattimer, Ph.D. is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech where he performs experimental and computational research on fire safety and disaster resilience. He has nearly 30 years of experience in fire related research. His research areas include material behavior in fires, fire dynamics, suppression agents, heat transfer from fires to surfaces, structural response during fire, and firefighting technology.
Yu Wang is a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He got joint Ph.D. from USTC and the City University of Hong Kong in 2016 and had working experience at the University of Edinburgh, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and National University of Singapore before returning to China in 2020. His primary research areas are high-rise building fire and large outdoor fire. Yu has published over 50 SCI journal papers, and is currently an Associate Editor in Fire Technology and Editorial Board Member in Fire Safety Journal. He initiated the first English fire course at USTC, Introduction of Fire Dynamics, reported by China News and People’s Daily Online (over 260,000 audiences). In recent years, he has received SFPE Global 5 Under 35 Award, Youth May Fourth Medal (Anhui Province), Young Faculty Career Award (USTCAF), and some Best Paper/Presentation/Poster/Image Awards in IAFSS or AOSFST.
ROGAUME Thomas is an Professor at the University of Poitiers – Pprime Institute (UPR3346 CNRS), FRANCE.
Prof. Yuji Nakamura is Full Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT), appointed as Affiliate Full Professor in Center for Fire Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science (since 2014). He currently serves the Head of Energy Conversion Laboratory and appointed as Department Chair since 2024. Prof. Nakamura has made professional service in Fire Science Community served as Management Committee of IAFSS during 2021-2023, worked as Co-chair of LOC in the most recent IAFSS symposium at Tsukuba, acting Associate Editor of Fire Technology since 2014 and board member of Fire Safety Journal since 2017.
Dr Felix Wiesner is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia and study the role of engineered timber in fire safety. I work in the Faculty of Forestry as part of the Wood Science department. My research focus has mostly been experimental, considering fire dynamics in timber compartments and the structural fire capacity of engineered timber products. In addition, I am interested in the performance of timber in exterior building or infrastructure setting. This closely interfaces with wildfire considerations for the wildland urban interface (WUI), especially when it comes to smouldering.
Arnaud Trouvé is Professor and Chair in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park, USA. He joined the Faculty in 2001 with a Ph.D. (1989) and Engineering Degree (1985) from École Centrale of Paris, France, and with previous experience as a combustion research engineer. Professor Trouvé’s research interests include fire modeling and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); application of data assimilation to fire and combustion; and physical modeling of combustion- and fire-related phenomena, including compartment fires, wildland fires and explosions. Professor Trouvé is a Fellow of the Combustion Institute and the recipient of the 2017 FORUM Sjölin Award. He has served on the editorial boards of the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Combustion and Flame, and Fire Technology, and is currently on the editorial boards of Combustion Theory and Modelling and the Fire Safety Journal. Professor Trouvé is also a past Chair of the US Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute (ESSCI) and a past Member of the Executive Board of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). He is a co-Chair of a recent initiative endorsed by IAFSS and called the “IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena” (the MaCFP Working Group) and the past Chair of a new network of leading higher-education institutions and research laboratories in fire safety engineering called the International Fire Safety Consortium (IFSC).
Dr Xinyan Huang is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Fire Safety Engineering. He received his PhD from Imperial College London, MSc from UC San Diego, and BEng from Southeast University, and was a Postdoc at UC Berkeley. Dr Huang is a Combustion Scientist and a Fire Safety Engineer who has co-authored over 200 journal papers. He is an Associate Editor of Fire Technology and International Journal of Wildland Fire, an editorial member of J. Building Engineering, Fire Safety J. and Fire and Materials, a Chartered Building Services and Fire Engineer, a committee member for HK Fire Safety Code, and a Fire Expert for HK High Court. He receives the NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund, Bernard Lewis Fellowship and Sugden Best Paper Award from Combustion Institute, “5 under 35” and Bono Award from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE).