IAFSS Proceedings indexed by Google Scholar

IAFSS_ProceedingsThe papers hosted in our publication archive have been included in some databases such as Microsoft Academic for some time, but now they are also included in Google Scholar. Citations to the publications in Google Scholar works well and many of the older IAFSS papers are showing hundreds of citations.  These papers include proceedings from the past 11 IAFSS Symposia, Fire Research Notes from the UK Fire Research Station (FRS) and the first seven Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology (AOSFST).

The inclusion of our publications in Google Scholar will increase the visibility of our large repository of open access fire safety science research, increasing citations for our members and making it easier to find related works for the whole community. Our publications have already been indexed with digital object identifiers (DOI) and included in the Crossref database for some time, facilitating citation tracking through a number of other databases.

We would like to thank Terry Fay of Jensen Hughes for the technical edits which facilitated our archive’s recent inclusion. Note that Google Scholar indexes 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 webmaster@iafss.org and we will do our best to resolve any issues.

New teaching resources available

enclosure fire dynamics coverDr. Björn Karlsson has share his teaching material which is based on the textbook Enclosure Fire Dynamics (EFD) and it is now accessible through the IAFSS website. Dr. Karlsson, Dr. Quintiere and former colleagues to Dr. Karlsson at Lund University have, over more than a decade, developed a lot of teaching material used to accompany the textbook. The teaching material includes: PowerPoint presentations, reading instructions, overview of each chapter in EFD, homework assignments and two descriptions of possible laboratories

The IAFSS are very glad that Dr. Karlsson has shared this material and that it now can be freely accessed from the Educational resources page.

 

 

Obituary: Sven Erik Magnusson

Professor Emeritus Sven Erik Magnusson passed away on December 15 2014, leaving family, friends and colleagues in sorrow and grief. Professor Magnusson has been invaluable in the development of both research and education in fire science, fire safety engineering and risk management and societal safety at Lund University.

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In the fire science world he will be remembered as a pioneer and visionary in the area of parametric fires and for the introduction of risk management for fire safety design. Related to fire engineering education he will be remembered as one of the authors of the first curriculum for fire safety engineering published in the Fire Safety Journal in 1995.  Together with the late Prof. em. Ove Petterson he was one of the driving forces during the start-up of the IAFSS (International Association of Fire Safety Science). He was a principal figure in the start-up of the MSc program in Risk Management and Safety Engineering at Lund University and in initiating and leading Lund University Centre for Risk Assessment and Management (LUCRAM) together with Prof. Roland Akselsson.

Prof. Sven Erik Magnusson was born on January 3rd 1938 and he grew up near Lönsboda, in the northeast part of Skåne. He started his university career as PhD student with Prof. Ove Pettersson and defended his PhD thesis in a joint session with Prof. em. Sven Thelandersson. Together they had 3 opponents for the discussion forum. The work of Magnusson and Thelandersson was later used as the basis for parametric fires in the Eurocodes and was considered a pioneering work. He was also active as a researcher in the area of fire development where he was involved in a number of research projects dealing with early room fires in cooperation with SP in Borås. In the start up phase of standardisation of the room corner test, he was chairman of the working group on ISO TC92 SC1.  After the retirement of Prof. Ove Petterson, he was appointed professor at the Department of Fire Safety Engineering. In the beginning of his academic career he became heavily involved in the development of courses for the BSc program in fire protection engineering, together with Robert Jönsson and the staff at the department of fire safety engineering.

In the mid-nineties the focus of his research moved to the area of risk management and societal safety. He started activities such as LUCRAM and introduced multidisciplinary research in the department. Around the same time, he initiated and led the development of the MSc program in Risk Management and Safety Engineering. Furthermore, he led numerous research activities in this area that generated continuous growth of risk-related research at the university. At the end of his career, he always supported the younger generation by leading the development of larger research projects and serving as a mentor for many of the PhD students in risk research.

After his retirement, he still kept close links with the late Prof. Philip Thomas, also a founding member of the IAFSS, and felt a deep sorrow when Philip passed away earlier in 2014.

In addition to being a distinguished academic, Sven Erik was very interested in society and was keen on keeping up with current affairs as well as understanding history. His cultural interests included theatre and classical music, and he was keen on exercising not only the mind but also the body, mainly through spinning classes. He was very passionate about spending time in his country house with his closest family, his beloved wife Lisbeth, their children and grandchildren, and friends.

We will remember Sven Erik as a great researcher as well as a warm and caring person whom many of us have to thank for very much today. Many friends and colleagues from across the world will sadly miss Sven Erik.

Signed: Marcus Abrahamson and Patrick van Hees, with help from Lisbeth, Sven Eriks’ wife

 

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: safety@euc.ac.cy 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 (eric.guillaume@lne.fr) 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