Fire Science Show is connecting fire researchers and practitioners with a society of fire engineers, firefighters, architects, designers and all others, who are genuinely interested in creating a fire-safe future. Through interviews with a diverse group of experts, we present the history of our field as well as the most novel advancements. We hope the Fire Science Show becomes your weekly source of fire science knowledge and entertainment. Produced in partnership with the Diamond Sponsor of ...
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In this podcast, I am joining HALLIWELL Fire Research to provide a fundamental insight into fire science. With content that does not require any prior knowledge, we hope to guide the listener from the basics into the real fire science revelations. With an in-depth discussion of past catastrophic fires and the most impactful research, we build a sound foundation on where the knowledge on fire comes from. We also take a look into the future and how the field may change in the coming years. "Un ...
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168 - Fires in Waste Industry with Ragni Fjellgaard Mikalsen
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Fires in the waste industry are not discussed much unless one sees a giant smoke plume in the media, followed by advice to close your windows. In these (rare?) cases, we remind ourselves of the massive industry related to storing, sorting and recycling garbage, and the obvious environmental hazards such fires pose. From 2017 to 2020, Poland experie…
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167 - CFD for consequences and fire growth with Jonathan Hodges
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In this episode we talk with Jonathan Hodges of the Jensen Hughes on his experience with using advanced modelling in the realm of fire safety engineering. Jonathan sheds light on how the modelling is used at various Jensen Hughes offices around the world, highlighting interesting differences they see across their practice. The core of the talk revo…
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166 - Bio-based insulation with Patrick Sudhoff
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In the everchanging world every now and then we get a new driver, that dictates most of our choices. In the current built environment and building industry, carbon dioxide feels like such a driver. We don't like it, we want to get rid of it... One way is to sequester or store large amounts of CO2 in our buildings. Ways to do that - more obvious is …
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165 - Best Practice vs. Appropriate Practice with Arnold Dix
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Is the "best practice" always the best approach to solving an engineering problem? Can we consider "best" and "appropriate" practices synonymous, and if not - how big is the gap between them? Join us as we welcome Professor Arnold Dix back to challenge conventional wisdom in engineering. Focusing on the nuanced distinction between "best practice" a…
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164 - Experiences with AI with Xinyan Huang
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The last time I had Xinyan on the show was in 2021, and we were all excited about the possibilities that AI could bring to Fire Safety Engineering and Smart Firefighting. Three years have passed, and while we are still excited, we can now talk about experiences. What worked and what did not? Where were the challenges, and what was simple? You can o…
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S2E04 | Familiarity and debunking the myth of Panic
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Welcome to Season 2 of Uncovered Witness: Fire Science Revelations! This season, the show's theme is Humans as part of a fire safety engineered system. In this series, we will unravel our understanding of human behaviour in fires and how this complex behaviour may be accounted for in the fire-safe design of buildings. Our understanding of the occup…
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S2E01 | Pre-evacuation time distribution in fire safety engineering
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Welcome to Season 2 of Uncovered Witness: Fire Science Revelations! This season, the show's theme is Humans as part of a fire safety engineered system. In this series, we will unravel our understanding of human behaviour in fires and how this complex behaviour may be accounted for in the fire-safe design of buildings. Our understanding of the occup…
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S2E02 | Response to fire cues and group influence
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Welcome to Season 2 of Uncovered Witness: Fire Science Revelations! This season, the show's theme is Humans as part of a fire safety engineered system. In this series, we will unravel our understanding of human behaviour in fires and how this complex behaviour may be accounted for in the fire-safe design of buildings. Our understanding of the occup…
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S2E03 | Behavioural sequence and role-rule model
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Welcome to Season 2 of Uncovered Witness: Fire Science Revelations! This season, the show's theme is Humans as part of a fire safety engineered system. In this series, we will unravel our understanding of human behaviour in fires and how this complex behaviour may be accounted for in the fire-safe design of buildings. Our understanding of the occup…
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163 - Fire Fundamentals pt 11 - Soot in Fire Safety Engineering
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Soot is perhaps the most complex product of combustion, and at the same time one of the most profound for our everyday fire safety engineering. The topic of soot is not getting much love in the world of fire science, so I’ve chosen to give you a broad introduction to this subject. In this episode of fire fundamentals we will go through: · Soot crea…
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162 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 9 - Jin's experiment on visibility in smoke
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In this episode of Experiments that Changed Fire Science we cover T. Jin’s experiments on the visibility in smoke – two experiments carried out in 1970 and 1971 in Japan that truly changed the way how we model fires and how we design fire safety in our buildings. This episodes presents my recollection of Jin’s experiments, based on the published wo…
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161 - Community evacuation with Enrico Ronchi and Max Kinateder
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Is evacuation of a community during a wildfire largely different from evacuation of a building? How much of the knowledge from the building fires is directly useful in planning and managing such an event, and what stuff is completely different? These are the lead questions for my today's interview with prof. Enrico Ronchi from Lund University and d…
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160 - Fire Fundamentals pt 10 - Flame Spread with David Morrisset
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In the episode 10 of fire fundamentals together with David Morrisset, a nearly graduated PhD student from the University of Edinburgh, we explore the intricate dynamics of flame spread and its crucial role in fire safety engineering. David helps us differentiate between the two primary modes of flame spread, concurrent (imagine upward spread) and o…
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159 - The WUI Problem with Michele Steinberg and Birgitte Messerschmidt
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With two Directors at NFPA - Michele Steinberg and Birgitte Messerschmidt, I'm trying to find an answer to a burning question - "what really is the WUI problem?" The WUI is not just a line on a map with an X distance from the forest... In this episode we try to define what it is, and who is in danger. Instead of our usual conversations looking into…
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158 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 9 - Know your boundaries (in CFD)
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In today's Fire Science Show, we talk about how boundary conditions can make or break your fire simulation models. We'll explore boundary conditions' fundamental role in defining how simulations interact with their environments and how mastering these can lead to more accurate and reliable fire simulation models. I hope we break down some complex t…
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157 - Revising Critical Velocity with Conrad Stacey and Michael Beyer
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A critical velocity episode... who would have thought? Even though I'm not an enthusiast of this approach, I have to admire the new science and researchers striving to improve it. This week I welcome Conrad Stacey and Michael Beyer from Stacey Agnew to talk about their recent developments. We'll take you through the historical development of this c…
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156 - Trigger Boundaries with Harry Mitchell and Nick Kalogeropoulos
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What if you could predict the last possible time to evacuate your community before a wildfire wreaks havoc? What if you had that knowledge years before the wildfires happened and built up your preparedness based on this knowledge? What if you knew how this boundary changes with wind, dry weather and direction? I think you get a knowledge-based deci…
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In this episode of The Uncovered Witness, I've invited Kristen E. Lange from Ogden Murphy Wallace P.L.L.C. In her expertise, Kristen has worked on court cases related to fire safety; in those cases, she has worked with expert witnesses who were fire safety engineers. Trying to tap into this experience, we try to identify "who" is the expert witness…
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155 - New Guideline for PV Fire Safety with Grunde Jomaas
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Misconceptions in fire science are a strange thing. You present countless proof, publish research papers, and carry conversations, and yet… they live their own lives—spreading with no control and cluttering communication. One space is full of them—the fire safety of photovoltaic installations on flat roofs. In the Fire Science Show, we already had …
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154 - Fire Fundamentals pt. 8 - Compartment Fire
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Happy birthday, Fire Science Show! On the 3rd Anniversary of the podcast launch, I'm thrilled to deliver an episode on one of the most fascinating aspects of fire science - the compartment fire. Instead of going through the usual curriculum of the phases of fire, transitioning into flashover and flashover itself, I instead focus on the methodology'…
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I'm very sorry, but I could not finalize the episode to air this week in time, and in consequence, I have chosen to have a short technical break in the podcast. We will return next week with a (hopefully) really exciting episode on compartment fires! It will be kind of a birthday party, so I'm looking forward to that and trying to ensure the episod…
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153 - Fire Safety Engineer of the Future is a Great Communicator
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A few weeks ago in Copenhagen, stepping onto the stage to open the SFPE Fire Safety Conference and Expo on Performance-Based Design, I took a bit of a gamble. I was invited to give an opening keynote, but instead of talking about my fire science and engineering, I've chosen to confront an often-overlooked cornerstone of our profession: communicatio…
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152 - Why we need good standards with Björn Sundström
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In this episode, we dive into standardization efforts for fire safety. An entire universe of testing laboratories, committees, auditors, and certifiers work together to provide product end-user fire safety classification. So, in the end, the user does not have to worry about what the product will do, as its relevant characteristics are well known f…
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151 - Elevator evacuation with Axel Mossberg
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The fire is detected in the building. Please evacuate. Do not use the elevator. I’ve heard this emergency message perhaps a thousand times. It is deeply engraved in my mind to the extent that the moment I hear the first beep of the fire alarm, I know this message will come up. I heard the chime sound, and I knew I should evacuate and not use the el…
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150 - Wind Turbine Fires with Guillermo Rein
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Wind turbine fires - are they an issue, or are they not? In this episode, I am joined by Prof. Guillermo Rein of the Imperial College London, who raised this issue 10 years ago at the IAFSS conference, and I believe we still do not have a clear answer. In this episode, we discuss the fire safety of wind turbines using the layers of protection frame…
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149 - CROSS UK with Neil Gibbins and Peter Wilkinson
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CROSS UK is Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures in UK. CROSS is a confidential reporting system which allows professionals working in the built environment to report on fire and structural safety issues. These are then published anonymously to share lessons learned, create positive change, and improve safety. Find out more about the safety…
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148 - Building Integrated Photovoltaics with Reidar Stølen
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In this episode of the Fire Science Show we go in depth on the Building Integrated Photo-Voltaic systems (BIPV). It is a topic relevant to many fire engineers, and one on which it is very difficult to find a lot of information about. For this purpose I’ve invited Reidar Stølen from RISE and a PhD candidate at Norwegian University of Science and Tec…
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Means of Escape pt. 2 - The Building Automation
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In this mini-series of the Uncovered Witness - Fire Science Revelations, we cover the subject of the means of escape - the technical solutions in our buildings meant to allow for human evacuation in case of a fire. In the second episode of this mini-series, we cover the fire engineering solutions for building automation that influence the evacuatio…
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Means of Escape pt. 3 - The Good and the Bad Signage
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In this mini-series of the Uncovered Witness - Fire Science Revelations, we cover the subject of the means of escape - the technical solutions in our buildings meant to allow for human evacuation in case of a fire. In the third and final episode of the mini-series, we discuss what makes or breaks the design of an evacuation sign. While it may seem …
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Means of Escape pt. 1 - The Exit Capacity
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In this mini-series of the Uncovered Witness - Fire Science Revelations, we cover the subject of the means of escape - the technical solutions in our buildings meant to allow for human evacuation in case of a fire. In the first episode of the series, we discuss exit capacities and flow rates. How do we know how many people can fit in the building? …
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147 - Wildfire Industrial Interface and risk assessment with Eulàlia Planas
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In this episode, we explore wildfire's impact on industrial fire safety with Professor Eulàlia Planas from Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya. Eulalia defines the term Wildland Industrial Interface (WII), a realm where the forces of nature clash with safety and process engineering. In the episode, we highlight that it is not just the exposure to …
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Trailer episode for the Uncovered Witness: Fire Science Revelations
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My name is Wojciech Węgrzyński. I'm a professor at the Building Research Institute in Poland, a fire safety engineer, and an enthusiast for fire. In my podcast, Fire Science Show, I interview experts in the field every week on the newest and best knowledge about fire. Catering to fresh and seasoned engineers, it provides unparalleled professional d…
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146 - Take care of your mental health with Ann Jeffers
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Depression and anxiety are on the rise in both academia and engineering consultancies. Everyone is constantly stressed and pushed to their limits. The system is built this way... And imagine that on top of the inadequate mental health related to the stressful environment, you also struggle with a mental illness. A health condition you did not choos…
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145 - Fire Safety Engineering in South Africa and Beyond with Richard Walls
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In this episode, we discuss the stark realities of fire safety engineering in South Africa (and beyond) as we sit down with Professor Richard Walls from Stellenbosch University. Our journey through the recent history of devastating fires, from truck blasts to the fire that took down the SA Parliament building, lays bare the critical gaps in resourc…
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144 - Design fire generator with Greg Baker
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Imagine if we had a tool that we could use to design a design fire. Instead of simply assuming fire growth characteristics by slapping the alpha-t2 function, use a tool that could tell us which items in a compartment burn and what the characteristics of that fire are. I would say this dream is shared among many fire safety engineers - I think we ca…
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143 - Fire Fundamentals pt 7 - CFD simulations of fires
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In today's fire fundamentals episode, I have chosen a difficult job: explaining how CFD modelling works without the ability to put a single equation out there! It's much tougher than I thought! I hope I've done a decent job, though. I am trying to fill out this niche of talking about CFD at an approachable level. I've noticed there is a ton of 'int…
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142 - Uncertainty in fire measurements with David Morrisset
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If the word 'uncertainty' sounds extremely boring to you, this episode will prove you wrong. I have invited David Morrisset from the University of Edinburgh to discuss his research on the subject. Whereas in fact David is establishing standard deviations, means and other statistical means of quantifying uncertainty in core fire measurements, the re…
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141 - Smouldering in Mass Timber with Harry Mitchell
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This week, I am meeting up with Imperial Hazelab's Harry Mitchell, who is finalizing his PhD thesis on mass timber fires and, quite uniquely - including the smouldering phenomena in those fires. As a part of Code Red experiments run by Arup, Imperial College London and Cerib (which you can learn more about from episode 111 with Panos Kotsovinos) Ha…
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140 - Development and implementation of the SBI test with Rudolf van Mierlo
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Tests in the world of reaction to fire are supposed to be representations of real fire scenarios, allowing us to grasp the characteristics of building products against them. While for the worst scenario (flashover fire) or the smallest ignition source (small flame), the definition is pretty straightforward. However, creating the intermediate method…
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139 - Wind and Fire Interactions for Safer Open Car Park Design
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I've finished my first large research grant! I guess that makes me a 'real' scientist now. Came here today to share some most interesting aspects of this project with you. Not going to bore you all about the wind and fire interaction physics (hey, there is an entire episode 50 devoted to that!), but rather talk about challenges and stuff that perha…
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138 - Getting ready for the Wildfires in Northern Europe with Nieves Fernandez-Anez
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It is interesting to see changes in our profession that happen directly in front of our lives. Climate change and in consequence the changes in the wildfire patterns are one such obvious shift. In Poland, we do not ever have a ‘wildfire’ season, and I was kind of surprised when I discovered this is a thing in the South or in other parts of the worl…
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This episode of the Fire Science Show welcomes once again Adam Barowy from the Fire Safety Research Institute to shed light on the pressing issue of fire hazards in electric mobility devices. In this episode, we give a follow-up to ep. 085 with Adam, which was published one year ago. One year in the world of e-mobility is a lot of time, so we have …
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136 - Fire Fundamentals pt 6 - The fire automation in a building
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In this episode of Fire Fundamentals, we dive into the life-saving choreography of fire detection and building automation systems that must work together in case of a fire. We discuss the roles and challenges related to: fire detection and signalling; control panels and fire scenarios; smoke control and compartmentalization; power and water supply …
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135 - Contemplating a design fire for car parks
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In episode 48, my guest Mike Spearpoint said that in mid '90s, he participated in experiments on vehicle fires, as at that time, there were doubts if the design fires of that time (developed in the '80s) were representative of modern cars. Fast forward 30 years ahead, and we seem to be in a very similar situation. We have limited knowledge on vehic…
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134 - Fire Fundamentals pt 5 - The Evacuation Equation with David Purser
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It's time to learn about "the evacuation equation" from one of its creators. This week I interview prof. David Purser about the elements that go into the evacuation process that help us determine the fire safety of buildings. We go through the components of the Required Safe Evacuation Time (RSET) one by one: detection time alarm time pre-movement …
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QA6 - Reflecting on 2023 and Igniting the Future
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As we close the curtains on 2023, take a walk with me through the unforgettable milestones that have shaped the Fire Science Show. This isn't just a recap; it's a treasure trove of insights and a roadmap to the innovations just over the horizon. We've come so far together, with download numbers soaring and our influence deepening within the fire sc…
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133: Managing EV Fires at Sea with Elena Funk and Magnus Arvidson
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Welcome aboard a journey through the challenges of managing electric vehicle fires at sea with Elena Funk of DBI and Magnus Arvidson from RISE. In this podcast episode, we discuss two large projects devoted to understanding how we can mitigate, suppress and manage EV fires - project Elbas at DBI and project Lash Fire at RISE. Even though the aim of…
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132 - Dis-abling buildings - fire safety features from wheelchair user perspective with Mary Button
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This is an important episode. Our guest for today, UK fire engineer Mary Button, who uses a wheelchair herself, shares some of her own stories and feelings describing the reality for many disabled individuals. Drawing from her own experiences, Mary shares invaluable insights into the cognitive complexities individuals with mobility issues face, phy…
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131 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 8 - Modelling Cardington Fire Tests with Asif Usmani
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In this part 8 of Experiments that changed fire science series we revisit Cardington (previously covered in part 2 - https://www.firescienceshow.com/078-experiments-that-changed-fire-science-pt-2-bre-cardington-with-tom-lennon/), but this time from the perspective of modeling the structure. My guest prof. Asif Usmani of the HK PolyU takes us on how…
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130 - Mass timber fire dynamics with Dr. Carmen Górska
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In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Carmen Górska from OFR Consultants, the recent IAFSS Phillip Thomas Award recipient for the best paper at the previous IAFSS Symposium. In this interview, we touch on preconceived notions about fire dynamics in timber compartments, and Carmen explains how she has learned the intricate physics behind it. The resea…
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