Episodes
Feb. 22, 2023
090 - Objective driven suppression system for Swedish tunnels with Ulf Lundström
If you want to design a suppression system for a certain application, you have a lot of technical solutions to choose from and most likely a handful of codes to follow. It seems pretty straightforward for most applications, r...
Feb. 15, 2023
089 - Designing law by disasters (or not?) with Birgitte Messerschmidt
There is no universal answer to the question of how law and testing regimes should be set up. Sometimes, we build up our law after a huge tragedy, making sure that the same cause will not be of harm in the future. Sometimes, ...
Feb. 8, 2023
088 - Modeling fires of natural fuels with Eric Mueller
Modelling ignition and fire of a tree branch with some leaves can't be that much different from modelling burning timber, right? Well, that is the kind of ignorance that can backfire on you... It certainly did on me! I have h...
Feb. 1, 2023
087 - Structural FSE inspired by earthquake engineering with Negar Elhami Khorasani
Performance-based engineering or the use of probabilistic methods in building design are not inventions of Fire Safety Engineering. But we sometimes tend to act like we need to 'discover' and work out everything on our own. I...
Jan. 25, 2023
086 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 4 - Runnehamar tunnel with Haukur Ingason and Anders Lönnermark
Would you rather do 20 published experiments and take your impact factors, or make one that truly changed the world of fire science? Or maybe a different way, would you pursue something that is quick, easy and gives immediate...
Jan. 18, 2023
085 - E-mobility and energy storage hazards with Adam Barowy
Three months ago I saw a video of some sort of an electric scooter going off in someone's residential building. That person had absolutely no chance of controlling that fire. I guess they have escaped, but it must have been s...
Jan. 16, 2023
QA#2 - Turning podcast professional and the outcomes of the listener experience survey
Welcome to Questions & Answers session 02 covering the recent sponsorship opening in the podcast and how the podcast is turning from a hobby project to something more professional, and the summary of the 2022 listener experie...
Jan. 11, 2023
084 - Industry lead research with Steve Gwynne and Mike Spearpoint
In my first episode, I mentioned that I'm doing this podcast to preserve some amazing conversations and share them with a larger audience, as sometimes it is a huge waste of interesting thoughts that remain just between the f...
Jan. 4, 2023
083 - Fire fundamentals pt 1 - Combustion and flame with Rory Hadden
Let's start another mini-series! This time 'fire fundamentals' where we are going to learn some basics from the world's best. It is usually fascinating to do that! Not sure how you feel about it but I would kill for a chance ...
Dec. 28, 2022
082 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 3 - WTC Investigation with Kevin McGrattan
Fire science is often accelerated by tragedies. The same goes for the tools we are using and the methods we know. In the early 2000's we already had some great tools, in fact, it was the era where the paradigm of fire modelli...
Dec. 21, 2022
081 - The origins of FDS with Kevin McGrattan
Has it ever crossed your mind how would our discipline look like, if we did not have Fire Dynamics Simulator? Maybe you had an opportunity to discuss CFD with colleagues from other disciplines, to find their faces in shock an...
Dec. 14, 2022
080 - Adaptive Fire Testing: A new foundation stone for fire safety (ERC StG Grant) with Ruben van Coile
Today is a great day to celebrate with Prof Ruben van Coile of Ghent University, who is most likely the first representative of Fire Safety Engineering to receive a grant within the European Research Councill Starting Grant s...
Dec. 7, 2022
079 - Timber columns failure in the decay phase with Thomas Gernay and Jochen Zehfuss
When the flaming combustion stops and the raging inferno disappears, the environment is still far away from a stable, stationary state. The heat emitted by the fire and accumulated by the structural elements is still on the m...
Dec. 5, 2022
QA#1 - November 2022
Welcome to Questions & Answers session 01 covering the topics brought up in November 2022. In this session you can find answers to the following questions: Fire resistance of joints asked by Millie Wan (answered by Piotr Turk...
Nov. 30, 2022
078 - Experiments that Changed Fire Science pt. 2 - BRE Cardington with Tom Lennon
If Dalmarnock was the reality check for fire modelling, we could call the work carried by BRE at Cardington the birthplace of Structural Fire Engineering. Welcome to episode 2 of Experiments that Changed Fire Science! In thi...
Nov. 23, 2022
077 - Informal settlements - we need solutions not gadgets, Richard Walls
Delivery of fire safety to one billion inhabitants of informal settlements cannot be done through a single solution. No magical extinguishing ball nor hyper-sensitive sensor can solve this issue. As it is not a single issue -...
Nov. 16, 2022
076 - Experiments that changed fire science pt. 1 - Dalmarnock Fire Tests Round Robin study with Guillermo Rein and Wolfram Jahn
Welcome to a mini-series of episodes on experiments that changed fire science. In the first episode, we cover the a prioiri and posteriori modelling task within the Dalmarnock Fire Experiments programme carried out by the BRE...
Nov. 9, 2022
075 - Spacecraft fire safety with David Urban
Dear Terrestial Fire Engineers, let me take you on a journey that will make you experience fire engineering like nothing on our planet. Because in fact, it is the fire engineering of spacecraft for their operations in a zero-...
Nov. 2, 2022
074 - Engineering not magic, intumescent coatings with Andrea Lucherini
Intumescent coatings are not magic. They are a product of amazing engineering, a theatre of thermophysical properties that create an insulative layer that sometimes is the only thing holding fire from destroying a structure. ...
Oct. 26, 2022
073 - Smoke control in shopping malls - uncommon aspects that make or break the system
Long before I started the podcast, my bread and butter was to find clever ways to remove smoke from shopping malls. Actually, I like to believe I was pretty good at the job, given the fact some of the biggest projects in East...
Oct. 19, 2022
072 - Extracting the secret of IMFSE from Bart Merci and Eulalia Planas
Many creators will not agree, but in some cases, copying is the highest form of admiration. And there are things in Fire Safety Engineering that are more than worthy of being copied. One of them is the famous International Ma...
Oct. 12, 2022
071 - Risk as a tool for thinking with Ruben van Coile
When thinking about 'risk' do you view it as a tool? I usually thought about it as a concept or maybe as a measure of 'how safe my building is?', but I have not really appreciated how beneficial it might be when used in such ...
Oct. 5, 2022
070 - Fire resistance is whatever you want it to be with Piotr Turkowski
Today we talk fire resistance, but unlike you have ever heard. Join me and Dr Piotr Turkowski - two fire laboratory professionals in an honest discussion about their craft. The challenges in standardization and committee work...
Sept. 28, 2022
069 - Challenging fires at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) with Michael Gollner
Why so many researchers are spending their time tackling fire issues at the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI)? What is so challenging about this? We always lived near nature, why today this emerges as one of the 'hottest' topics...