Episodes

We are living in a kind of weird time, where the most complex tool we have is at the same time the most commonly used (and abused one). The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling has brought us amazing capabilities in solving the flows within fires. But this power comes at a price - knowledge, resources, time... Sometimes we lack some of these (or all) and we turn the power tool into a generator of beautiful images that are hardly any representation of the physics of the fire... In this e...

In this episode, I had the pleasure and privilege to host dr Kees Both, the Technical Manager of Standards & Regulations in Etexgroup. Kees wanted to become a suspension bridge engineer, but his route went through a fire lab, and as he said - once you go into a fire lab, there is no way out. From a scientist, he has "evolved" into a research manager, project manager and someone, who has a significant impact on the shape of the standards and legislation in Europe. Kees is also the former Presiden...

What is the single most measured thing in fire science? The answer is easy - temperature. We use it everywhere - from learning material properties in TGA's to expressing conditions in compartment fires. We use it at the same time to define exposure conditions for our structures and the acceptance criteria within them. We even use it in evacuation studies to define the tenability criteria for occupants... We measure temperature. Everywhere and all the time. But is it really the thing we are look...

Did you know that the standard temperature-time curve, which is the underpinning of the fire resistance of assemblies, is over 100 years old? Once you know that, you cannot stop but think about how this affects modern construction works. In this episode, I'm interviewing dr John Gales from York University, who has spent over a decade studying the historical origins of fire testing and the standard curve. John has found some missing links and narratives and has also done a pretty good job confron...

Why do we take certain decisions during an evacuation process? How do we choose the evacuation route? These are often affected by cognitive biases, which is the main theme of today's episode. With Dr Michael Kinsey we will discuss how biases can be used to understand known behaviours and model human behaviour in a more realistic way. A lot of focus is placed on the evacuation modelling, and how the decision-making processes are implemented in the computer models... And in the end, we talk a bit ...

Zone modelling is a technique introduced in 1970's and 80's that has changed fire science. In my personal opinion, along with oxygen calorimetry and the development of FDS it may have been the most impactful tool of fire science. This is why I think its shameful it does not receive the same recognition today. With Colleen we go deep into the zone models, discussing the tool itself and the ways to adapt it to current needs. You will learn how zone models evolved, and what makes them really usefu...

Everyone is talking about AI, but how can we really use it in fire safety engineering and firefighting? Prof Xinyan Huang of HK PolyU will explain his research in this field, and we can consider it as a time travel to the future. We touch on the ideas of AI and machine learning, and what does it really do (and what it does not do). We also investigate Xinyan's most recent research where AI was successfully applied to investigate the location of a fire in a tunnel and predict the smoke layer heig...

In Episode 6, our host, dr Wojciech Wegrzynski, explains his experiences with modelling rapidly growing fires in car parks. Such fire growth may be typical for EV fires that originate in battery and pose a different set of challenges compared to "traditional" design fires used for car parks. The height of the car park is discussed as the variable that has the largest impact on the overall safety of the facility. I discuss the aspects to consider when analysing the safety of a car park for elect...

Today I've talked to Roeland Bisschop, Project Manager in RISE, about his first-hand experience with battery fires. Roeland explained to me how do battery fires look from a scientific perspective, and how my perspective was kind of skewed by viral online videos. I've learnt a lot about fire propagation and products, as well as how to deal with fires that occured. This was a great talk, and I'm sure it will benefit many Fire Safety Engineers out there, who have to deal with this major issue with ...

Dr Matthew Bonner of the Imperial College London is one of the leading scientists touching on the subject of the fire safety of facades. His flavour is tackling the complexity through big data analyses and developing new ways to use AI to help us in future. His research has started few months before the Grenfell, and the tragedy has definitely made more eyes follow his studies. I think he has passed the test and provided useful knowledge that was a starting point for multiple follow up projects....

Let's do this. For the first time... Welcome to the Fire Science Show! My name is Wojciech Wegrzynski, and I'm with the Building Research Institute (ITB) in Warsaw, Poland. In this episode you will learn who I am, where do I come from and why I have decided to start a fire science podcast. I'm sharing my journey from a frontline CFD engineer to a professor at the ITB. I'm still learning fire science, actually, I'm probably spending more time learning than ever in my life. This is why I look fo...

Guillermo Rein is a recipient of ERC Consildator Grant on smouldering megafires. The most challenging source of founding, meant for the projects that can truly change the world. And his HAZE project is just like that - to study a phenomenon that accounts for more than 13% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and takes the lives of thousands (millions?) of people every year. In this episode you will learn about the haze fire chemistry and emissions, they ways to detect them and the directions for the ...

How do you know if a building is safe in fire or not? Usually through performing ASET-RSET analyses, in which you determine how and when the tenability criteria in the building are breached. This is what I discuss with dr Gabriele Vigne. We discuss the overall use of tenability criteria in fire science, and in more details, the use of visibility in smoke. --- LinkedIn Discussion thread --- https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6807702437852442624 --- Links --- Follow Gabriele o...