The Workshop "Mathematical Problems in Fire
Safety Engineering" was held on 31 October, at the International
Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Edinburgh. This very successful
workshop was organised by Professor Andrew Lacy of Heriot-Watt
University and Dr Guillermo Rein of the School of Engineering,
University of Edinburgh. Invited talks were given by -
John Dold, University of Manchester
Andrew Lacey, Heriot-Watt
University
Chris Lautenberger,
University of California Berkeley
George Milne, University of
Western Australia
Guillermo
Rein, Univesity of Edinburgh
Albert Simeoni, Università di Corsica
An appropriate venue was chosen
for the workshop. 14 India Street was the birthplace in 1831 of
world-renowned mathematician and theoretical physicist, James Clerk
Maxwell. Funding for the workshop was provided by Bridging the Gaps
Programme, Edinburgh
Research Partnership.
The outstanding research of IIE's Fire and Structures group PhD
student Rory Hadden was heralded at a Scottish Government reception, in
the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle,. Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet
Secretary for Education presented the awards with RSE president Sir
Michael Atiyah. Ms Hyslop said she was delighted to be bringing
together the best talent of the new generation of Scotland's
scientists, to celebrate their progress and encourage further
achievement. Rory gained the recognition for his
achievement in his research work on the way embers spread forest
fires to try to give firefighters a better model for predicting how
flames will spread, helping to reduce the death toll among people and
animals, costly damage to homes, and the devastation of wildlife
habitats.
Many congratulations Rory!
Many congratulations to IIE's prize winners in the recent Royal Society
of Edinburgh poster competition, which formed part of the international
conference on Structures and Granular Solids. Despite
many entries from a wide range of UK and international universities,
four IIE post graduate students won all awards.
Dr Johannes Haertl - Granular Solids overall
winner for his poster "Numerical and experimental investigations of
direct shear tests". IIE Supervisor - Prof Jin Ooi.
Mical Johnstone - Granular solids runner-up for his
poster "Calibration of DEM models using bulk tests". IIE
Supervisor - Dr Jian-Fei Chen
Vijayabaskar Narayanamurthy - Structures overall winner
for his poster "A Novel Method for the interfacial stress analysis of
plated beams"... IIE Supervisor - Dr Jian-Fei Chen
Lei Chen - Structures runner-up for his poster
"The stability of imperfection - sensitive shell structures". IIE
Supervisor - Prof Michael Rotter
So support our research group -
and wear the kilt!
June 2008: Prof Jose Torero - Winner of the 2008 Arthur B Guise Medal from the Society of Fire
Protection Engineering.
Many congratulations to Professor
Jose Torero, BRE
Trust/RAEng Professor of Fire Safety Engineering, who has received the
2008 Arthur B Guise Medal from the Society of Fire Protection
Engineering.
The Medal is one of the two highest international awards in the field
and recognizes eminent achievements in the advancement of fire
protection engineering. Professor Torero is the youngest recipient of
the Award. This is the second Guise Medal awarded to The
University of Edinburgh, the first recipient being Professor Dougal
Drysdale in 1995.
Dr
Barbara Lane, former IIE PhD student and now
Associate Director, Arup, has been awarded The Royal Academy of
Engineering Silver Medal 2008. This award recognises outstanding
and demonstrated personal contribution to British engineering,
which has resulted in successful market exploitation. Barbara's
achievement is in establishing an innovative design skill based on
advanced analysis and the latest research knowledge which has led to
practical and commercially valuable solutions for Arup's major clients
worldwide.
The Atkins Inspire Awards
recognise the outstanding achievements of women working in the built
environment. Dr Lane was finalist in the category of
Inspirational Leader in Engineering.
June 2008: Announcement of Public Lecture
"Structures and Granular
Solids"
We
have pleasure in inviting you to a public lecture to be given by
Professor J Michael Rotter, Professor of Civil Engineering, Institute
for Infrastructure and Environment, to be held in The Royal Society of
Edinburgh, George Street, on Monday 30 June 2008 at
6:00pm.
May
2007: First Prize for Best Paper Congratulations to Dr Guillermo Rein and the Fire and
Structures Research Group, for winning First Prize in the FM Global
awards for the paper "Round-robin study of fire modelling
blind-predictions using the Dalmarnock Fire Experiments" G
Rein, C Abecassis Empis, A Amundarain, H Biteau, A Cowlard,
A Chan, W Jahn, A Jowsey, P Reszka, T Steinhaus, S Welch et al.
The award was presented at the 5th International Symposium on
Fire and Explosion Hazards, 23-27 April 2007. In awarding the
prize, Derek Bradley, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board,
said this paper was truly a unique piece of work in its scope and
ambition, the like of which has not been seen previously in the seminar
series.
Very well done, Guillermo and the
Fire team!
April 2007: BBC
Horizon Programme: 'Skyscraper Fire Fighters'
BBC's Horizon Programme
'Skyscraper Fire Fighters' highlighted the successful work of IIE's FireGrid group, and featured the
recent Dalmarnock
fire tests, undertaken by our Fire Group.
The hour-long programme was
broadcast by -
BBC UK
SBS Australia
RTE Ireland
TVB Hong Kong
Noga Israel
Al Jazeera Qatar
Chello Multicanal Spain
Eidiseis Star Greece
RTL Belgium
Canal Z Canada
Vox Germany
EBS Korea
Documentary Channel New Zealand
Prava
Prevodi Serbia
and BBC Singapore.
Februrary
2007: Institution of Structural Engineers
StudentModelCompetition StrathclydeUniversity 28th February
2007
Third Year Civil & Environmental Engineering
Students have been successful at this annual event for Scottish
Universities.
University
of Edinburgh
entered two teams and out of 12 teams in total took two prizes: First Prize and Fourth Prize!
We are delighted with this success, which demonstrates
the quality of our students, and wish to congratulate our two teams:
Overall
Winners:
Peter Stones
Ben Clarke
Dan Currie
Fourth Prize:
Sam Jewers
Euan Lamont
Steven Betts
Well Done!
August 2006:
Large scale fire
tests in high rise building: to be televised by BBC Horizon
Update April
2007: Programme to be aired Tuesday 24th April, 9pm, BBC2
The BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering, headed by
Professor Jose Torero of the Institute for Infrastructure and
Environment, has collaborated with BBC Horizon and other partners to
conduct a series of large-scale fire tests in a real high rise building
in Dalmarnock, Glasgow.
These experiments attempted to create a realistic
scenario in which a variety of modern fire safety engineering tools
could be tested. These experiments will improve our understanding
of how emergencies of this nature can be handled in the most effective
manner.
December
2006: Early-Stage Research Engineers Award
Congratulations to post graduate student, Charlotte Roben, on winning a
commendation award in this year's Britain 's Early-Stage
Research Engineers Awards, for her undergraduate thesis project
work. Charlotte was presented with the award and £500
cheque, at a ceremony in the House of Commons, on 12 December.
Competition for these awards is always strong. Charlotte 's
award is a very well-deserved outcome from an excellent and imaginative
thesis. Well done, Charlotte !
PhD Student Allan Jowsey wins SFPE International
Award for the Best Research
Congratulations to Allan Jowsey, on achieving the 'Foundation Student
Scholar Award' from the Society of Fire Protection Engineering, USA
- the highest award presented by the Society to a student.
Allan has been invited to attend the SFPE Annual Meeting in Maryland to
present a
technical paper based on his research in Structural Fire Engineering.
Soon-to-be Dr. Allan Jowsey also received the 2005 'David B. Gratz
Scholarship' from the National Fire Protection Association, USA, and
will complete his PhD studies in December 2006.
Very well done, Allan!
August 2006: EPSRC research
project: Prediction of toxic species in fire
Fire safety engineering methods have been rapidly
adopted by industry in recent years, particularly for smoke movement,
evacuation and structural response problems. A missing link is
the prediction of toxic species, such as carbon monoxide, which are
ultimately responsible for most fire deaths. This EPSRC-funded
project will develop innovative generalised methods which account for
toxic species production in both the gas and solid phases, providing
useful new tools for practitioners. Industrial support is
provided by BRE and ArupFire.
July 2006: A bridge designed by
University of Edinburgh Civil Engineering undergraduates has won third
place in this year's National
Bridge Design competition!
The competition's organisers (Corus and the Steel
Construction Institute) asked for designs to enable access to a hotel
across a deep gorge. Recent graduates Chiara Perrone, Martin Weir, Xuan
Chen, Felix Beeson and visiting student Enrico Tubaldi proposed an arch
bridge solution that has minimal impact on the surrounding area.
April 2006:
The Institute finally moves into its new building. Construction of The William
Rankine Building (see News March 2004)
reached substantial completion on 7 April and staff moved in over the
next two weeks.
This £5M development is the result of substantial
investment by the University in this Institute and School and provides
extremely high quality accomdation for staff and also for the William
Dudgeon Laboratories, the institute's environmental and particulate
solids labs. The building also houses the Contaminated Land Assessment and
Remediation Research Centre and the BRE Centre for Fire
Safety Engineering.
The Building will be officially opened by the President
of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Gordon Masterton, later in the
year.
March 2006:
Many congratulations to Professor Mike
Forde who has been elected to Fellowship of The
Royal Society of Edinburgh, in recognition of his international
standing, and outstanding contributions and achievements in the field
of Civil Engineering Construction.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's National
Academy. Election to Fellowship honours outstanding achievement
across all academic subjects - the professions, the arts, commerce,
industry and public life.
This honour comes on top of Professor Forde's election
as Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
November 2005: Professor Jose
Torero presented his inaugural lecture, entitled "Modern
Fire Safety Engineering: An Integrated Discipline” providing an insight
into the current status of Fire Safety Engineering.
The inaugural lecture was preceded by a well-attended Industrial Open
Day, showcasing the work of the Edinburgh Centre in Fire Safety
Engineering. Headed by Professor Torero, the Centre was
established by the University of Edinburgh in partnership with the Fire
Division of the Building Research Establishment.
The Powerpoint Presentation of his lecture can be seen here.
August 2005: A bridge designed by
University of Edinburgh Civil Engineering undergraduates has won second
place in this year's National
Bridge Design competition!
The competition's organiser's (Corus and the Steel
Construction Institute) asked for designs to carry a busy
dual-carriageway road over a ship canal. Recent graduates Susan Deeny,
Kate Anderson, Niall Corrigan, Richard Morgan and Ken Taylor decided
that a bowstring arch bridge is the best solution, and developed a
detail design of the proposal.
October 2004: We are
delighted to announce that Jose
Torero has been appointed to the BRE Trust / RAEng Chair in
Fire
Safety Engineering. He will head the new Edinburgh Centre in
Fire Safety Engineering that has been established by the
University of Edinburgh and FRS, the Fire Division of the Building
Research Establishment (BRE). Based at the University, this joint
initiative aims to bring a fresh research and educational impetus to
the field of Fire Safety Engineering.
April 2005: Miklas
Scholz's Goldfish have been in the quality press again. As seen in
our News section last year, he has been developing a solution to an
urban drainage problem for some time with an interesting use of these
fish. More recently, The Observer has reported on his work. More...
September 2004: The Royal
Society of Edinburgh's Lessells Travel Scholarship has been awarded to
Darren Graham of this institute. Darren is a PhD student
and will be working on the Application of Lean Methods
to Construction Project Planning at University of
California, Berkeley in 2005. More...
July 2004: Professor
Michael Rotter has been elected as Fellow of the Royal Academy of
Engineering. This is a fabulous honour and reflects his career
committment to Engineering Scholarship, Education, Research and the
Profession. Congratulations! More...
5 May 2004: The Alchi Sumstek - A
Jewel Endangered? Two final-year Structural Engineering with
Architecture students (James Lewis & Craig Torrance) have recently
returned from Himalayan India, where they carried out a structural
assessment of the Alchi Sumstek, an ancient Buddhist temple. James,
Craig and Dr
Tim Stratford of the Institute will describe the temple and its
vulnerability in a symposium on Wednesday 5th May at the David Hume
Tower, George Square. More...
July 2004: Railway Engineering
2004, the 7th annual conference, is one of the premier academic
conferences in the field . This year's conference is running from July
6-7 at the Commonwealth Institute, London, and is organised by the
Institute's Professor
Michael Forde. More than 160 academic papers will be presented by
delegates from over 22 countries.
April 2004: Professor
Dougal Drysdale has been elected Fellow of the Society of Fire
Protection Engineers. It is especially important because SFPE is
the largest professional organization in the field worldwide and also
because Fellowship of SFPE is granted only to very few
individuals. Congratulations!
March 2004: The Institute
has developed a new postgraduate MSc degree in Structural
Engineering with Mechanics. Delivered jointly with the
University of Glasgow, the degree programme draws on the
international expertise of the Institute's Structures and
Fire Safety Research Group under the direction of Dr
Asif Usmani. Applications are now being accepted. More...
April 2004: Four of our
Postgraduate Students took part in The Institution of
Structural Engineers Young Researchers Conference
on 17 March. We are pleased to announce that Jesus
Chavez-Sagarnaga won joint 3rd place for his paper, and Andrew
Phillips won 2nd place for his poster. See the IStructE's website for more
details, and this article in The
Structural Engineer. Congratulations!
21 April 2004: The Royal Society of
Edinburgh is hosting a major half-day conference & evening
lecture: 'Fire & Structures: The Implications of the World Trade
Centre Disaster' Dr
Jose Torero, Reader in IIE, will be presenting, as well as Dr Susan
Lamont, graduate of IIE, now with Arup Fire, London. More...
March 2004: The
Institute's recent move to a new
location will be followed up over the next 18 months
with Phase II of a long term strategy to strengthen its
facilities. Phase II, to be called the William Rankine Building, is due
to start construction soon. The design is currently being finalised and
AutoCAD renders can be seen here.
March 2004: Dr
Miklas Scholz makes the news with his work on Sustainable Urban
Drainage Systems. He is investigating the possibility of goldfish being
used to control the growth of weed and algae which currently hamper the
potential of ponds and wetlands for use as drainage systems.
The work has been reported in the Sunday Herald. More...
February 2004: Professor
Andrew Barry elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. This
honour recognizes Professor Barry's eminence in his field
within the geophysical sciences. Only 0.1% of the membership of the AGU
are elected as fellows each year and his award is a great honour for
Professor Barry and one in which the Institute and School are very
proud.
January 2004: The
Institute moves! A brand new, purpose built building, the
Alexander Graham Bell Building, is now the home of the
Institute for Infrastructure and Environment. The move is
phase one of the advancement of the Institute as it grows and
strengthens its role on civil & environmental engineering education
and research. More...
13 November 2003: Former
graduates Caroline Foulds and Sinead Smith win prizes in
the Annual New Civil Engineer Graduate Awards. More...
27 October 2003: The 2003-2004 Dudgeon
Scholarships have been awarded. These annual Scholarships are awarded
to those students who perform best in each of the previous years of
study.
7 July 2003:Dr
Martin Crapper solves the mystery of the Flooding of the Roman
Colosseum. Was the ancient Roman Colosseum used to enact Sea Battles?
Dr Crapper believes so and his theories have been tested by a team of
experts assembled by the American Discovery Channel. Read more...
A new theory on exactly how the twin towers of the World
Trade Center collapsed after the September 11 attack was
presented to a prestigious gathering of fire engineers
in London on 4 June 2003. The event was held at the
Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.
