Research
The BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering has a team of over twenty researchers working on a variety of research projects from detailed studies of fundamental combustion processes through to the application of fire safety engineering in practice. Experimental research is largely conducted in the Rushbrook Fire Engineering Laboratory, while numerical modelling work is carried out on a variety of machines from desktop workstations through to high performance parallel computing facilites.
Details of a selection of ongoing projects are presented below.
| Our mission is to establish a cross-disciplinary collaborative community to pursue fundamental research for developing real-time fire emergency response systems. Funded by Technology Strategy Board – BERR |
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| Predicting fire behaviour of nano-composite plastics from intrinsic properties. European Commission FP6. |
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| These large-scale experiments in a real high-rise were designed to investigate compartment fire phenomena, demonstrate the FireGrid concept, test fire sensors & cameras and provide the most detailed set of experimental data ever recorded for comparison with fire modelling studies. Funded by EPSRC. |
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| The consortium has the overall goal of developing the scientific foundations for proper understanding of forest fires and its management/policies practices. Funded by European Commission FP6. |
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| Remediation by smouldering combustion for sites contaminated with organic contaminats. Funded by Scottish Enterprise and EPSRC. |
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| Validation of CFD models for prediction of smoke movement in very large-scale atrium buildings |
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| To develop innovative generalised methods which account for toxic species production in both the gas and solid phases, providing useful new tools for practitioners. Funded by EPSRC. |
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| Investigation into the ignition and burning characteristics of organic soils and the emissions released. Funded by Mett Office. |
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| Self-heating Ignition and Smouldering Combustion of Porous Materials. Bringing together the fundamental understanding of the process and overview the different research communities, linking combustion, fire engineering, built environment, aerospace, forest, environmental science, geology and atmospheric sciences. Funded by International Fire Investigators and Consultants and EPSRC. |
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| The main aim of the project is to develop comprehensive and repeatable forms of measuring fire parameters that occur during material degradation and flaming so that these can be used to improve on current CFD models such as FDS in order to best predict fires. Funded by BRE Trust. |
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| Exploration of a novel methodology to define the 'Design Fire' for complex structures, where the codes and standards fail to provide a reasonable answer. |
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| To develop a comprehensive earthquake and fire research programme based on exploiting the complementary strengths of the collaborating institutions, University of Edinburgh, IIT Roorkee and IISc. |
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- New Calorimetry for fire studies
- Understanding charring materials
- Thermal And Chemical Characterisation of Energetic Materials
- Intrinsic material flammability properties for ignition
- World Trade Center fires
- Windsor Tower Fire
- Tunnels fires
- Coupling fire and structure models
- Design of Steel and Composite Structures
- Concrete structures in fire
- Structures during the cooling phase
- Design of Structural Connections in Fire
- Thermal Analysis of Structural Members in Natural Fires
- Risk-Based Design of Structures in Fire
- Fire Performance of Polymer-Fibre-Reinforced Composite Slabs
- Fire Damaged Concrete Buildings
- Earthquake and Fire Safety
- Whole Building Behaviour Aspects
- New fire and egress modelling for emergency response systems
- Sensor / Computation Integration for the Rapid Prediction of fire development
- Spill plumes
- Risk Assessment of Oil Tanks
- Optimum Desing for Thermal, Structure and Fire efficiencies
- Water mist systems in tunnels
- Polymer - Fibre - Reinforced Concrete Slabs in Fire Conditions
- Effect of Fire on Timber
- Suppression Devices in Reduced Gravity Environments
- Fertilizer fires and Self-sustained Decomposition events (SSD)
