Showing papers in "Fire Safety Journal in 2016"

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the behavior of pedestrians in crowded complex confined spaces and found that pedestrians place a much higher priority on avoiding crowded exits compared to non-emergency situations.

TL;DR: In this article, a novel experimental technique, Copper Slug Battery Calorimetry (CSBC), was employed for the measurement of the energetics and dynamics of the thermally-induced failure of 18650 form factor lithium ion batteries (LIBs) containing three different cathodes: lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), lithium nickel manganese cobaltoxide (NMC) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP).

TL;DR: Experiments demonstrate that the proposed scheme successfully distinguishes fire flame from the background as well as moving fire-like objects in real-world indoor and outdoor video surveillance settings.

TL;DR: In this paper, smoke velocity distributions in different tilted tunnels were studied numerically, and empirically expressions of smoke temperature and velocity decays along the longitudinal axis for a tilted tunnel were also derived.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented the results of the detailed assessment of a method that can be used to predict the intumescent coating behavior and thermal conductivity under different conditions (changing steel section factor, steel thickness and fire condition).

TL;DR: In this article, a series of fire tests on CLT beams subjected to sustained flexural loading, coincident with non-standard heating using an incident heat flux sufficient to cause continuous flaming combustion is presented.

TL;DR: In this paper, a heat transfer rate inducing system (H-TRIS) is proposed to control the thermal boundary conditions imposed on a test specimen by controlling a specified time-history of incident radiant heat flux at its exposed surface.

TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of strain rate on the compressive behavior of high-strength concrete (HSC) after exposure to elevated temperatures was experimentally investigated and the test results indicate that the higher the temperature and strain rate are, the larger the number of cracks and fragments will be.

TL;DR: In this paper, a computational fluid dynamics model for predicting the heat release rates of liquid pool fires is presented, which makes use of the one-dimensional heat transfer solver to provide the liquid surface boundary condition for the gas phase solver.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied fire risk perception and its influence on building evacuation in order to improve building evacuation processes and found that risk perception is influenced by psychological, social, physical, political, and cultural factors.

TL;DR: In this paper, a group of experiments is conducted to measure the flammability limit of polyethylene (PE) insulated wires under varying oxygen concentration and external radiation, and the results provide valuable information about the fire risk of electrical wires under variable oxygen concentration.

TL;DR: In this paper, flammability studies related with the combustion of pine needles (pinus pinaster, representative of Mediterranean vegetation) in a cone calorimeter (CC) under air atmosphere with piloted ignition and self-ignition for different heat fluxes, from 10 to 50 kWm−m−2.

TL;DR: In this paper, a group-Analytic Hierarchy process (AHP) was used as a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) technique for managing fire design stakeholder opinions on economic, safety, environmental and societal considerations toward selecting suitable fire protection for steel structures.

TL;DR: In this article, a method was established for producing well-controlled, time-varying exposures using the conical radiant heater of a cone calorimeter, and experiments were conducted in which the incident flux, time to non-piloted ignition, and back-surface temperature of spruce wood were measured.

TL;DR: In this article, a decision model for managing the movement of building occupants during fire emergencies is described, which uses three basic yes-no questions to divide building occupants into groups during a fire emergency and recommends one of two basic actions: (1) people remain where they are already located; (2) people relocate to a safer area in or outside the building, including the means by which they should travel to the new recommended location.

TL;DR: In this article, a 1:12 scale model tunnel was used to evaluate effects of a transverse external wind on the performance of roof openings in a shallow urban road tunnel under fire conditions.

TL;DR: The proposed video-based method is able to reliably detect the long-distance wildfire smoke and simultaneously produce very few false alarms in actual applications and makes the initial segmentation of possible smoke region less dependent on the motion and color information.

TL;DR: In this paper, the validity of using static wind reduction factors was investigated by measuring sub-canopy horizontal wind speeds at different heights in seven vegetation types across Victoria, Australia, and found that the vertical wind profiles were highly variable, with substantial variation in response to height above ground and the prevailing (open environment) wind speed.

TL;DR: The University of Edinburgh and its alumni have made significant contributions to knowledge in the field of tunnel fire safety engineering as discussed by the authors, which has changed the way the tunnel safety industry estimates heat release rates in tunnels, has influenced way design fires are specified and has challenged industry opinion about the use of water sprays in tunnels.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented opposed-flow flame spread data over varying thicknesses of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) obtained in the International Space Station where the opposing flow velocity can be reduced arbitrarily without any interference from the gravity induced flow.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the burning behavior of an oil spill in the presence of ice, comparable to the Arctic environment, and found that the average burning rate in an ice cavity is greater than that of a similar sized vessel or a pan.

TL;DR: In this article, the effects of ventilation mode and working face dip on the oxygen supply for coal self-ignition were studied, and a three-dimensional dip-adjustable physical model of the longwall gob was developed to study the coal selfignition hazard zones at different dip angles varying from −45° to +45° with respect to the horizontal plane.

TL;DR: Firebrand production from real-scale building components under well-controlled laboratory conditions was investigated and some firebrands were found to be lighter for a given projected area than others, likely produced from cedar siding or tar paper.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the initial spray as a unified probability distribution function, varying over an initialization surface, and statistically representing measurements of near field local spray properties (volume flux, drop size distribution, and drop size-velocity correlation).

TL;DR: In this article, a meta-analysis of data from fire brigades in Germany showed that today the false alarm ratio triggered by installed FDAS (and connected to a fire brigade) is high in Germany.

TL;DR: In this paper, simultaneous cone calorimeter and FTIR analyses were conducted to evaluate the contribution to fire growth of two different types of fireproof pavements (concrete and asphalt) obtaining averaged values of heat release rate per unit area of 0 and 50 kW/m 2 respectively.

TL;DR: The use of principal component analysis (PCA) and ordinary least squares regression enabled the development of a model that explains around one third of the variance in rates of fire at small neighbourhood level using just three predictor variables: the proportion of residents identifying as Black, the proportion residents who have not worked for more than five years or have never worked, and the ratio of single person households where the resident is aged under 65 as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: In this article, an interface model is presented to perform a one-way coupling between a fire simulation (CFD model) and a structural analysis (FEM model) aimed at performance-based analysis of structures exposed to fire.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the auto-ignition behavior of coal dust layers in a humid environment with Relative Humidity (RH) > 80% and compared the MAIT for a typical coal dust sample based on the existing ASTM and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard procedures.

TL;DR: In this paper, an experimental and numerical study of the oscillatory behavior of a pool fire in a confined and mechanically ventilated enclosure is presented. But the experimental analysis is based on large fire tests showing a periodic low frequency oscillatory behaviour of the burning rate.