FE News
November 1998
Human behaviour in fire
A new course in Human Behaviour was offered for the first time in 1998. The principal lecturer was Professor John Bryan from the University of Maryland, an international expert in human behaviour and the foundation professor of the successful Fire Engineering programme at the University of Maryland. Professor Bryan gave several weeks of intensive lectures, supplemented by Hamish MacLennan and Mark Regan from Holmes Fire and Safety. The lectures were presented in Christchurch with a simultaneous telephone and computer link to classrooms in Wellington and Auckland. Professor Bryan's lectures were video-taped for future use.
Contribution of New Zealand Fire Service Commission
The Fire Engineering programme at the University of Canterbury was established in 1993 with the financial assistance of the New Zealand Fire Service Commission through a five year contract. Since then the University of Canterbury has established a Masters Degree in Fire Engineering producing over 30 graduates and over 20 current students. The University has also provided a state-of-the-art laboratory and has established a new permanent full-time academic position. The New Zealand Fire Service Commission has agreed to continue its investment in the programme, with funding for teaching and research to assist the Commission in its efforts to reduce fire deaths and fire losses in New Zealand. The programme also relies heavily on research funding from other sources including the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST).
Contract with the Foundation for Research Science and Technology.
The Fire Engineering programme has been awarded a major research contract with the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, with funding extending over the next six years. The project title is "Improving Fire Safety in New Zealand Residential Buildings" with three related objectives; 1. Combustion behaviour of residential furniture, 2. Modelling smoke movement in residential buildings, and 3. Severity of post-flashover fires. The application was strongly supported by the New Zealand Fire Service and the Building Industry Authority, who will help to establish an End Use Advisory Group to ensure relevance of the research projects.
Twelve month degree
The ME(Fire) degree at Canterbury involves twelve months of full-time intensive study. The degree consists of six courses between March and September, followed by an individual research project from October until February. The courses include Fire Dynamics, Heat Transfer, Fire Engineering, Risk Assessment, Human Behaviour, Fire Safety Systems and Fire Engineering Case Study. The entry requirement is an engineering degree in any discipline, or a science degree with appropriate experience.
Warm Welcome for Minister of Internal Affairs
The Hon Jack Elder, Minister of Internal Affairs, was given a warm welcome to the University last month, watching a sofa go up in flames in the new fire engineering laboratory. Mr Elder, with Mr Roger Estall, Chairman of the New Zealand Fire Service Commission, and Professor Daryl Le Grew, Vice-Chancellor of the University, walked around the sofa as it was ignited by PhD student Tony Enright. They soon backed away as the fire grew and had to retreat behind the safety glass windows as the polyurethane foam in the sofa melted and burned with two Megawatts of heat output.
Mr Elder visited the University with Mr Estall to meet with staff and students in the Fire Engineering programme. The visitors were welcomed by Professor Daryl Le Grew, and Dr Kevin McManus, Head of Department of Civil Engineering. The visitors were given an overview of the Fire Engineering programme by Dr Andy Buchanan and Dr Charley Fleischmann, and Mr Elder addressed the students before observing the furniture fire in the new laboratory.
Research
Ph.D. projects
Tony Enright is continuing his investigation of the fire hazard of domestic furniture in a major project funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. He has commissioned the new furniture calorimeter with several armchair and sofa fires. He has found that New Zealand furniture burns more fiercely than equivalent European furniture, and he is developing methods of predicting furniture fire behaviour from small scale tests.
Jason Clement is studying the flow of smoke and hot gases through vent openings, using experimental and analytical methods, including the state-of-the-art saltwater modelling. Jason recently spent several months in the USA, where he worked with Dr Kevin McGrattan at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), using the NIST large eddy simulation model to study vent flows, funded by the JR Templin Travelling Scholarship.
Ee Yii is developing an improved computer model to predict the gas temperatures in post flashover compartment fires, to better understand the impact of fully developed fires in residential or other occupancies, assisted by masters student Roger Feasey who is developing post-flashover fire design curves for use in structural fire calculations. Both are using the COMPF-2 program written by Dr Vyto Babrauskas.
Recent Research Reports
Fire Engineering Research Reports are available on the following completed projects:
Fire modelling
André Lovatt worked with BRANZ scientists to compare zone models and field models for predicting smoke movement in large industrial buildings. Ee Yii used salt-water modelling to predict smoke flow in "spill plumes" which occur when smoke spills from a room under a balcony into an atrium space.
Wood-based products
Using the cone calorimeter, Alistair Henderson conducted radiant ignition tests on a wide range of materials, and Per Olsson subjected small segments of timber stud walls to simulated fire conditions.
Compressed air foam (CAF)
In a major experimental study, in cooperation with the New Zealand Fire Service, Neil Gravestock and Mike Dunn showed that compressed-air-foam (CAF) has significant advantages over conventional high pressure water systems for fire fighting in buildings. Dave Hipkins (of Wormald New Zealand in Auckland) is investigating the use of CAF in sprinkler systems.
Fire after earthquake
Russ Botting made a systematic survey of the occurrence of fires after all the major earthquakes which have occurred this century. His conclusions and recommendations will be useful to anyone providing fire protection to buildings in seismic regions.
1997-98 M.E. projects
There are a large number of current research projects including the following:
Domestic fire safety
Several projects are investigating aspects of domestic fire safety. Sarnia Rusbridge is surveying public attitudes to fire safety, Christine Duncan is testing the waking effectiveness of domestic smoke alarms, and Debbie Palmer is using risk assessment methods to assess whether people should be advised to leave their bedroom doors open or closed when they sleep. Rachel Carter is comparing sprinklers with security and fire alarms in schools, and Kenneth Crawford is investigating the safety factors to be used in design of escape routes.
Structural fire safety
Mike Inwood is reviewing the fire section of the New Zealand concrete code (NZS 3101) and its applicability to light weight and high strength concretes, with sponsorship from Firth Industries and Dimond Industries. Kim Liew and Peter Collier are developing improved design methods for light timber structures exposed to fire. Arthur Ting is checking the validity of the Eurocode time-equivalent formula and John Wong is assessing its reliability. Dr Peter Moss and Dr Athol Carr have been completing a project on fire resistance of multi-storey steel frames for HERA.
Calorimetry
Martin Wong and James Firestone are contributing to the fire hazard assessment of domestic furniture by running cone calorimeter tests on furniture components and analysing overseas furniture data. Brent Sutherland is investigating low ventilation fires and smoke explosions.
Fire and smoke modelling
Micheal Dixon is making a critical review of the smoke control sections of the Approved Documents to the New Zealand Building Code. Jim Clarke is carrying out a similar exercise for radiant fire spread between buildings. John Mason is working with Dr Jean-Marc Franssen of the University of Liege to improve the SAFIR program for heat transfer in structural members. Michael James is investigating the fire resistance of seismic joints in a collaborative project with Firepro Safety Ltd.
Visitors
Professor John Bryan spent several weeks at the University to teach the new course in human behaviour. A special presentation was made for the Hon. Jack Elder, Minister of Internal Affairs and Mr Roger Estall, Chairman of the New Zealand Fire Service Commission. Other visitors included Wayne Sharman from BRANZ and John Clampett, the new fire research manager at BRANZ, Dr Bill Porteous, the Chief Executive of the Building Industry Authority and Tony Gibson, consulting engineer. Continuing of the exchange scheme with Lund University in Sweden, Emil Carlsson attended classes at Canterbury and Canterbury student Greg North is now at Lund doing a research project in aviation fire safety. Sabine Eistetter from Fachhochschule Konstanz in Germany has been a visiting researcher for six months in 1998.
Conferences
During the last year Dr Andy Buchanan and Dr Charley Fleischmann presented papers at international conference on performance based fire codes in Hawaii and Hong Kong. Presentations were also made at the Australasian Structural Engineering Conference in Auckland, the World Conference on Timber Engineering in Switzerland, and the First International Symposium on Human Behaviour in Fire, in Northern Ireland.
Laboratory
The furniture calorimeter in the new fire laboratory was commissioned during 1998 and used to burn several new armchairs and couches as part of the domestic fire research programme funded by FRST. The cone calorimeter has also been used extensively testing domestic furniture and for ignition studies on wood based products.
Hopkins Lecture
The 1998 Hopkins Lecture was presented by Mr Roger Estall, chairman of the New Zealand Fire Service Commission, in the Christchurch Town Hall in July 1998. The title of the lecture was Engineering Improvements to Managing Fire-Related Risk. The Hopkins Lecture is a prestigious lecture recognising the contribution of the late Professor Harry Hopkins to the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Canterbury. Many members of the Christchurch fire protection community attended the lecture.