041 - Sprinkler and safety systems reliability with Arnstein Fedoy

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Fire Science Show session 41. Great to have you here. If you recall some time ago, I was at the IWMA. Conference in Warsaw where I have met some nice people and among them, was Arnstein Fedoy who talked with me about the reliability of sprinklers. And then I told you that a. This has to be a full episode because the subject was so interesting. And here this, I finally got Arnstein on the podcast and spent a good while discussing the concepts of reliability of sprinkler systems with him and not only reliability of sprinkler systems and reliability as a concept in general. The ways, how we gathered data ways, how we process data. And the ways, how reliability is relevant to the engineering that we are doing. I don't think this needs much more introduction because the episode tells you everything. And if you listened to that IWMA episode, Um, absolutely sure. You're gonna enjoy this one as much. And if you haven't well, it's there. You can try it. And one more thing. Before we start. As you probably see around the situation in the world is not really nice at the moment. In the country next to Poland there are bombs falling on cities. And. People are getting killed for reasons. I do not really understand. As the Polish society, we are trying to help a lot to the people escaping from Ukraine. And, as ITB and me and with my family, we're also trying to help. We're going to house some Ukrainian refugees. For the scientists in the field of construction and engineering, we're trying to get them jobs in ITB. So they have a safe Haven where they can stay for as long as they need. And, if you'd like to support this effort, you can always support the podcast and everything that we'll go into here. I we're gonna pass forward to the people in more need. So. If you would like that, there's a buy me coffee button that. You can use, and now let's go back to the reliability. Let's spin the intro and let's jump into the episode. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Fire Science Show. I'm today with a guest who's made the small appearance in the show. Arnstein Fedoy, the CEO of Ignaus AS otherwise. Great to have you back here for a full episode this time.

thank you. I really Appreciate it. That you take the time to, to talk to me. It's just a really good time.

so great to have you here. We're going to take the reliability and. I mean, it's a topic that you've made sounds exciting to me when I first heard your presentation in Warsaw and I thought, wow, this is a subject that is touching. Not only the fire sprinkler, people, if I could call them like that. But it's touching the whole of fire safety and maybe even beyond. we so often take decision based on the assumption that sprinkles are there to save us. In so many codes and Polish, one included you have so many regulations that allow you to admit something, to change the fire resistant class of your building, to change the compartmentation of your building, to even change the whole strategy, how and how you protect the building. Just based on the fact that sprinklers exist. And it's a system and systems are not born equal and reliability is an important part of that. So let's start with the big word reliability. I love to ask people in this podcast, not about the definition, but what it is to you, how you understand it, because this often goes beyond the definition terms.

Well, if you asked me some years ago, I would probably say that something works. So as predicted, if I think about my car, I think that it should start and it should stop at the point. And, uh, between that it should work. Predict that, but now I am a little bit more confused. I'm also a little bit unclear, all that, but for me, when it comes to reliability, you have to put it up to something that's measurable. For instance, if you have a sprinkler standard, you can measure it up to that. Does it work as intended to a sprinkler stuff? Does control, a fire put in and, this has the class it's designed for. So for me, it it's designed and standards have been in very important because it is something I can measure up to. And that's one of the problems that we face a lot of time. We have a lot of ideas about that. But when it comes to, make it, measurable, what we also could call operationals, that's hard because you have to think, and you have to try out what actually works. So, so it's not an easy task, but before me, and that's why this is very important to tell because, I talk about sprinkler reliability, and this a surprise for listeners who heard me last time that my work has revealed, that we actually don't know so much about sprinkler reliability, but for me, if my start into the fire science in engineering, Came because I loved the idea that was presented in the discovery program in the late, 1990s, beginning of 2000, it's called place. And that program, we went to Arizona, Scottsdale Arizona, one of the first city in United States that implemented, that every building should have sprinklers. I had tremendous success with that. And Jim Ford, that was the fire chief that at that time talked about what they did and then realized, oh, genius. Having a fire fighter in your house, 24 7 genius. I love the idea, but afterwards I've started to work with, this is started to pop up different numbers in reliable. And when I started to look into it, find out if I went to Australia on New Zealand, we talked about reliability. It was close to a hundred percent, but if we went to United States and NFPA, we find approximately 95, but then I started FM also have numbers, port 88. Where does these numbers come from? And that's main goal for my master thesis to try to look into why did these different numbers come up? Because in the beginning, I thought, well, first that's, there's different regulations in different countries. So perhaps if a country had more, interest in maintainance and other countries that will probably have something to do about reliability. So if I just could figure out the dots, I could say something about it and we could take all the service in the world and separated on different issues. And you have some sort of index that you as a country, if you didn't have a survey, could Google in, okay, we are good in that. We are not as good as that. And you can come up with a number for your country. That was my, my main. But sadly, this was not the case. So when I started to look into the, each service and found out that they actually didn't look at what they told us in the beginning, they were looking at us that wasn't a big surprise

when you talk about numbers and percentages like 88%, that already sounds great. You know, 95%, that's amazing. A hundred percent. That's fantastic. But if you think about it deeply, the difference between 88% and let's say 98%. That's two failures for 100 and 12 failures for a hundred that's six time difference.

Yeah.

So it's not difference, a few percent. It's a difference of a whole scale. As I told you in the pre-show. I'm not really that interested in sprinklers themselves. I appreciate the technology. I'm a benefactor of the technology, but it's not my field of research, but within my field of research, which I would position somewhere around compartment, fire dynamics, or structural fire engineering in the interface between the two of them. The presence of sprinklers is often considered as one of the most important variables in the equation. If sprinklers exists, we assume they completely changed the course of the fire, which they do if they work.

it's sometimes, sometimes and that's what, one of the big surprises for me, it, because for instance, you have risen, residential spring. And they work different. According to which system you're talking about, I'll be talking about the system, a maximum two sprinklers activated, or there were forehead with twice a month of water. They've worked totally different. The first system is prolonging the time you have to escape from a resident in. But after 10 minutes, you cannot tell, with, and the scientific, background that did actually will do much more than that. After what, 10 minutes. You've properly. We'd be safe. You'd probably go out perhaps even the fire would be put out, but there's absolutely no guarantee for it. But if you have a different system like, for, storage ESFR that's, that's the only system in sprinkler world that actually extinguishing Singh system. If it doesn't extinguish the fire, it doesn't work. And that's the reason why if only one sprinkler head is a obstacle from two to develop the water, the whole system fails because we all thought that perhaps we had residentials at the bottom and we had ESF. I says that extinguishes. Perhaps that is not correct. Perhaps it's the different, perhaps the SFR is between residential and ordinary controlling system. Because if you have to have control, is that the main object, then you also could have the possibility to extinguish, but the all in thing you achieve. Yeah. So. There is a lot of confusion when it comes to reliability, what the sprinkler system can do and what the different systems can do. And when go to the little shear from NFP, FM, and so on, they treat them as the same

maybe even put three categories in it, like the reliability of the machinery itself, the reliability of operator and the person responsible to maintain and the capability of the system to actually deliver what it is supposed to,

Yeah. And even perhaps even more areas, but the main thing, the main focus is that, we have to start somewhere now because we have a lot of data on sprinklers. We have to start treating them as valuable as it is, and start to ask really good questions. Does it measure what the things we wanted to measure?

yeah. So how do we measure? it? Give me the brutal truth of how it is done today or, or,

I was done today.

yeah.

That's done in a variety of ways. We have some systems that just check out it does in the firehouse. Yes. Has it been the sprinkler system? Yes. The, this is system put out the fire. Yes or no. And that's.

after a fire

Yeah. And that's very interesting because that's the fact we actually are looking for. But if you don't ask, what kind of system was in this building and wouldn't give us an answer. You cannot compare a motorized, bicycle where the formula one car. Both his vehicle. Yes. But this completely different way ankles. And we have to start, talking about what kind of vehicle are we talking about the big surprise, the really, really big surprise. And this is should, shock all that the engineering community is that when it comes to doing service in the scientific area or. We sucks. That's the bitter truth. I think my book is the second one that actually in the engine, whole engineering area does talking about how to do correct surveys. Why is this? I thought I was going to stand on the shoulders of giants I had, so I could just pick and choose, but suddenly I start to wonder it where. We have actually not developed a method for how to do survey and even to do the opposite, go back again and say what should we do actually for having this kind of. reliability for our building when they're talking about fire science, because even if we can really criticize the sprinkler industry for doing the things that they're done, that actually tried, but we, if we were looking to a fire detection systems, if you're are looking to passive systems wow. There is not a much number there. The big problem for me and you right in your lap, how are you certain that your house, your building is done in the correct manner?

I really wonder Is it that the idea correct as fundamental, because it seems we're trying to measure reliability, but by capturing all of the outcomes from all of the world, like you gather the reports from all of the fires. Whereas like in medicine and after COVID, every one of us is an expert in virusology and we know everything about clinical tests now. Right? So you take a sample of people. Like you, you take a thousand of people or 5,000 of people, you, you subject them to a test and then you get an outcome. So why don't we do it? Like here get 5,000 representative systems and just monitor them over a decade and just based reliability.

Yeah, that does the same thing struck me because when I have to develop the method for trying to figure out what what's going on here, I have to look into medicine. I have to look into social sciences and see how do they conduct surveys. Because none, absolutely none litterateur whatsoever into our world. But the people that work in with science and medicines, as you mentioned here, they know very well how to do survey. And they are even having much more complicated issues, too baffled where, because we are trying to find out numbers. They also talking about people. That's trying to describe something. We were. We actually trying to figure, find out did that work? Yes or no, Zero old one. That's the whole idea for us. But when you looked at the medicine, they have them much more harder time to find correct data because they have to ask the patient, how do you feel after this treatment and this much harder to put numbers to that?

I wonder. So do you see a way forward to have a validated reliability, like a truly measured one? one that we can rely on

Very good question. That depends completely on what different people in different organization decides because. I know for a fact that somebody is a little bit upset by my work, because they think that this has been quite harsh or hard or whatever to conclude aside had done. but they, it is the big of sensations to have the daily. Today, they also have the possibility to change. How are we collecting it? How are we analyzing it? And how do we validate the information we had. Or there has to be a change in the different covenant around in world that say, okay, and Norway and Poland, we are actually start to measure this because we realized now that this is important we started from scratch. Very good. it's very easy to start from scratch because everything you do will be better than there was the last day. Yeah. So it depends on completely. What is the main focus for the, authorities.

okay. So a philosophical concept of reliability aside, let's talk about sprinkler systems.

Yeah.

if I hear a number that 95% of time. what is, what are the constituents of that number hidden inside? What does it, what information does it bring to me as a non sprinkler engineer? Like I'm a structural engineer. I want to know. can I lower the fire resistance of my compartment? Because I have sprinklers and I receive a number 95%. That doesn't mean 95% of the time. I'm going to be safe.

Now it doesn't because we have to, separate between, life, material and environment. at least earliest, perhaps even more, but let's take just a little bit about life. there is, an overwhelming, Material that's suggests that with the sprinkler systems, the life safety goes up to the really, really helps because in the first critical minutes of a fire, it really will damper it down and give you the time to escape. It took a long time. For instance, I mentioned Scottsdale. It took really long time before the, how the first fatality in the fire, where was a sprinkler building. when it comes to life safety, I think that the numbers we are talking about that is really high, but second one is the material. and that's rather confusing because it also has to be a where connected to the environment. What is our expectation? What is our, what do we want from this building do we a really, expected or, allow what is perhaps a better word? Allow the building to even burn down. Would that be possible, outcome. That's good for everyone. And I'm not sure about that more because even in your you, uh, regulations about environment, what does that say is say about sustainability in the future is going to allow buildings, to, to burn. So there is a lot of, areas we don't actually have. The numbers are the, goals we can imagine measure of our, fire engineering up to be how old they have codes, regulations. And I'm not sure if that's the correct way to measure it.

Increase reliability, because I know you were looking in depth in these statistics through what could have been found in the literature. there's a re emerge where it's obvious that the reliability is low and others where it's, let's say universally high. I don't know how to frame it, but my hunch would give me the. Uh, human would be a weak link. And whenever you turn off sprinklers for maintenance or for something, and you have the possibility of forgetting to turn it on. So I guess that would be the weakest link that no technology can, probably fix. But, like looking into the numbers beyond the numbers, have you found this area? I think this could be also a critical knowledge when we are considering the issues. Like you've mentioned, like if there are different targets for our reliability that we would like to achieve, we need to understand the actions that can actually improve that outcome.

Hm. Yeah. one of the things that's really, really interesting is that, when it comes to mechanical system and sprinkler system, Mr. Mechanicals systems it heavily and over time, realize more and more about maintaining. Th the testing that has to happen regularly because system does a mechanical it this times not to stand still. It's designed to actually work. It's designed to work with the fire. The pump is designed to run, and if the pump doesn't run and even better, It starts to rust. It starts to put things into the system that shouldn't be there and they had damage to it. And so-and-so so we have two. Actually in the future, having much more, emphasis on how to do the testing and the maintainers and gladly we are living in a time when there is systems on the way that we're going to put. Typically do this and even put artificial intelligence into it, to, to read and give data on it. And we are just in the, the starting group now for how to look into that in the future. But before we actually can say how much that does, in fact, the system we have to start to measure, what is the reliability when it is in place? and as I mentioned to you earlier, we in Norway, for instance, we have a big industry and offshore in the oil and so on. So we heavily rely on, on systems that have level of seal integrity. But the problem is the seal integrity is that is a measurement. We have found in that demands when we are looking to test, in a laboratory, it is. And so while it's not measuring how it actually performs in the, in the say enough, so the numbers we have, doesn't always match up with what we suspect in the perfect conditions. Contra, what happened the day we have the fire. No you're charging. I am sorry. I probably talks too much, but yeah, I think it's very interesting because as a fire engineer, we have to start thinking about actually what we are doing and where do we find the data for what we are doing.

To have people who talk a lot. That's the point of the podcast. I actually wanted to ask you something we talked about before the show. So, you've mentioned the reliability in the lab does not really reflect the reliability on sea which makes sense as well because of the conditions. But now if we use statistical data to measure reliability of the systems, we technically use the data from the past. We use it now to design systems today that will work in the building for the next 20 years. So we did this projection of the past into a future in an environment which is so quickly changing. Like you've mentioned these new technologies, these smart systems, , on grid valves, for example, that monitored the. Pressure flow systems to monitor the pumps it's not that you have to send a maintenance guy to measure the power on your, turbo machinery. Now you have the readings in your system. It's connected. It's online. it's available all the time. So we, we see into the systems in a way that. Did before and in the future, I know there is work on going on predicting failure. It's not even about monitoring or capturing the failure. It's about investigating a behavior that may lead to failure with a certain probability in a certain amount of time to, to switch on maintenance proactively. and then again, you know, all of this is happening around in buildings. You would have systems that are. Could it be designed 20 years ago and built 10 years ago, you can have new building that is designed today with, the old technology, with new technology, like there's this variety of solutions available. Each of them having some own inherent reliability. And yet in Europe you have one number. You know, you have sprinklers, you reduce this fuel load by this number. You have sprinklers, you can go from two hour fire resistance to one hour fire resistance, like suddenly none of this matters because you've put it together in one, one sack but let's go to technology. How do you think our capability is to base, the future on the past measurement? What the changes would be with that?

That's a big question. one of the things. It's a surprise me because I've been looking in to what kind of system we can have in the future. And what kind of data can monitoring for instance, sprinkler systems give us in the future and is surprisingly a new toddler and the knowledge that comes out of the readings on these systems today suddenly it's possible because for instance, Just one detail. And if you have a sprinkler valve. That has a big valve in the inside, they'd go. So if it detects flow and you have an alarm and so on, but there was also bypass a line on that with a small bowel wand that's is allowing a pressure rise to go up into the sprinkler system without, triggering the alarm. The system today now can actually monitoring that there. The small valve doesn't work. It doesn't let the, pressurized water from the main stream, into the system. So you can have a lot of new data from new systems or new on all systems in the future that will really do a big impact on rising the reliability on such so systems, and this will not only come to sprinkler system. This was also calmed to, fire detection systems. And it probably, it should also afterwards, you start to have systems for instance, monitoring ventilations. So you can actually find out how your compensation compertmalisation actually works. Is it a. That's one of the big surprise for people to have experience with fire is how big, forces that in place. When you have a fire that actually increases the pressure within the fire department, into putting smoke and fire and whatever in the nearby compartments. What if we actually knew a head that this, compartment was not tight, this will really help us when you're trying to look into the buildings we have actually trying to Yeah. So the question about reliability is also a question of. What will we do to maintain the buildings in the future with all this is systems and here is going to be a massive change in the future. And there's a lot of things that we haven't thought about it. Somebody come to think about in a few years time.

I have a question. This is going to be hella hard to answer. So imagine the system in the future that the sprinkler system knows where the.

Hm.

Has electromagnetic valve on every sprinkler hat. And you can practically open them before your temperature breaks the bulb. So for example, there's a fire in my office. The system knows there's a fire in my office. He knows that in you need to start like four sprinklers at the same time without waiting for the bulbs to break, to, to contain it. So from the. Reliability how I understood it before I lowered my reliability, because I've replaced a very robust solution a bulb that will break in temperature with a complicated system that has multiple failure points. I must detect the fire. I must proactively open the, I must power the valves. You know, it starts to be complicated, but at the other end, I've removed. The reliability you've mentioned before that one had may not be enough or one had, might not. I can overflow the compartment in a way that even if this particular head did not control the fire, I know that the action of all of them around will, so I've lowered my reliability In the mechanical part, I've increased it in the compartment fire part. Did I increase a little lower? My reliability as the number in the

Hmm. Yup. and that's probably true, but then again, back in the basement, but you had the sprinkle central where the valves was on. This was also going to be there in the future, even if you have a new system like that.

Hmm.

So the question is, does this really. Higher reliability or not, and that's not easy to predict. And we actually don't know, and we have to be that kind of honest to say, we do not know everything. And that's the first scientific principle. Uh, in general, we do not know everything. And if you, is that your starting point? I think there's much, much easier say to people that what we had done is done in our best practice and there were best intentions, but we actually don't know everything. And we also have to continually improve ourselves and our. And that's some of the things I'm rotten missing in the fire science community today. There's a lot of, works that really gives the impression that we do know everything and that sprinkler system is going to fix everything. Water, Mister system is going to fix everything. Compensations can fix averaging a fire detection system going to fix. Where does that come from? And that that's the basic attitude. That's really worrying me about the fire science community today, because we do actually don't know. That's very, very important to put up.

I also doubted we we're measuring the correct things actually, as we go. If we base, like you started with that, and that was a trigger point for you in your path, but I think it could be a trigger point for many of us. If you base your predictions are on an incomplete data or projections from, basically, yes, no question. did the sprinkler system exist? Yes. No, that's not an information that's a statement that the best, if we, if we try to project our engineering, our sophisticated system on incomplete data, we're not going to have a good time. Like our capacity to engineer is hindered. maybe we would need less data. More reliable data, you know, maybe not a hundred thousand of questionnaires, but a hundred, but it's really a well sortedf or maybe some data from, I don't, I didn't even know where to seek it, but I assume it must exist. This high-fidelity data that you could filter out of the noise and then truly see the, the true picture.

And it's not is we have to be careful about that. It's not easy to see the whole picture. That's the, one of the main things. One of the things that, worries me now in these days is for instance, a massive timber bill. Yeah. first of all, we have some fire hazard down, timber burns quite well. So even if the construction that will stand for a fire for a long time, it will still burn. And we actually are not so much interested in burning. We actually, it must be interesting to putting out the fire if it occurs, but then again, sprinkler comes in like a saving knight. a even white horse. But I have started to think about what does really happen with timber and water and one of the things we are actually starting to look into now is that water and timber is not that good connection, as we assume, because when the timber starts to get wet as well,

as well.

And The compartment session that was done by the fire engineer is broken because one wall suddenly arises 10 centimeters, five centimeters, and the fire has the possibility To go You even have the possibility that the timber itself, because when it starts to get, what is that to have some much more of the same courage is as steel in height. It's weak in this construction. And suddenly the system you put into place to control a fire and even put out a fire is actually working to destabilization the whole building.

And, sorry, sorry to interrupt you. But this is another interesting aspect of reliability, which is the times when the system activated, where there was no fire. and in here we start to talk about very severe consequences of that, which is in fact, interestingly, Come on in the ESFR systems, because if you accidentally trigger ESFR system, you're not going to have a great time.

But at the same time, if you triggered that kind of system, you triggered it normally in a story shouts warehouse or whatever, you have a concrete on the floor. And so it's not that big issue. You have some go goods that's destroyed whatsoever, but if you start to do that in the same thing, Building and many, many flaws all build with timber. You have big issues in Norway. For a couple of weeks ago, we have a new library with a lot of treasures that was, how the fire and the sprinkler system started to work and start to work really well. It put out the fire, but during the 20 minutes it was on, they put out between four and 5,000 liters. From the first floor and down and all this has to be collected and dried out. And suddenly you start to realizing this is going to give a lot of damage, a lot of damage. Did we think about it was the sprinkler system, the best system and the high rise library, or wasn't it not? That's the case. We haven't thought about the consequences, which is also one of the parts we have to put into consideration.

Yeah. I think this is the point of the podcast. When there's champagne bottles popping in the, watermist industry, you know,

Yeah, but I love active systems. I really love active system. So I've tried to figure out what is the best system for the best. So in my industry, you have people either collected in the sprinkler camp, or you have the water mist camp, or you had the gas camp. It's not that interesting. It's the most interesting to find the best system for the building. You are actually going to protect.

I agree. The same. and. It's technologies that exist and they all have their best. Applications, they have average applications and they have bad applications. And I think collectively we should tend to put the best systems in the place where they operate the best, not necessarily, only on the basis of the cost of investment or. Or the costs of whatever there is. Like it should be beyond just money. Just put the best system in the place where it should be. I love the fact that you brought up mass timber, because for me, it also is a place where this reliability is even more important than elsewhere. Because if you, if you bet the survival of your structure on the fact that, sprinkler system operated, then the reliability of the system is not just on, putting the fire. it, it suddenly becomes the reliability, the inherent reliability of the building itself, it becomes the single point of failure of the building as a whole thing. And suddenly , you. Kind of bet on the system that would have 80% of reliability. Like I'm not okay. Losing one in five buildings that have a fire in. And, I had the many episodes on timber in fire in this podcast and there's great resources popping out everywhere about this. I hope we can finally get with the message. Mass timber industry that it's not that we do not want a timber buildings because we don't like the concept or something. We just don't want to be blamed for another Grenfell. You know, we don't, we know the challenges we see the dangerous, we just want an open conversation about how to manage them. Not to say that you shouldn't build from timber, but that's a completely. Other discussion let's go back to the, reliability D

Yeah, but it belongs into the picture because we have to talk rather broadly about the issues we are trying to face and trying to say that we actually knows everything is very bad.

yeah, my last question is related to. The numbers themselves you've mentioned, you you've opened episode with that a hundred percent in Australia, 95 in U S 88 in a different view. But what extent, the sprinkler liability in Norway is the same as the one in Poland. can you even translate that, or this minuscule differences between the cultures, the engineering cultures in our countries make this numbers also valid only with. Let's say a law system at country, a geographic area codes, area

well, uh, I remember hard my first presentation on this in Norway that, presentations, there was also some members from the scientific community and Norway that had been a big part in putting in the regulation that we also have to have sprinkler systems. They know what, and they ha had relied very much on the data from a board without questioning. it also was a big surprise that there was obviously things in the service that they should have, or at least, have put questions to into, but they didn't. And that's the one that the things that really bothers me and it still bothers me because there is, uh, consumptions and the idea within a lot of communities that are actually not. What they're doing. And when you try to tell them, I find it a little bit difficult because I'm looking to this and this is the, what findings I have. They are just. Stump, quiet doesn't happen anything. And that's one of the things I've been really hard to understand why doesn't people act on the information that's been given, that's really hard to understand, but I think. The sprinkler reliability in general, when we look to all systems and all the buildings that from residential to high rise building. Uh, so, so on, we probably is somewhere between 85 to 95%

that's a general number.

as a general. Now. But we should actually try to find out numbers for residential belief, for storehouse

Um, no doubt, not really down to occupation type of sprinkler.

Oh, of course, of course, because when we do our engineering, we are looking into what kind of risk is there, what kind of hazard is in this building and try to find out where does it fit in our diagram? And that's a very important, but we need to have some number.

Okay. and, from your research, do you see. a simple measure to, I don't know, double the reliability in my building, redundancy control monitoring. What do you think would have the biggest? If I was to do design a building today and someone told me, okay, sprinkles have between 85 to 95, where I would find a missing percentages to go to 99.

I would say that the first thing you have to do is find the right system for a right building. That's number

Does number one, so-so fix the compartments fire reliability of the system.

Yeah.

the max is out.

Yeah. And one of the things that I'm done, as a chairman of the Norwegian board of a fire science in Norway was that last year we put out a guidance for how, uh, engineers that work with Dan bolt, fire safety, fire alarms, extinguished systems, and the guidance systems should work together. To try to figure out the best solutions. And that's the, one of the things that is number two in this, we have. Talking together because somebody is very, very good at looking at the compartment and extricate routes. And so on others is really good and extinguishes them some out as really good and fire alarms and so on. And we have to start to talk even in the starting point on a project, not after an engineer, highlight out a whole concept for fire engineering, and then the. The engineer that's going to do. The fire extinguisher system is looking at having really thought about this. No, I can see that. And you have to have a big discussion to try to figure out how to change everything because the concept has already been written. We have the second step is that we actually, I have to talk together and work together before we put a concept into a final installation. And the third part is I think, to have, make the own the off the building to really understand the system is heavily dependent on the, what the things he is doing in the future. Then I will pursue that, that reliability in general, we really go with.

Thank you so much for this interesting thoughts. It was, such a, good conversation. Maybe you maybe want to make a closing statement. Let's advertise your book a bit as well.

well, there could be a lot of, of conclusion statements, but. For me, it's become more and more important that we actually work together and stand up standing in our group or standing on Hora hill. , there is a lot of people that actually is interested in learning. And walking and give their information and their knowledge to another. And I think that it depends heavily on us to start a new way to work within the fire safety community in general and what we have done in the previous years, because. there is no doubt that to work together gets better results than working solo. And I expect everybody else just to follow you. That would probably be my, well, my last statement . Wojciech Wegrzynski: you I'll develop this. You've picked this one because, it's something that is jumping out in this podcast a lot. And actually, whenever I speak to someone that usually ends up with, with this lack of conversation, lack of understanding the issues, the holistic view. It's not that we miss numbers. Not that we miss technology. We sometimes miss a simple discussion and, I think it's a powerful statement and I hope the industry is going to change in this regard a lot. And they also hope that the future will bring us the data on true reliability that we can incorporate in our engineering and take informed decision based on a measure that we can. We understand how to analyze, collect and validate, like you've said. So that, that would be a nice future. Yeah, I've, really, uh, put out some measures for the extinguishing community as well. and that would be that. Very very helpful. If you do what I call extinguishing analysis in a project to list up, what is the goals for all from this project? What is the goals of the owner of the building? With the systems and out of that, make a suggestion on a system. Sometimes, I come up all live in one solution, but often I comes up with two solutions with different benefits and different drawbacks and owner itself also can be part of the decision part. What does to be, want the system to do, um, for, people are really love extinguishing systems. I would really suggest that that would be a very fruitful way in the future so that the whole industry is much more perceived as a try to figure out solution than standing on this old points.

Fantastic. Thank you so muchArnstein, it was a huge pleasure to have you in the Fire Science Show and, see you somewhere soon. I

Yeah, Yeah, that will be really nice. It has been really a pleasure to be here on the show. And, uh, there's a lot of people that are listening into your show. So your work is what you're doing is really important. So I will just encourage you to stay with that in the

Oh, I am. I am. Thank you so much.

So you can give me an invitation to comment and they gave you some, work, at your school. I could try to teach a little bit to your students about this, if you think that will be helpful.

very helpful. I would appreciate that a lot. Thank you so much and see you around. Cheers.

Cheers.

And that's it. I hope you've enjoyed it. I said, when did I knew it's going to be nice to have orange, then again, in the show and discuss the reliability with him. And I was not disappointed and actually quite pleased with his concluding statements that we need to look beyond our silos that we need to think more about what goals do we want to achieve. From safety systems in our buildings. That we need to talk to each other. That we need to put more thought into how we are designing systems. So they are the best fit for the building. And I actually didn't expect a discussion on reliability. To go into such an ending. And that we will be discussing the engineering and fundamental, but yeah, it's, it makes sense. Reliable systems are good systems, systems that work that operate correctly. It's not just the probability of failure in the reliability equation. There is so much more and Arnstein has covered it quite thoroughly. And I really, really enjoyed it. in the episode, we didn't really talk that much about the numbers, because, well, that was not the point to give a number on reliability, but rather than discuss how it's being created. But if you want numbers, If you're looking for numbers, Arnstein has published a book on reliability, of sprinklers. It's called "Reliability data on fire sprinkler

collection , analysis, presentation and the validation". And I would recommend it to you. If you would like to learn more about what goes into this reliability. Equation and, how it is measured and how it is validated. And what does this number stand for? I guess for anyone. Who's dealing with a sprinkler systems or general safety systems in. Overall that that could be a beneficial read. And that is it for today's episode. Thank you so much for being here with me and as usual, see you next week. See you next Wednesday. Cheers.