089 - Designing law by disasters (or not?) with Birgitte Messerschmidt

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Fire Science Show in this podcast, we try to talk about important. Topics in fire safety, some of those topics are. Once that everyone's talking about, you know, batteries, facades, timber, and stuff like that. And there are topics that are maybe as important, but I don't see them talked over, at least not in mainstream. Media. If I may. Not in your normal conferences, not in published journal papers. However, I feel this topics, especially the ones that are related to how safety is being delivered in the build environment. This are fundamental for fire safety engineering. Because even if we have the best. Knowledge the best scientific understanding of the fundamental principles. That are related to fire safety. If we are unable to create a. Regime that is based on that. And that realize how, if I saved the, on those fundamentals. We're not going to have a fire safe world. So today, one of those episodes where we try to understand how our regulations are put in place how would the safety is indeed. Delivered to buildings? In this episode, I have invited NFPA's Birgitte Messerschmidt who has spent a good chunk of her career Europe having a significant impact over something that we refer to as the reaction to fire. And legislation around that. and that's where we started the interview with beget about how Birgitte SBI method came to live, how we have defined new Euro class system for reaction to fire for flammability tests which is the cornerstone to it, to how safety is delivered here in, in Europe. And I tried to theme these podcast episodes around the concept of designing by disaster. And this BI and Euro classes were definitely not designed by disaster. They were designed by choice. They were meant to give us finally find her save environment in a way, at least related to flammability. For most of the cases, this worked out really well, but there are some examples in which it really did not. I think it's very important to, to instance why that happened. and how maybe it was worth around in some areas. And how some very interesting features of the system where very soon forgotten. And soon the Euro class emerged as the one index to rule them all, not a complimentary tool that you can adjust and adapt to your needs. So you're very interesting journey we have in this episode. I'm teasing so much because I don't want you to have an idea that it's just in this BI episode, it's, it's much more. And I hope we all learn something from, from this discussion and we built some better regulation, better tests. Better ways of handling fire safety. Uh, for the future, very honest. Conversation and very thankful to Birgitte for get for having such an open conversation with me and I hope you enjoyed a lot. So that's it. Let's spin danger and jump into the episode. Before we start the episode, I would like to thank you once again. OFR Consultants for sponsoring this podcast, It has been already a month and I'm really enjoying this collaboration. It has brought a lot of good to the podcast. OFR Consultants are a multi award winning independent consultancy dedicated to addressing fire safety challenges. OFR is the UK is leading fire risk consultancy. It's globally established team has developed a reputation for permanent fire engineering expertise with colleagues working across the world to help protect people, property and planets. In the UK, that includes the redevelopment of the Printworks building in Canada water. One of the tallest residential buildings in Birmingham, as well as historic structures, like the National Gallery, National History Museum. And the National Portrait Gallery in London. Internationally it's work ranges from Antarctic to Atacama desert in Chile, and the number of projects across Africa in 2023 of our will grow with seam. And it's keen to hear from industry professionals who want to collaborate on the fire safety futures this year. Get in touch at OFRconsultants.com. And now back to the episode Hello everybody. Welcome to the Fire Science Show. I'm today with Brigit Messerschmidt from NFPA. Hello Birigtte

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 4:35

hey Wojciech thanks for having me here. I'm excited to talk to you.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 4:39

I'm excited as well, how how's live on the other side of the ocean.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 4:43

It's pretty good snowy morning here in Massachusetts, so, uh, life is pretty good.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 4:47

Now we don't have snow anymore in here. You took it all. I'm, I'm happy. You're happy. Uh, as I told you, it's gonna be difficult interview, because there are simply too many topics we can discuss on the podcast. And, even my one hour long episodes are difficult to accommodate discussions. From our correspondence, literally one sentence has, has caught my attention as a theme for this. And that was, designed by disaster. And I think it's an interesting thing in fire safety. we we do in fact, designed by disaster. And in your. career, uh, you were involved with, with many, many organizations that were, for, testing, certification, standardization. Now you are also in a place that's responsible for, for testing, standardization, certification. I, wonder like, what does design by disaster mean to you? Uh, in, in that world of fire safety viewed through the lens of Birigtte Messerschmidt.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 5:44

Well, what what I, what I mean about that is that, that we have a tendency to wait until a disaster happens before we make changes in, in our code standards or regulations. so we have assist. It works for a while. It's all great. We are all happy. We don't have too many extreme accidents, and then suddenly we have a disaster like Grenfell that happened in London in 2017, and we go like, oh my God, we have a problem. We gonna fix it. and we do a little bit of scrambling, little bit of panic where we, we make changes in the regulatory field and that then brings things back into order. We don't see another disaster for a while. We go, okay, we are good. We are. And then we wait, and then another disaster happens. it goes all the way back to, to, uh, you say the, the triangle, uh, ship waste factory fire here in, in New York,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 6:34

Hm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 6:34

over a hundred years ago where that, that started. N F P A 1 0 1, the, the, the life safety code, to many other big fires over time that. Significantly altered the codes and, and regulations around the world. so that's, that's what I'm thinking about when I, when I say designed by disaster, it is when we see an event that happens that we had not anticipated in our codes and standards.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 6:59

I've once read about the great fire of Rome that it led to like use of stone, increased separation distances and everything, and great fires happened every decade in every major city. Nothing was learned, preserved. I guess the, the moment where we figured out it's, it's standardization and codes, maybe not a stupid way to this type of experience, I guess that's where we started. Advancing in, in fire safety, although I'm not sure how big advancements we're making nowadays, but that's, maybe that's a topic for another podcast episode on data and, uh, where we are heading. I don't want to go there.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 7:37

That'll be next. And then that could get very philosophical as well.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 7:40

yeah. Oh, I, I have a, a history of amateur philosophy in the podcast, so that,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 7:44

just.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 7:45

that would fit, um, when you've brought an example of Grenfell and that was something I wanted to eventually reach in this podcast episode. But I would like to start, many years earlier. was a time in, in Europe where we had certain ways to, define flammability of materials and, uh, we call it now reaction to fire all the properties that, that, dictated the chance that material will ignite and spread the fire. And I know you were very heavily involved in this, part of fire science for a great, great part of your career, you were actually involved in this in a very interesting, time when. Europe start moving into unification of these methods, something that led to emergence of, single burning item test method. I wondered, uh, I cannot just not ask you the question, how, how it felt back then like when Europe was changing from all these different methods, from very expensive Room Corner tests into this, unified, uh, method.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 8:45

it, it was exciting times. I mean, I, I came into this in, in 1994, uh, right when I graduated from, from university, and, and on. I mean, I graduated without a degree in fires. Safety engineering, cuz we didn't have that in Denmark back then. So I'd had one course in structural fire engineering, uh, but was lucky enough to start working in the fire lab at DBI in Denmark and was thrown right into the development of the SBI test back then. so it was, it was really, really exciting times because what, what was happening was we were looking to replace all the different national tests with one harmonized system and. coming in green, 24 years old, uh, it never participated in a big international project like that. And then suddenly sit in a group where you can see, yeah, there's a lot of really good science here, but behind it was the national interest. So because it, became clear to me very quickly that any change that we would make, any, any test that we would make would mean. , every country would have to somehow adjust something and that affects that country's industry that already have their, their products approved to, to existing standards. so there was, you know, huge powers behind this with a huge interest in what was going on while we were sitting there working on a test and trying to do. the best we could in that situation. But, I've, I've said it before and I'll, I'll happily say it again. The S b I test is probably the only test in the world that's mostly developed by fire regulators

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 10:16

Hm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 10:17

and not scientists.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 10:18

And, and, uh, A lot of groups of from, uh, manufacturers through fire laboratories to, to us you said governments who, had some methods sorted out and, and they would be happy keeping that without big changes. Uh, large bodies of interest. And in the middle of it, a bit of fire science. Uh, that method actually makes some sense, right?

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 10:42

Yes,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 10:43

my best knowledge, it was, somehow correlated with the outcomes of room corner tests and there was this famous round robin in test where multiple materials were tested in both room corner and s b i to show that, results of s b I could be somehow used to predict potential outcomes of room corner, which then could be. Somehow used to, to establish a classification of or ranking of materials. Please correct me if I'm

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 11:12

No, it you're, you're, you're absolutely right. Because if, if you look at it, every country had their own way of doing things

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 11:17

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 11:18

and if you're, you're gonna find a new way, harmonized way. You have to sort of go back to basics and say, what is it then we are trying to achieve with this test method? And that that is what was done back then. And say, okay, what we wanna look at is fire in a room. , we believe that, you know, that was seen as the most, typical scenario, fire starting in a corner of the room. And then how would the different products then behave and feed that fire or, or help prevent the fire from growing, et cetera. Um, that is what we would like to try and measure here. So, it, it, the idea was to see how can we, Simulate that in the test and looking at existing tests, there was the room corner test, and that was seen. So we said the reference scenario that we were looking at was fire that started in the corner of a smallish room.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 12:09

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 12:10

okay. Next step is gonna say, okay, how can we, how can we represent that? So, so that's then what we call the large scale reference test. That was decided to be the room corner test that had been seen as, as a, as a well established test at that, that time in, in the mid nineties. and, and had been used in several research projects and a few countries, outside of Europe had looked at it as well, uh, for, for regulatory purposes. So that was chosen, say, okay. , we have that as a last scale reference test. So what we wanted to see is how products perform in that. And, and that's gonna sort of be based for how it will be, classified down the road, but, Testing every product to, to a large scale test is expensive, uh, cost prohibitive for, for, for some industries, et et cetera. So it was agreed that we wanted like small scale and, and intermediate scale test instead. This is why the S B I test came in as that intermediate scale test. So the idea was that the test result in, in the S B I test should reflect the results that came from the room corner test. So that it all linked back to that scenario of a fire starting in a corner of a room. So the classification you obtain should link back to how would these products perform if they were mounted on the wall and or ceiling in a corner of

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 13:31

So if SBI is intermediate, then what's a small one? A cone or a flame?

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 13:36

So in, in, in the European system as more, you know, the small flame test, uh,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 13:41

flame

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 13:41

is of course the first on the classification scheme. And then, then you have the, uh, um,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 13:46

of combustion as well, huh?

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 13:48

Exactly the bomb colorimeter and the non combustibility test. But I also, I mean, the cone colorimeter would've been a great small scale test to have had as part of this. And, as you know, the Nordic countries were pushing for this in, in the early nineties. Uh, it's through the, I think it was called the Horrific Project or something like that. and a lot of work had already been done showing, correlations between the cone colorimeter and, and the room corner. So, so that could have been a fairly easy transition, but that was not agreeable. So, so that's why went down the route of inventing a new test based on these principles.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 14:21

Cone also has a lot of fire signs behind it actually. And, uh,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 14:25

It does.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 14:25

brilliant, uh, lectures by Jose Torrero about how, uh, cone links to the, the, just the flame spread on, on, on the solid. and, and how it actually answers the important questions that are necessary to solve the, the equations for this flame spread. Anyway, let's go back to the European testing, um, regime. and I'm building up the, this whole, uh, Story of how s b I came to test because we're later. I want to understand why it has not prevented some of the stuff that happened at that time, you've chosen a bunch of different, uh, materials that were used in, in different settings, in the report, um, from speed, there's like 30 of them.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 15:08

there was, there was 30, 30 materials for the round robin. And they were not just, they were not chosen particularly by the laboratories group. So the, the group that was developing the test was called the Official Laboratories group. and they were not really the ones choosing, uh, these materials. It actually came a list. Fi, national Fire Regulators, that was, uh, in a group that was called the Fire Regulators Group under the commission. so they were the ones saying, these are the tests that we want to have in this round robin, and see how the system performs with these 30 materials

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 15:37

it's very interesting because, you know, 30 materials that are the backbone of the system. let's make a bold assumption that the system works for these 30 materials. it work for. any other material that's not on the list? You know, there there are some materials that came to existence after 1999. Uh, and I, I wonder like, can you expand the system for, for the new materials without changing the system?

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 16:06

Probably not. And that, that it's, you're actually hitting something really, really interesting here. Right? so as we did the, so when we did the round robin, we did, we tested the products in, in the S B I and then also all products were tested in the Room Corner test. So the S B I test were done. You know, you did, you we did. Three tests in each laboratories and 15 different laboratories in the sbi. So because we had to test both repeatability and reproducibility because it was a new test. Now each of the materials were also tested just once in a room corner, in a few different laboratories. One of them dbi I, one of them was, uh, uh, SP in Sweden.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 16:44

LSF V T T.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 16:45

LSF did some of them as well. So, and I think VT t as well, if I remember correctly. and each of us did a, some, a group of products. so, so the room quantit test, there was only one test on that, whereas there was many on, on the SBI side. Right. And the idea was then to see what that correlation between the two were. As we then were looking at the results afterwards, it became very clear that there was a group of materials already in the 30 that we have tested where this system does not work.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 17:15

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 17:15

and it was a few products that were specifically mentioned, uh, in that paper. And I think it's in that paper from sp, a report from SP on, on this. it was, uh, pip. Electrical cables. we also had, a polycarbonate, uh, skylight material, Uh, then, and then, uh, metal, metal face sandwich panels. these were where they, there was like, so clearly there was not, the behavior in the two different tests could not in any way be compared. and also that the setup with testing in this kind of test was. Not the right way to do it. And this was then foreseen in the system. by, it came with what we, from, from the commission, what was known as, uh, the guidance paper g and guidance paper G was, uh, set up to, allow for an alternative route. if you as, as an, you know, group of, so not a single manufacturer cannot go for this, but a group of manufacturers or, or an industry association or whatever, who could see. Our type of products are not treated correctly in the S B I test. We would like to have an appeal procedure and go towards the large scale reference test, the room corner test, and then proof performance there. Or if you can see that even the room corner test might not be the correct. Then apply for, well, what kind of, large scale reference test would be appropriate for this type of product and or system. so that was all written down, nice process for doing this so that the system could develop. as we, developed new products, new methods of, of construction, et cetera. It, it was, start into that and it, it, it was successful for a few products, right? Early on in the early two thousands. Um, one of them was pipe insulation.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 19:03

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 19:03

Uh, another one was electrical cables. Uh, a whole new project was set up then for that, and they defined their set of, uh, tests that was more.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 19:11

have a specific test methodology for cables that is specific for that product. Indeed, yes.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 19:17

Correct. So it, it worked really, really well for a while and then it sort of died.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 19:23

And we have a lot of new products developed all the time. And

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 19:28

Yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 19:28

mention, we are also, we're mixing the use of product, the material in, in this discussion.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 19:33

Oh God, yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 19:34

yeah, but it was certainly a, a a material test from what I see. It, it's not necessarily a, a product test. It's not. Test for complex wall, like you can game a lot by the surface. You know, you can, there, there, there's a lot of potential in here I wonder to what extent this single approach could, could be considered like a truly universal, you know, from pipes to furniture,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 20:01

was, that was a, a, a discussion that we had quite a bit, both during development, but even more through the, the years after implementation. You know, when, when it was implemented, we started using the system in, in the early two thousands. Uh, after 2002 when it was implemented was when we really started having those discussions about, well, is it actually material or is it product? Because in the SBI. test standard as well as in the, uh, classification standard. It's test, it's mentioned specifically the product should be tested, induced condition. and therefore considering that what is behind this product and or material that I'm testing has an impact on the performance, which you and I as fire scientists know is, is very true. It definitely can, it of course also has an impact if you have a very fire protective covering in front of something that's higher combustible behind, it, oh my God. It became a long, drawn out, discussion because, What does it mean to test an nge condition? and, and the discussion was, was rating mostly of, of firstly and, and, and very fiercely in, in the insulation industry, because what does it mean testing an insulation product in n use condition?

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 21:10

With water inside out of the paper.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 21:11

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it does, is it actually. The insulation material itself that I should test? Or is it the whole wall in which the insulation material is incorporated? Because that is, it's induced. You, you never have an insulation material exposed on the wall.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 21:30

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 21:30

always will have it behind a plaster board or something else. Right. so it became, you can imagine the discretion that was on, on one size and No, it, it means when, when the product gets a classification, the product should be exposed and others said, no, no, no. It says end use condition.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 21:45

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 21:45

And you can see where that you can probably, Ima imagine the fault lines between those two discussions where, where that they fell. and, and it, it's, it was really interesting because it made such a huge difference. If you have a highly combustible product, but you put it behind a plaster board, it'll perform really well on the sbi. . Wojciech Węgrzyński: Mm Uh, whereas if you exposed it directly in the S b I test will, it will not pass, even uh, to class D.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 22:10

mm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 22:11

so it will be, you know, you can imagine the interest behind some of these things in, in the discussions. it was, was, it was solved in that sense that, that the product that you put on the market, that is what you test and. But you would be allowed to then add an induced classification saying, well, yes, if my product is post it's performed like this, but if I, if it's mounted in real life behind plaster port, then the assembly will perform like this. So it's not even working. It's not just between material and product, it's also between product and assembly. And the SBI test, unfortunately is a mishmash of it all, and it's confusing every.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 22:46

And, uh, so let's briefly talk about the, the product. Now, this is a very European thing, the Euro class system, but, let's briefly touch that so people worldwide can better relate. so if you, if you can explain Euro class system in like, uh, you, you have two minutes. Let's go

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 23:02

Alright, so you have a product you wanna sell on the European market, you need a fire class. You start in the Euro class system and, and you start bottoms up. You start with a small flame test that really strike to that simply test, is my product resistant to a small flame size of a of a, of a match, right?

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 23:19

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 23:19

Okay. If you pass that next step up is the S B I test that is supposed to test your, your ability to, to withstand a flame spread and prevent flashover in a room or delay flashover in, in a small room. there's several different classes in the S B I. Uh, so so you test to that you measure the heat release and you are classified based on the fire, uh, the FIGRA and, and the SMOGRA as they were called. I can't remember what they were showed of because it's a long time since I did.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 23:48

rate and smoke growth, uh, rate

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 23:51

you. Thank you. That's.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 23:52

the A, but I, I got most of them

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 23:55

Well done. and this was again, the whole product being exposed in, in this test. Now, if you then wanted to go up to, the highest classes up in class A one and a two, this is where suddenly you are. Diving into material level. So you would, for class A two, you would still do an SBI test on the product, but in addition to that, you would have to do either a, uh, uh, bomb colorimeter test on each of the materials or an non combustibility test and fulfill then requirements for clarity, A two for those. And for class A one, you had to do you the, you had to do both the bomb colorimeter and the non combustibility test for each of the materials,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 24:39

and in the end you have a ladder from letter F to letter A, where F

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 24:43

A one,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 24:44

the worst, but tested

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 24:46

yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 24:47

and, and a would be something, um, non-combustible or, or close to non-combustible

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 24:53

You say a

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 24:55

means.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 24:56

Exactly. I mean, and that's another argument, right? A one definitely would be what people would consider, uh, non-combustible. a two is what many, in including myself, would still consider non-combustible. Some would consider limited combustible. So it, it depends on where in the spectrum you've, you've fallen on.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 25:12

So it sounds like, a pretty, decent ladder for products

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 25:16

Yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 25:17

But, but it, it wasn't designed by disaster, the system, it was designed by the market, by the need, by the, uh, legislation. I guess the individual tests were by disaster. For example, the room coroner probably with the realization of, of, it was in seventies or eighties, and I think it can be traced back to work of Zu Koski, this corner where, where it was shown that it, it has quadruple, uh, Speed of, of the growth of the fire. If you place it on the corner, double when it's at the wall and it's just a fire when it's in the middle. So, so that's probably, that led to the realization that the corner setting is, most likely leading to flashover the quickest. and this all goes back all the way to the fifties, sixties, first wagon compartment fires, Kawagoe Thomas, a lot of fire science in, in involved, and, uh, a lot of disasters that led to this realization. But

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 26:11

Correct.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 26:12

a system that, there was no disaster that led to a merger of, of system that was market and Harmon.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 26:20

It was harm, it was harmonization. Exactly. And that, that's actually what's so unique about this whole history is that it was part of the harmonization project. and not, as you say, this was not designed by disaster. It was, it was actually, there was an attempt to have. A, a logical system, a system where, where, as you said, it's, it's a ladder that, products can, can go through based on what we believe was the biggest hazard, flashover, in a room, that we wanted to prevent, as you said, based on research from many, many years before, showing that combustible linings are at risk, in our buildings, et cetera. So, it was, there was a lot of, lot of good thoughts and a lot of good things that went into this. it, it wasn't, it wasn't perfect, in, in the end far from, uh, because there was a lot of interesting powers behind all of this, that, that constantly we're tweaking things one way or another. So it's. sometimes we can less science than most of us would've preferred.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 27:20

the urge is strong, uh, but I'm not gonna follow that lead We all know about a certain paper that has been published, lately that that touches, uh, actually that's a pretty good, it should be called, Science novel,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 27:34

yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 27:35

by by Angus Law, Graham Spinardi and Luke Bisby I'm gonna link to show notes if, if someone would like to learn the juicy background of, of this rise of Euro class. But I, I'm, I'm not interested. I, I am interested in that, but in here I, I would like to understand. We, we had the classification developed, uh, not by disaster. We had science introduced to answer some questions about how tests can be scaled and can one test, predict results of another. That that's science actually that, that's very

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 28:05

Yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 28:06

science. And now this leads to his system, I guess you could. Prevents disaster because you now have the specification and assuming you deployed that you can distinguish fire safe solutions from unsafe solutions. And, uh, People at power can say, okay, you should use this class in, in this setting. You should use this class in another setting. because obviously if we made a non-combustible world, it, it would be heat, maybe the fire safest. I don't know if it actually would, but, there's, um, merits to use different materials for different, uh, solutions and how we, uh, end up in the world. You can use Euro class for almost anything, but still we have residential fires with a lot of fatalities. We still have, uh, buses and trains that, that burn down, even though there is reaction to fire requirements, at least for the trains. We do, have disasters like Grenfell, uh, where facades are, are burning vigorously. And it's not just a, you know, Grenfell is a very harsh example and there's, uh, a lot of things that went into. horrible fire. But, I can build a facade using only materials of Euro class B I, and it's gonna, I can make it very, very horrible. I, I wonder, is disaster necessary to, to, to make a fire safe why couldn't our sophisticated 20 years of research and. Prevent things like, like Grenfell from happening. What, what do you think, we achieved with this system and, and where we'd lacked? That's a difficult question. Sorry,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 29:42

No, it, it's a, it's an extremely interesting, uh, train of thoughts there. So, so if we go back to, what we talked about, how it, it was all developed, it was based on the room corner test. And so when he ended up with the system and we had this guidance paper, The possibility of an appeal procedure. I actually think we had a really solid system and something that was good to go forward. But as I also told you, yeah, it worked nicely for a bit where we were, allowing some of these appeal procedures and so on, and people were pushing for that. And then that died off. And what happened is that in many people's mind, s b I just became the test. It became the truth

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 30:21

Oracle.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 30:22

link. to the room corner. And the original thinking started dissipating very quickly because, you know, it was a lot easier to do an ice s b I test than, than a room corner test. And then we run into this problem that the S B I test really was struggling between as, as you very, correctly pointed at is it a material? Is it a product test? Is it an assembly test? When we are talking about facades, we are talking about putting these whole assemblies into the S B I test and putting a 30 kilowatt burner on them. What in real life does that resemble? Nothing

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 31:04

Yeah.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 31:04

but yet that is how we then allow some of these to say there can't.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 31:10

And you're not even putting a facade. You're putting, uh, you can put materials.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 31:14

Then you can then test each of the separate materials as well. Test them and they can get their nice class B. And then when you put them together in a assembly out in real life, something completely different can happen.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 31:28

Hm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 31:28

this is where there's this huge disconnect in the system. Between the products and the assemblies. That happens in real life and that has never truly been solved. So one of the ways, it was argued right from the beginning with the S B I test and with the whole system, because we were talking fire in a corner of a room.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 31:51

Hmm

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 31:52

knew this is not FSR test.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 31:55

mm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 31:56

This is a test that's designed to. Internal linings So facades were not really thought of this. It was always in the mind of CEN TC127 and other groups back then that facades were gonna be the next on this. This is what we.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 32:14

at that time, facades were not built out of polymers. It was, uh, It was steel, it was simple glazing. You didn't have this super complex facade system,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 32:27

It, well, you did in some places. Uh, you, you had started seeing it in Germany with the ethics systems.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 32:34

okay.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 32:34

it, it was, it was emerging in back then, but, but yeah. You know, again, you gotta get to a critical mass of systems before we start seeing the problems. Right. so, so, so anyway, we were arguing. SBI test was not appropriate for facades. here comes, uh, the commission didn't really wanna deal with this. No, we've solved the fire problem. We've done, we've done the SBI test, we've done the Euro class system. Right? and so, so the, it was so difficult to get moving, get it moving on, having a large scale test for facades at the European. And we are still not there. As far as I know, we are close with the work that's been going on. but I still don't believe we have a sense standard yet for a large scale for SAR says, do we?

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 33:19

Yeah, if, if we can go there, and I'm not sure if we will have, like now to think about why s b I happened. why this method was chosen. It was convenient.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 33:29

Yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 33:30

It was fairly quick. It was easy to deploy in anti fire laboratory. Like you didn't need a 20 megawatt hood to deploy sbi,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 33:38

Correct.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 33:39

10 square meters and some exhaust. And for manufacturers, the sample is small, very, quite cheap. I would say the test is cheap, so, so end, I would assume a lot of popularity of this test comes from the fact cheap and easy. That's how I, I would call it.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 33:57

I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't actually call it the easiest test in the world because it has the, the heat release measurement. It does, it does require knowledge behind,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 34:06

but that's the, that's the apparatus. Like as, as, long as you build the apparatus correctly and you make this one time investment and you gain the capability of doing the test, just simply running the test is not, very difficult thing to do.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 34:20

correct. Correct. And also it, it didn't disrupt markets too much.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 34:25

Yeah, that's true.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 34:26

And that, and that had a big thing to do with it as well.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 34:29

mm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 34:30

if we then suddenly required every product that was gonna be used in a facade to be tested as part of an a facade assembly, can you imagine the cost to be able to put those products on the market? It, it would be huge. So, so of course there wasn't an interest in going down that route. that leaves us in the situation that yes, you can perfectly well test products and get a nice cast B on them for each sim and every one of them, and then you can put them together into a facade system. And unfortunately, the combination of those are deadly.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 35:03

But I find this still a challenge even in at the emergence of the, of the European large scale test method because, the large scale metal is, is exactly opposite of, of the strengths of s b I have mentioned. gonna be difficult to deploy in any laboratory because

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 35:18

Yes,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 35:19

quite a significant building to handle that, that method, even though even if you don't measure heat release rate, you still need a very large hood, and facility to handle such a big fire. it's gonna be painfully slow because you need to build a very large facade to test

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 35:34

yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 35:35

And, uh, there's a big difference. If you're building or three meter tall facade and building something that's eight meters tall, you suddenly need scaffoldings. You need a way to rise it, it seems like not a very big difference, but in terms of, uh, of the preparation of the test, it is a massive, massive change of,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 35:53

It's huge.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 35:54

and most likely it's gonna be quite expensive to run because you will not sbi, my guys can do 12 a day on a good day. big

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 36:03

E Exactly. I mean, at the s b I you can run fairly quickly. It, the test samples are easy to, to put together, et cetera. No, you're absolutely right. A large scale forar test that, that is, that requires, uh, that's a completely different ballgame, cost wise, et cetera, but, This is the challenge that we have with our, our modern systems. and, and these assemblies that are complicated use of claddings, insulation, et cetera. a small scale test won't be able. Yet we, we haven't found a way through small scale tests to replicate the, the complicated interactions between the different materials in those. And therefore, in order for us to get at least an idea of their performance in real life, we have to go large scale. otherwise we are we, we are in a situation where we don't know what's gonna happen when we combine these products into an assembly.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 36:59

That, that's an interesting point of view. That terrifies me because, uh, all these tiny details that play in, uh, such a setting of a facade, uh, the more I research that, the more horrified I am. How small details, you know, cavity barriers, the way how you make the cavity, the gaps between the external bolts, the fixings. There's so many tiny details that make, can make or break, facade test. That

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 37:26

yeah.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 37:27

and, It's possible to design a test which almost no systems will pass. It's also not the points to, everything. Like we need to find solutions that are safe enough, I wonder if we can accomplish that with the safe. So, so now we are at designing by disaster. We had huge disasters and, can we solve that?

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 37:46

I think we can, but not, not tomorrow. and I think it takes much more of a science approach than, than what we have had until now. Um, it, it's always been my dream that we will be able to based our, our design of these systems instead of large scale and more on the modeling based on knowledge of performance of each of the different components. But we are not there yet. We don't have those tools yet. so, but, so until we have, we have to find another way. And even, even a large scale test is, yeah, it will help.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 38:21

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 38:21

But it won't prevent all disasters. So let's, let's look at the uk. and they do have a facade test,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 38:27

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 38:27

and that was developed based on a disaster and they have it implemented now they have another disaster.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 38:34

Mm-hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 38:34

there were still some things that had not been considered in their regulatory system that could creep their way into, the buildings and, and create this. There are many other reasons for the disaster. Grenfell, uh, and I'm not gonna get into that, uh, at all, but, um,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 38:50

The existence of the test doesn't prevent disaster. That's, that's, that's it. if you have a test that is fit for solving your issue, you really should use it, uh, to solve your issue. Not, find the ways around it because of, of various reasons. Political, financial, comfort,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 39:06

E Exactly. and there you also, you were pointing to a thing that I think is extremely important for us to consider here. When, when we are then looking at big, complicated tests, like, like a big facade test, you can make sure that when, when, when a manufacturer or, or whoever's testing is doing this test, they're building up the perfect system.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 39:27

Yeah.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 39:27

they are making sure that everything is done right. and that's the system that they. . If it fails the test, they will figure out, oh, it was this that failed. They will adjust and they will test again. We only know about the system that passed in the end. That's what's put on the market. That's information that we get. We don't know about all the failures that came before, and each of those failures that came before speaks to a weakness in the system that the market is not made aware. Now you take this complicated system and you put it in the hands of installers and some installers can be highly trained and will do a great job and install a wonderful system as great as was tested. Others might not know that the fact that they have taken a shortcut on the construction site somewhere. that they thought was benign from, based on their thinking of a art system as protecting from the rain and the wind and snow and so on, uh, they're not thinking fire. They might not know that that little change that they did or that little thing where they caught a corner can have a catastrophic impact in case of a fire. and this, this is where it becomes really complicated. We don't know this and we don't, we don't talk about it enough out there. The importance of training, of the installers, of, of being very clear about the weaknesses of the system. No manufacturer wants to go out there and say, yeah, I got a great system that passes this test, but be careful of this and this and this because then it'll fail. Nobody wants to go out and say that, but unfortunately we somehow actually need.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 41:02

For example, work that Cross is doing UK in, in sharing some of these tabs, that would normally go, uh, hidden. That, that's a brilliant thing. And we definitely need more of that. You know,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 41:14

Yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 41:15

maybe, maybe this 20, 30 years ago maybe, Laboratories felt that like, because laboratories have this knowledge, it's, it's just, uh, very difficult to go from laboratory, laboratory having a knowledge and laboratory sharing a knowledge. A lot of reasons in terms of liability, client owned information, general rules of, of not sharing information laboratories is essentially a judge and, and we are not allowed to talk about solutions of our clients because that's proprietary information from, for the clients. but laboratories can talk between each other, you know, in the test of this particular element. This fails always. Yeah. It does fail always.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 41:54

but that's the kind of information that then needs to get into the standardization world and, and the regulatory world, right? And

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 42:01

And I'm not sure if that's this, I'm not sure if this path, I guess it exists because a lot of laboratory representatives are in the commissions, in various commissions in, in Europe at least.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 42:13

yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 42:13

I, I just wonder if they're brave enough to do that. Not sure.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 42:16

from my experience back then, I would say sometimes they are, sometimes not. And I, and I totally understand, a very, very different, difficult situation. You can find yourself in, as a laboratory, right. In, in, in that.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 42:28

shouldn't be a case of bravery. It should be just a system that. that leads to use of tad uh, secret knowledge for the betterness the citizens of Europe. Right?

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 42:39

E Exactly. And this is where the, maybe, maybe one of the things that we have to think about going forward is, is not so much constantly chasing, the perfect tests, but more chasing. How can we get this information out in people's hands in a way that it becomes useful even when they fail? How can we share failures as well as successes from the test world to learn from this? we can't expect that that manufacturers will start doing that on their own because it will put them in, in a very bad situation competitively. Right?

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 43:14

Hmm,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 43:15

you would have to create a level playing field by. Have some rules for how to share this and maybe that's part of the way to solve some of this problem. Is there even just a way we can share data with having things being, taken out, product names and so on. So at least we can share some kind of information. That would be great.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 43:36

it would be one of the things that, truly move us forward. And now, you know, we are develop, let, let's say we are developing now a, a fantastic that, that will, give us the capability to assess the current. let's say facade systems. We're talking about facades today. So let's start, let's say we are developing this. Do you think it's gonna be feature proof? Like, like 30 years ago or 20 years ago when s p I was developed, it was this bunch of 30 materials that, that were the cornerstone of that, Today we, we have a certain set of done over the Europe to develop this large. type of, facade tests we will use for future facade systems. Five years from now, we're gonna have, let's say photo all tag assemblies attached to each facade, and someone will say, okay, it's not a part of facade, it's a external, uh, device placed on a facade. How do we prevent problems with that? We're now testing living wall systems, which are extremely complicated and interesting, and, if you ask me, does this new European Testa method solve the problem of living will systems, I already can see, not necessarily. I, I wonder like to what extent we are a hostage of our today's knowledge and to what extent future will again catch us, uh, in a not a very comfortable place.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 44:59

you're again touching on something that, that I have been talking about a few times, uh, before.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 45:05

invited you here,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 45:05

Yeah. We, as we as a fire science community and fire testing community, et cetera, and code and status, we always play in catch up. We are always coming after the systems have been developed, after the products have been developed and there, that is why we, we will never be able to, to develop a future-proof test because we are not part of the discussions now about the systems that will be coming 10 years down the road.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 45:35

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 45:35

They don't wanna invite us in. We, we are the, we're the difficult ones, right? We are the ones destroying all these great ideas by saying, Hey Burns, you can't do that. and that, that is a huge problem that, that we have, that we are not part of the product development we are not part of, of. looking at how could the buildings of tomorrow be? you know, goes to, to another area where say this whole talk about, you know, energy efficiency, sustainability and so on. We fire people are not part of it. We are not in the discussions about, well, what technology should we have to make buildings more sustainable? Like, uh, what should we do for decarbonization? we are not part of those discussions until we have a disaster. It's like, oh yeah, we probably should have thought about fire. And we get back to the design by disaster. We see, okay. Apparently the test we had didn't consider these new developed materials. unless we get better at joining those conversations, we will always be behind.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 46:38

I to what extent, the future fire engineers can be blamed for believing our tests are. Applicable, you know, to, to their future problems in the same way as we believe that, for example, Euro class system is a solution to flammability for, for a decade. Whereas now, more and more examples emerge where it's, it's not enough where you have to look into assembly like we just discussed, right? And, and, and can we, uh, help future engineers not do the same?

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 47:11

I hope so. And that, that's, you know, up to, to all of you that, that are educating the next generations Right. To make sure that they also have that understanding and, and the basic science to also be able to question the existent existing system because the problem arises when we take the system as it is, as the eternal.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 47:32

Hmm.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 47:33

Well of if it behaved well in the S B I, of course it's a fire safe product. No, you have to question it and, and, and look at it and say, well, what was the intention with the S B I? And is that intention correct for this product that we have here? This is why I'm, I'm really happy with that paper that came up because it reminds people of the.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 47:52

Yeah.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 47:52

and that's why I'm super excited that you invited me here today as well because I have a chance of, of, of reliving some of that history with you so that the new generation of fire, fire protection and fire safety engineers are aware of it so they're know, oh, that's what's what the s b I was supposed to be. um, okay. Maybe then it's not right for what I'm trying to do here and, and use it as an argument for that. It's great to use this product over here. So that, I think that's extremely important for the new generation to be aware of. Both the strengths and the limitations of our testing regimes all the way through. And it's not just in Europe, it's also in the US

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 48:31

Of

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 48:31

And, and, and be critical, uh, be ask questions. Is this appropriate for the application? I think it's really important to consider that what is the application that we are working on here? was the test that I have here. Is it appropriate for that? I mean, don't even get me started talking about the Steiner tunnel that's used in the us. I mean, if people are picking on the s b I, I'll pick on the Steiner tunnel, right? Which, which always gets me in, in trouble over here on this side of the pond. But, it, it, it's always a fun, fun discussion. But that, you you have to question and, If they don't, they will get into trouble, and I think yes, at some point they will then be held responsible. We've seen that in some cases,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 49:14

and I also believe. The more fire science is involved, like, I think scientific method can be an answer to many questions,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 49:22

yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 49:23

but the true scientific method, not the one that that's lobbied like, I can tell you like, you have to have this and this heat of combustion to, claim that your material is not. Participating in a fire and you can tell me, yeah, you know what? I have this funny material that's just one that limit. Can we move it a little bit, to accommodate? Uh, so what starts with the fire science? a and when you have lobbing and, uh, I also believe, looking for the chaps on the market side, it's kind of brutal. You know, they have to fight for this certificate. It's very difficult for this manufacturers to really. What their product is doing, because in the end it's always gonna be used against them. in a way, like whatever you say was, is gonna be used against you.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 50:07

that's always the danger, right? But, but let's not, let's not be blind to the fact that, that a manufacturer will design to the test method.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 50:14

yeah.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 50:15

When it comes to the fire performance, they're not deciding to the, the end use they're deciding to the test method because that's what gives them the access to the market. That's how they prove, and, and, and they can rightly say, , I have passed this test. I show this before and my product is good. so that, that's what we have to keep in mind. And this is, you know, as you said, what what could we do? Potentially going for one, one of my other dreams is that, well, maybe we never should have classifications. This, this arbitrary well, here we are talking reaction to fire. Over here we are talking fire resistance. We don't talk how, you know what the structures are made out of, where we only talk about their resistance. Over here we are talking all about what they're made of and how their flammability and so on is right. I wish we were much more on a, a gradual scale of perform. , and I think that's the only, you know, one of the only ways we could solve this going forward is, is get to true scientific based performance parameters that are being, tested and then declared for the products so that fire safety engineers can take these and mega design based, based on it.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 51:28

Yeah. What a beautiful world would that be. Right.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 51:31

Oh God, yes.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 51:32

Let's build, let, Let's build, one for our children. That would be, that would be great.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 51:36

It. It would be right, but it's, yeah, exactly. Imagine the stress of the manufac. What do you mean I'm not testing to a class? What do you mean I can't achieve? What do you mean I can't call my product combustible? Oh, yeah.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 51:47

you know what I I think it takes, uh, few brave. Who then succeed, uh, if they succeed, because if they fail, it's not gonna work. But it takes a few brave who succeed and then, uh, many others will follow. I, I hope that's, that's the case. Let, let's end this depressing episode with this, this promising thought that the future may actually be nice and fire safe. I'm giving myself a plus in American system. You've tried like five times to move me into the data, and I've resisted the urge because I want to have another episode with you, Brigit. thank you very much for coming and, and having this, uh, hopefully interesting, uh, discussion. Another, I'm gonna call it a Metro Philosophical Fire science episodes. I, I really enjoyed it. Thank you so.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 52:34

Well, thank, thank you. I, I truly enjoyed it as well. And, and, and as I said, thank you, thank for having me relive, uh, some of that history and, and help making sure that the, the younger generation is aware of it. Um, I, I'm a little sad to hear that you find it a depressing episode,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 52:50

No, I'm just

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 52:53

as, uh, necessary for us to understand in order so that we can go forward even.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 52:58

It's, maybe not, uh, depressing. It's, it's cleansing and, and

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 53:02

Yes,

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 53:03

and, I hope it shows a way forward and, uh, I hope this way will be discovered by the, the future generation of fire engineers.

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 53:11

I hope so too.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 53:13

don't don't believe our standards are Great for your materials. If you're listening, fire Science show in 2030. I, I wonder what test methods you have, and I hope you're doing good job with them. Okay. Thank you. Uh,

Birigtte Messerschmidt: 53:26

Thank you

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 53:27

uh, And that's it. Okay. Now I owe Birgitte to apology. It was not a depressing episode. I've listened to it once again, while editing and it was full of insight. Openness. Honesty and a willingness to build something better for the future. There's nothing wrong in saying that some things to did not work out as planned. There's nothing wrong. In saying that, the standards may not be future-proof actually, I find this. And encouraging speak so openly about the limitations of the current system, because sometimes these limitations can. Turn into disasters, which we don't want to have as our only motivation for a developing and growth. I hope this was interesting too, to all of you. It was certainly very interesting to me. I really love having such a deep, honest, open conversations in the podcast. And this is not the first one. Were we. Criticize or just talk openly about the far testing regime. There has been an episode with Anja Boelinghaus Hoffmann. Uh, about boss flammable. there was an episode with Piotr Turkowski fire resistance. Now, now this episode. There's also an episode. Ruben van Coile. If you've missed that. Where Rubin proposes a completely new pathway. Uh, for, for new fire safety and actually after we stopped recording with Birgit. We've briefly discussed that while that may be it. That may be the trick that we need to actually advancing a completely different way, different manner that we have been advancing so far. It doesn't mean that the system is not working completely or that the system. Is built with some wrong. Principles in mind is it's built the best way that the people before us knew and, We just have weaknesses, like everything in the world. It's not fail proof. And with the emergence of new materials with emergence of new solutions assemblies. New things that we consider important sustainability, circular economy and stuff like that. We will definitely need more open. Minds and a much better. Uh, view on safety, then, then just blindly following standards. We without even questioning where they came from and. What they were applicable to. So once again, Birgit. Thank you so much for this conversation. I hope you've all enjoyed it. And, yeah, more great stuff coming your way next Wednesday. So see you here again.