Structural Fire Engineering Episodes

From the SFPE Performance Based Design Conference in Singapore, we sit down with Jonathan Hodges and Mark McKinnon (UL Research Institutes) and Christian Rippe (Jensen Hughes) moments after their case study presentation to br...

You don’t always need a furnace to end up with a fire resistance rating, but you do need to understand what kind of “proof” you’re actually creating. I’m joined again by Dr. Piotr Turkowski from ITB to unpack calculation meth...

In this episode of fire fundamentals with the ITB fire resistance expert Piotr Turkowski we break down what a fire resistance rating criteria, and what the letters behind ratings like “REI 60” exactly stand for. We use lab ex...

Being a part of broader civil engineering and built environment sciences, we have the unique opportunity to learn from other "sister" disciplines, rather than coming up with everything on our own. Especially, when those disci...

A tunnel can ride out a fire without collapsing (or even critical visible structural damage), but a question whether it is safe for operations, and what is its long-term residual fire resistance remains. With repair bills bei...

In this episode of the Fire Science Show we invite dr. Antonela Čolić from the OFR Consultants, to break down the performance of adhesives used in CLT in fire, what differences between the glues are observable at the microsca...

What happens when the flames die down? It's a question rarely addressed in fire engineering, yet the decay and cooling phases of fires can be more dangerous than peak fire conditions. In this deep-dive conversation with Dr. Andrea Lucherini from Frisbee at ZAG in Slovenia, we uncover why these over…

Episode 200! And for this special episode, I've travelled to London to interview Prof. Guillermo Rein and Dr Matt Bonner on a piece of research carried out at Imperial College London, with the experiments performed in our laboratory at the ITB. In this episode, we discuss the concept of flammabilit…

We know a whole lot more about mass timber in fire than we did a few years ago (even when I’ve just started the podcast 199 episodes back …). But is this knowledge widely used in engineering practice? Is it used in the same w...

Can a tiny amount of bio-protective coating completely change the fire behaviour of mass timber logs? If you asked me that some time ago, I would say it would probably be neutral. Can a 0.5 x 0.5 m free-standing log of timber...

This episode delves into the financial aspects of fire safety in building design, highlighting the balance between cost and effectiveness. My guests - prof. Thomas Gernay and Chenzi Ma from Johns Hopkins University share insi...

One could argue full-scale experiments on fire phenomena are the most enriching for our knowledge as the fire community. The costs associated with them and logistical nightmares of organizing them make them an uncommon sight....

In the everchanging world every now and then we get a new driver, that dictates most of our choices. In the current built environment and building industry, carbon dioxide feels like such a driver. We don't like it, we want t...

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Carmen Górska from OFR Consultants, the recent IAFSS Phillip Thomas Award recipient for the best paper at the previous IAFSS Symposium. In this interview, we touch on preconceived notions a...

In today's episode, I have invited dr Eleni Asimakopoulou from the University of Central Lancashire to discuss her extensive expertise on fire behaviour of facades. In the talk, we will go through Elenis' experiments on venti...

Balancing the cost and the potential to change a system in the future is a difficult act. Discover a new perspective on this aspect of fire safety systems with our guest, Jaime Cadena Gomez. We discuss the significance of lon...

In this week's series covering experimental fire science, we venture into a recently finished Code Red project by ARUP, led by my today's guest Dr Panos Kotsovinos. The project was carried out in CERIB with the collaboration ...

Performance-based engineering or the use of probabilistic methods in building design are not inventions of Fire Safety Engineering. But we sometimes tend to act like we need to 'discover' and work out everything on our own. I...

Would you rather do 20 published experiments and take your impact factors, or make one that truly changed the world of fire science? Or maybe a different way, would you pursue something that is quick, easy and gives immediate...

Today is a great day to celebrate with Prof Ruben van Coile of Ghent University, who is most likely the first representative of Fire Safety Engineering to receive a grant within the European Research Councill Starting Grant s...

When the flaming combustion stops and the raging inferno disappears, the environment is still far away from a stable, stationary state. The heat emitted by the fire and accumulated by the structural elements is still on the m...

If Dalmarnock was the reality check for fire modelling, we could call the work carried by BRE at Cardington the birthplace of Structural Fire Engineering. Welcome to episode 2 of Experiments that Changed Fire Science! In thi...

Intumescent coatings are not magic. They are a product of amazing engineering, a theatre of thermophysical properties that create an insulative layer that sometimes is the only thing holding fire from destroying a structure. ...

Today we talk fire resistance, but unlike you have ever heard. Join me and Dr Piotr Turkowski - two fire laboratory professionals in an honest discussion about their craft. The challenges in standardization and committee work...