Report on the 7th International Symposium
The
Association held its 7th International Symposium on the
campus of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts,
USA from 16-21 June. Some 260 delegates attended from 25
countries to hear 90 research papers and 8 invited lectures.
Although registration and paper numbers were down from previous
symposia, the poster sessions were particularly successful
attracting a large number of very high quality submissions.
Displayed in a circular arrangement these sessions proved
to be very popular with delegates.
Research
papers were presented in two parallel sessions with invited
lectures being presented as Plenaries in the Odeum Room.
The week started with the Howard Emmons Lecture, presented
by Professor Pat Pagni of the University of California,
Berkeley on “Thermal Glass Breakage”. This was
followed by the very topical Invited Lecture “Initial
Model for Fires in the World Trade Centre Towers”
given by Dr Ron Rehm of NIST. The other invited lecturers
were Dr Ron Alpert (FMGlobal), Dr Mike Delichatsios (University
of Ulster), Professor Bob Zalosh (WPI) and Dr David Purser
(Building Research Establishment).
The
sessions reflected the extremely broad range of topics embraced
by fire safety science: flame spread, fire detection; fire
physics; risk and decision analysis; compartment fires;
automatic sprinklers suppression; materials fire behaviour;
smoke control; performance-based design; test methods and
modelling human behaviour; flame behaviour; statistics and
probability; structures and building components; and special
applications.
A
special panel session was held on new fire research facilities.
Delegates heard of the new fire laboratories in the UK (University
of Ulster), in the USA (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
and FMGlobal), in Canada (University of Waterloo) and in
Chile (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile).
The
full business meeting of the IAFSS was held on 20th June
where the new committee listed elsewhere in this newsletter
was elected and from which the new Chairman and Officers
were agreed. Professor Hirano was warmly applauded in thanks
for his period of service as Chair of the Association. Professor
Fan Weicheng of the State Key Laboratory for Fire Science
in Hefei (PRC) gave a presentation to introduce the venue
for the 8th Symposium to be held at Tsinghua University,
Beijung in September 2005. It was also announced that the
9th meeting would be held in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2008.
The
serious hard work was broken only by the formal social functions
and, for some, time in front of a TV screen where the late-to-bedders
and the early-risers could follow their favourite team in
the soccer world cup which was being held jointly by Japan
and Korea.
The
evening cruise on Boston Harbour on the Tuesday was particularly
appreciated by delegates and their partners. The beautiful
JFK Library, overlooking Boston Harbour, was the venue for
Thursday’s banquet. This provided the setting for
the various awards that the IAFSS makes at each Symposium.
They went to:
Howard
Emmons Lectureship:
Professor Pat Pagni.
Kawagoe
Medal:
Professor Dougal Drysdale.
Philip
Thomas Medal of Excellence:
P-J Garo, P Gillard, J P Vantelon and A C Fernandez-Pello
Awarded
for the best paper at the 6th Symposium entitled:
“On the thin layer boilover”
In
addition to the IAFSS awards, the FORUM wards for contributions
to Fire Safety Science and Engineering were presented by
its Chairman, Dr Paul Croce to:
Dr Vyto Babrauskas, Dr Paula Beever, and Professor
Jim Quintiere.
Although
numbers were down from previous meetings, the Symposium
was very successful. Dr John Hall and the Arrangements Committee
are to be congratulated for all their efforts which ensured
that the entire meeting was not only enjoyable but also
ran like clockwork. The IAFSS was particularly fortunate
that WPI were able to host the meeting so well, freely providing
invaluable support, particularly student assistance with
all manner of tasks. The commitment of the staff and students
of WPI was especially appreciated.
The
IAFSS are also particularly grateful to FMGlobal, NFPA,
NIST and UL for donations which helped ensure a successful
conference.
Geoff Cox
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