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There
are numerous IAFSS activities in progress and many opportunities
for participation. IAFSS is a volunteer organization and
relies upon the involvement of members in its activities.
Activities that specifically are in need of additional volunteers
include the Writing Mentors program, implementing electronic
commerce for the website, and a webmaster for the symposium
website. If you can help with any of these, contact Craig
Beyler or Carole Franks.
With
the development of web-based access to FRS Notes and the
IAFSS and AOFST symposia bibliographic databases, IAFSS
is posed to become a significant online fire science resource.
At the September IAFSS Committee meeting, the committee
will be discussing the future direction of these activities.
Questions to be addressed will include how to make papers
electronically available (free, member access only, for
fee), method of publication of future symposia (electronic,
traditional publishing, print-on-demand publishing), and
the potential role of IAFSS as a repository for fire science
documents developed by other organizations.
The
reversion of the copyrights from the First, Second, and
Third IAFSS Symposia to IAFSS is an important development
that will insure the continued availability of the papers
from these early symposia. The copyrights were held by Taylor
and Francis, who have generously returned the copyrights
to IAFSS. Upon my request for the copyrights to be returned,
Taylor and Francis reviewed the situation and returned the
copyrights to IAFSS without cost or encumbrances. We are
too accustomed to large corporations acting without any
civic sense. Taylor and Francis showed genuine civic sense
and I know I will remember and favor them for their actions.
Thanks Taylor and Francis!
Planning
for the 9th IAFSS symposium in Karlsruhe is moving forward.
The program committee is well organized and the paper submission
and review process is posed to work even better than the
last symposium. Dieter Brein and his local committee have
put into place arrangements for an excellent symposium.
The facilities are excellent and the proximity of hotels
to the meeting room will allow meeting participants to walk
to the symposium venue from their hotel if they like. Regular
tram service will be available throughout the day. The Sunday
workshops will be held at hotel meeting rooms. The Poster
Session will be a significant event in the symposium, both
socially and technically. By moving back the deadlines for
full papers (14 January 2008) and posters (15 May 2008),
the timeliness of papers and particularly the posters will
be much enhanced. I am confident that the Karlsruhe symposium
will meet and exceed our already high standards for our
symposia.
Carole
Franks and Jose Torero are looking at the potential for
adding electronic commerce to the IAFSS website to support
simplified publications ordering and membership renewals.
If you or your institution has expertise in this area, IAFSS
would benefit from your involvement in implementing our
electronic commerce plan. Contact Jose, Carole, or myself.
Craig Beyler
Craig
Beyler
Call
for Papers for the 9th IAFSS Symposium at Karlsruhe
The
Call for Papers for the 9th IAFSS symposium has been issued.
The formal Call for Papers can be downloaded from the IAFSS
website. The electronic procedures used in the last symposium
will again be used. An Author Website has been set up to
assist potential authors. The site includes the paper template,
manuscript preparation instructions, and schedule information.
The author website can be accessed via the IAFSS website.
Full papers are due 14 January 2008 and posters are due
15 May 2008. Notably, the size of papers has been increased
by 30% through a change to a larger page format.
Planning
for the 9th IAFSS Symposium is on Track
Planning
for the 9th IAFSS symposium in Karlsruhe Germany is proceeding
well. The local arrangements for facilities, hotels, and
events are well in hand, and the Program Committee is up
and running, focusing currently on selecting invited speakers
and the Emmons Lecturer. These selections should be announced
by the end of the summer. The Program Committee members
are listed on the author website and invited speakers will
be posted on the author website and the IAFSS website. The
committee plans to have their army of reviewers identified
and organized by the fall. Coordinators for the Poster Session
(Charley Fleischman) and Sunday Workshops (Fred Mowrer)
have begun their work. We still need a coordinator for our
Writing Mentors initiative to assist authors for whom English
is a second language, and we are seeking a symposium website
webmaster. If you can assist with either of these activities,
contact Craig Beyler.
IAFSS
Committee Meetings Planned for Interflam and AOFST
There
will be evening meetings of the IAFSS Committee at both
Interflam and AOFST in September 2007. Two meetings will
be conducted because it is not possible for all committee
members to attend at a single time and place. The content
of the two meetings will be the same. Agenda items will
include symposium planning, symposium volume publishing
planning, electronic assess for FRS Notes, AOFST and IAFSS
symposium papers, IAFSS's potential role as an electronic
repository for fire science publications, potential development
of an electronic IAFSS review journal, website development,
and general financial and administrative operations. Outcomes
from the meeting will be reported in the next newsletter.
IAFSS
Symposia Bibliographic Database is Online
Finding
IAFSS Symposium papers has never been easier. The IAFSS
website now includes a bibliographic database of all IAFSS
symposium papers. Search by author, keyword, or full text
search to find the papers you need for your research. Full
bibliographic information and abstracts are available online.
Give it a try.
Copyrights
to 1st to 3rd IAFSS Symposia Returned to IAFSS
Taylor
and Francis has generously reverted the copyrights for the
first three IAFSS symposia to IAFSS. This reversion will
allow IAFSS to keep the papers from these early volumes
available to the fire science community. This means that
IAFSS holds the copyrights to all IAFSS symposia. IAFSS
is thankful to Taylor & Francis for their contribution
to the fire science community. Taylor and Francis is the
publisher of Steel and Composite Structures: Behaviour and
Design for Fire Safety by Y.C. Wang, Introduction to Mathematical
Fire Modeling by Marc Janssens and Economics of Fire Protection
by Ganapathy Ramachandran.
Scanning
of Fire Research Notes is Underway
Based
upon an agreement between the BRE Trust and IAFSS (see Jan
2007 newsletter), scanning of the Fire Research Notes is
underway. The FRN's will then be indexed and put online
by IAFSS for use by the fire science community. IAFSS is
funding the scanning and indexing. The indexing is being
done by Tina Meyers, a FPE student at the University of
Maryland.
Scanning
of AOFST Symposia is Underway
IAFSS
is beginning the process of scanning the papers from the
Asia-Oceania Fire Science and Technology symposia. Indexing
is ongoing and online access is planned for later this year.
Tina Meyers, a FPE student at the University of Maryland
is indexing the papers. Look for a more complete article
on this activity in the next newsletter.
Prof
Mowrer to Coordinate New IAFSS Symposium Sunday Workshops
IAFSS
will be adding up to three Sunday workshops as a part of
the 9th IAFSS in Karlsruhe. Fred Mowrer, Prof. of Fire Protection
Engineering at the University of Maryland, has been appointed
to organize and coordinate the workshops. The objective
of the Sunday Workshops is to provide an opportunity for
groups to meet informally to discuss topics within fire
science. If you have interest in organizing a workshop in
your sub-discipline, contact Prof. Mowrer at fmowrer@glue.umd.edu
IAFSS
Awards for Excellence in Research
IAFSS
plans again to give awards for the best research dissertations
which have been successfully defended during the three year
period from 1st August 2005 to 31st July 2007. There will
be three such awards, one for each of the three IAFSS regions,
Asia and Australasia, Europe and Africa, and the Americas.
The successful candidates will be invited to present papers
at the 9th IAFSS Symposium in Karlsruhe in September 2008.
Grants of US$1500 will be awarded to cover the costs associated
with attending the Symposium. The objective is to encourage
young scientists to enter the field of fire safety science
and to participate at an international level.
Dissertations at PhD and Masters levels will be considered,
but only one may be submitted from each University or Institute.
The preliminary selection must be carried out locally, by
the Head of Department, or his or her equivalent, to ensure
that only the very best theses are submitted to the Association
for consideration. Submission by a student cannot be considered.
The submission of the work must consist of the following
documents:
-
Thesis (preferably in English or if not available in its
original language)
-
A three page abstract in English
-
Copy of at least one published or accepted journal paper
(if no such paper is available it can be substituted by
a 12 page paper as for submission for the next Symposium
of IAFSS)
-
A letter of recommendation of the Head of Department.
All
documents should be sent electronically (pdf format) by
mail or CD to the Chairman of the Awards Committee, Professor
Mario Fontana. (If not available electronically 6 paper
copies of all documents (including the dissertation) are
requested.) The deadline for submission is 30th August 2007.
The
submissions will be considered by regional sub-committees
chaired respectively by Professor Joulain (Europe and Africa),
Professor Pagni (the Americas) and Professor Chow (Asia
and Australasia). It is important to meet the submission
deadline as it is planned to announce the winners by the
end of January 2008 at the latest. This should give the
winners sufficient time to prepare their papers for inclusion
in the Symposium Proceedings. We intend announcing these
awards as widely as possible within the fire research community.
Graduates, or potential graduates, who meet the conditions
outlined above and wish to be considered for an award should
speak to their research supervisors. Any student defending
his or her thesis after 1st August 2007 will be eligible
for consideration for an award at the 10th Symposium which
is to be held in 2011.
In the first instance, a letter of intent should be sent
to the Chairman of the Awards Committee, Professor Mario
Fontana to whom all initial queries should be addressed
to the following email: mario.fontana@ethz.ch
NEWS
FROM OTHER ORGANISATIONS
Postgraduate
Studies in Fire Safety Engineering at Ghent University (Belgium)
We are
proud to announce that the Postgraduate Studies in Fire
Safety Engineering will be hosted by Ghent University, Ghent
(Belgium), from September 2007 onwards. The courses are
primarily meant for fire safety consultants, fire prevention
and fire brigade officers, building designers, building
services engineers and architectural practitioners. The
studies consist of 60 ECTS points, spread over two academic
years (4 times 12 weeks). The lessons will be in English
and will take place on Thursday evenings and Fridays. Experts
in the field will teach the courses. The complete programme
can be found on http://www.firw.ugent.be. More information
can also be obtained from Bart.Merci@UGent.be or Paul.Vandevelde@UGent.be.
Successful completion of the studies leads to the official
university certificate 'Fire Safety Engineering'. The registration
fee for the full course is 8000 Euro, manuals not included.
Looking
forward to seeing you in the courses, sincerely,
Bart Merci and Paul Vandevelde
Fire Safety Education and Research
at the University of Indonesia
As a
new member of the IAFSS, I would like to outline fire safety
education and research activities at University of Indonesia
(UI). A fire safety module is offered by Department of Mechanical
Engineering as an elective module in its undergraduate curriculum.
The module is attended by around 30 students per year. In
the coming academic year, the module will be opened for
university-wide students who interested in the subject.
As a respond to the increasing need of fire safety professionals
in the industrial and building sectors, risk management
and insurance sectors design and construction consultants,
researchers, and regulators a Master level course (Magister
Teknik) in Fire Protection Engineering and Management was
introduced in 2004.The main areas of fire research activity
at UI include (i) low-temperature oxidation of coal under
adiabatic conditions, (ii) cone calorimeter studies of tropical
woods, (iii) development of water-mist based fire extinguisher,
and (iv) fire reconstruction using Fire Dynamics Simulator
(FDS) form NIST.
If members
wish to find out more please contact Dr. Yulianto S Nugroho
at yulianto.nugroho@ui.edu
Yulianto
S Nugroho, Fire Safety Lecturer, Department of Mechanical
Engineering,
University of Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
FM
Global Donation to the University of Maryland
Fire
protection engineering students and researchers at the University
of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering
will soon be able to conduct fire experiments in a new,
one-of-a-kind laboratory. A US$135,000 gift from FM Global,
one of the world’s largest business property insurers,
will establish the lab in the Clark School’s Department
of Fire Protection Engineering. Located in the Clark School’s
newly renovated J.M. Patterson Building, the 1,000 ft2 (93
m2) lab will feature a salt-water facility for exploring
fire-induced flows, a 6 ft (1.8m) x 12 ft (3.7m) vibration-isolated
optical breadboard for studying detailed flame characteristics
and modular workspaces for a variety of bench-scale experiments.
Current advanced diagnostics like particle image velocimetry
(PIV), planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) and thin
filament pyrometry will be used in experiments, as well
as the development and application of future diagnostics,
which will help to produce tangible improvements in hazard
assessment and loss.
The
new lab is expected to open in April 2008. This collaboration
and FM Global’s support of university research and
education play a key role in the company’s research
activities. To learn more about the Department of Fire Protection
Engineering at the University of Maryland, please visit
http://www.fpe.umd.edu.
University
of Central Lancashire
Richard
Hull has been appointed Professor of Chemistry and Fire
Science at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan),
in Preston, UK. In his new role he will continue to develop
new fire-safe materials and develop new techniques for understanding
fire behaviour. Working alongside Prof Makhviladze’s
Centre for Research in Fire and Explosion Studies, UCLan
will boast a unique combination of fire chemistry and large
scale fire expertise. All based within the new School of
Forensic and Investigative Science, the group will also
have access to the full range of materials characterisation
equipment, including 600 MHz nmr with solids probe (for
char analysis), XRD (for characterising nanocomposite dispersion),
SEM with elemental analysis etc. (Contact
trhull@uclan.ac.uk or before 1st Sept 2007 t.r.hull@bolton.ac.uk)
New
Professor at Lund University
Effective
the 13th of August, Patrick Van Hees will join LTH (Lund
University), Sweden, where he will take up the position
of professor in fire safety engineering.
Patrick
Van Hees has a Masters Degree in Electromechanical Engineering
from the University of Gent in Belgium. After his studies
he started working at the Fire Laboratory of the University
of Gent as assistant professor. In 1995 he obtained a PhD
degree in fire technology at the same university. His dissertation
focused on wind aided flame spread of floor coverings. Immediately
after his PhD, Patrick joined SP Fire Technology in Sweden
(1995) where he started his career as researcher at the
reaction to fire section. He has been project leader at
SP for a number of research projects dealing with cable
fires, European harmonisation, flame spread and CFD modelling.
From 2002 on he worked as research manager at SP Fire Technology
and was head of the research section.
In
recent years, he was involved in projects dealing with issues
such as fire safety engineering for technical textiles in
buildings, self ignition of biofuels and validation of CFD
codes both nationally and internationally. He was also responsible
for the modelling resources at SP level where he put together
a calculation network between the University of Borås
(HB) and SP. Internationally, Patrick is convenor of WG
7 within ISO TC92 SC 1 dealing with full scale fire testing
and associate editor of the Fire and Materials Journal.
The
Fire Protection Research Foundation
The
Foundation has recently issued five reports which reflect
the completion of major research projects undertaken over
the past year:
• Smoke Characterization Project Technical Report.
• Evaluating Vapor Dispersion Models for Safety Analysis
of LNG Facilities.
• Guidance Document for Incorporating Risk Concepts
into NFPA Codes & Standards
• Fire Safety of the Traveling Public and Firefighters
for Today's and Tomorrow's Vehicle Fleet
• Supporting Data Needs for NFPA Automatic Sprinkler
Committees
Visit
www.nfpa.org/foundation
for full copies of the reports.
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