Research to be Presented at Interflam 2010 in Nottingham, UK

Our warehouse fire research will be presented at Interflam this summer:
Nondimensional Commodity Classification and an Analysis of Upward Spread
Michael Gollner, F Williams, Univ of California, K Overholt, A Rangwala, Worcester Polytechnic Univ and J Perricone, Creative FPE Solutions, Inc.

If you are planning on attending please stop by for an interesting presentation. Another presentation on similar work will be held at Edinburgh University in the week preceding the event.

The website of the conference is:

UC San Diego Students, Area Attorneys and Financial Analysts Win Sustainability Award

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/awards/05-26SustainabilityAward.asp

UC San Diego, a national leader in sustainability education, research and campus operations, has recognized a collaborative team of students, legal and bond underwriting experts in its 2010 Sustainability Awards. The seemingly unlikely team played a key role in enabling the San Diego region to win $154 million in low-interest Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs), which are now promoting hundreds of new green jobs and boosting the capacity of locally produced solar energy by an estimated 40 percent, or 20 megawatts of additional solar power.

SFPE Educational and Scientific Foundation Research Grant Awarded!

Professor Forman A. Williams (PI) and Michael Gollner (Co-PI) just received offical notification that our research grant request has been approved by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers Educational & Scientific Foundation Board of Governors. The amount requested was approximately $25,000, and the funds will be used to continue research on a fundamental approach towards commodity classification. A new laboratory setup will be constructed at the combustion laboratory at UC San Diego over the summer and experiments will continue. Keep posted for more updates!

Research Foundation workshop summarizes new approaches for high challenge warehouses

At this workshop we presented our concept for future research efforts to understand the physics occurring in large warehouse fires to accurately classify the fire hazards of warehouse commodities.

An important comment from Jonathan Perricone:

This workshop has produced several elaborate ideas covering just about every fire protection tool available today. The next step in this process is to test these ideas to find out the limits of their protection. For example, how tall can storage be before Idea A no longer provides adequate protection? It would also be good to know if lab results are repeatable. If not, that means that we can't expect the system to perform in real life the same way it did in the test. Where are we then? This is a good example of how fire protection is quickly moving toward larger-than-life problems that can't be adequately examined at full scale. Previous attempts at modeling (scale, computer, etc.) have not yet proven viable alternatives because we lack some basic fundamental knowledge. Time to start investing in this fundamental knowledge. The future of this field depends on it.

I am troubled by the comment that "some situations or conditions cannot be engineered to make it right." What is the alternative? An untested solution?

Masters Thesis

My masters thesis, entitled "A Fundamental Approach For Commodity Classification" was presented and has been accepted by the University for publication. You can check out a pre-print copy on my publications page:

http://maeresearch.ucsd.edu/~mgollner/publications.html

Abstract:

Experimental tests were conducted on a single cartoned, unexpanded Group A plastic commodity to evaluate an approach to commodity classification in complex fuel geometries. The approach is based on comparing the chemical energy released during the combustion process with the energy required to vaporize the fuel. The ratio of these two quantities is often called the mass transfer number, B-number or Spalding number.

The Group A commodity tested was essentially a three-dimensional cardboard box subdivided by cardboard placeholders for individual unexpanded polystyrene cups. Experiments consisted of burning the front face of a single box with all remaining faces uniformly insulated. Measurements of gas temperatures, mass-loss rate and heat flux from the same were used to calculate a modi¯ed B-number, which includes consideration of the role of radiant heat transfer. Results from experiments have produced time-averaged B-numbers for stages of burning. Comparison to a concurrent study using a cone calorimeter on smaller-scale material samples shows good agreement between these methods. Future use of the results to improve commodity classification for better assessment of fire danger is discussed.

Smokey Bear Now Studies Computer Science

Interesting article on some computer applications and how they have been used for wildfires, and the lack of funding to continue the research effort in this field.

Understanding wildfire behavior and predicting its spread …

http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/smokey-bear-now-studies-computer-science-8272/

The war being waged against wildfires from Southern California to Greece and Australia is almost as complex as the infernos themselves. Innovative computer mapping tools advance, as do airborne imaging techniques that can look straight through black smoke for views of emerging dangers no firefighter ever sees. However, some crews battle blazes on bulldozers older than they are, and funding is tight all around. Still, the breakthroughs keep coming....