Research Impact

Our research is guided by the Society of Fire Protection Engineering's Research Roadmap. Below you can find some of the reports and articles authored by scholars whose work was supported by an SFPE Foundation grant or award, sorted by the SFPE Research Roadmap threads to which they contributed.

Support the work of our grantees and award recipients and help add to their impact!

Click on one of the SFPE Research Roadmap threads below to see SFPE Foundation-supported research in that area.

Human Behavior

Exploring ‘Wait and See’ Responses in French and Australian WUI Wildfire Emergencies
Authors: Sandra Vaiciulyte (Recipient of a 2019 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Lynn M. Hulse, Edwin R. Galea, and Anand Veeraswamy
Published: 2022 in Safety Science

This publication also contributes to the Wildland/WUI Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:
- This study systematically compared survey responses of residents in French and Australian at-risk regions.
- The results showed regional differences, with participants in France tending to choose to ‘wait and see’ as a response to fire cues more often than participants in Australia.
- There was less waiting when participants received environmental as compared to social cues, although the type of environmental/social cue appeared to moderate this behaviour.

Experimental Analyses of Step Extent and Contact Buffer in Pedestrian Dynamics
Authors: Peter Thompson, Hossein Tavanarezaei (Recipient of the 2021 Dr. Guylène Proulx, OC Scholarship), Cathy Goulding, Håkan Frantzich, Karen Boyce, Daniel Nilsson, Gabriel Larsson, Jesper Friholm, Denise McGrath
Published: 2022 in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

Key takeaways:

Develops a deeper understanding of the parameters that underpin the development of a new, predictive, microscopic model of pedestrian movement.
Draws on experiments that quantify the physical space taken up by the extent of a person’s stepping movement (maximum step extent) and the minimum distance between points of inter-person contact (contact buffer) across a range of walking speeds.
Works towards a longer-term aim of developing a mathematical model which has the potential to include pedestrian demographics, walking ability, and cognitive capabilities.

A Comparative Study of Flows Through Funnel-Shaped Bottlenecks Placed in the Middle and Corner
Authors: Hossein Tavana (2021 Proulx Award Winner), Kayvan Aghabayk, Karen Boyce
Published: 2021 in Collective Dynamics

Fire Incident Analysis of a Large-scale Informal Settlement Fire Based on Video Imagery
Authors: Natalia Flores Quiroz (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Richard Walls, Antonio Cicione, Mark Smith
Published: 2021 in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

This publication also contributes to the Non-Building Fires, Fire Dynamics, and Fire Service threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Importance of studying real fire incidents in informal settlements to understand the fire spread, the human behavior, and firefighters’ response and operations with respect to those incidents.
Implications for the development of policy for safety during urban environment large-scale fires, as well as the development of improved interventions, firefighter strategies, community layouts, and response strategies for low-income communities.

Towards Understanding Fire Causes in Informal Settlements Based on Inhabitant Risk Perception
Authors: Natalia Flores Quiroz (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Richard Walls, Antonio Cicione
Published: 2021 in Fire

Key takeaways:

Survey respondents’ risk perception emphasized factors outside their control when asked about their own household, but personal irresponsibility when asked about their community.
Inhabitants’ fire risk perception of their settlement is similar to that of firefighters in previous research.
The risk mitigation demands are more focused on decreasing the consequences of the fire than on the occurrence of a fire event.
The (South African) national fire statistics are not capturing the causes of real fire incidents in informal settlements.
Improvements to the documentation process after a fire event could provide critical information for the implementation of prevention measures.

Cross-cultural Comparison of Behavioural Itinerary Actions and Times in Wildfire Evacuations
Authors: Sandra Vaiciulyte (Recipient of a 2019 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Lynn M. Hulse, Anand Veeraswamy, and Edwin R. Galea
Published: 2021 in Safety Science

This publication also contributes to the Wildland/WUI Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap
Key takeaways:

This study compares survey data from residents of areas at-risk of wildfires in the South of France and Australia.
Results revealed that, across the two regions, the discrete actions in response to a wildfire threat were similar overall, albeit their priority sometimes differed. However, when analysed by category, the prioritisation of actions was uniform across samples.
Regional differences were also observed in relation to: mean number of actions, time committed to actions and the influence of socio-demographic factors, indicating geographical and cultural determinants.

Development of Fire Engineering Practitioner Tools
Principal Investigator: Fire Research Group, New Zealand (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
Authors: Colleen Wade, Daniel Nilsson, Greg Baker, Per Olsson
This project also contributes to the other eight threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Published: 2021 by the SFPE Foundation
Final Report: Fire Engineering Practitioner Tools: Survey and Analysis of Needs

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

Anthropomorphic Data and Movement Speeds
Principal Investigator: Dr. John Gales (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project
This project resulted in two reports published in 2020, as well as an article and book both published in 2022.

Report: Anthropomorphic Data and Movement Speeds

Authors: John Gales, Michael Kinsey, Peter Thompson
Key takeaways:

Provides an overview of existing movement data.
Focuses on data collected at York and Lund Universities.

Report: Determining Evacuation Capability with Biomechanical Data

Authors: Peter Thompson, Håkan Frantzich, Silvia Arias, Jesper Friholm
Key takeaways:

Adjusts the model for pedestrian movement at different densities developed by Thompson et al. (2015) with a new set of data on single-file pedestrian movement at different densities.
The resulting model is expressed in form of three equations that relate inter-person distance to biomechanical data such as height, foot length, and step length.

Article: Experimental Analyses of Step Extent and Contact Buffer in Pedestrian Dynamics

Authors: Peter Thompson, Hossein Tavanarezaei (Recipient of the 2021 Dr. Guylène Proulx, OC Scholarship), Cathy Goulding, Håkan Frantzich, Karen Boyce, Daniel Nilsson, Gabriel Larsson, Jesper Friholm, Denise McGrath
Published: 2022 in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
Key takeaways:

Develops a deeper understanding of the parameters that underpin the development of a new, predictive, microscopic model of pedestrian movement.
Draws on experiments that quantify the physical space taken up by the extent of a person’s stepping movement (maximum step extent) and the minimum distance between points of inter-person contact (contact buffer) across a range of walking speeds.
Works towards a longer-term aim of developing a mathematical model which has the potential to include pedestrian demographics, walking ability, and cognitive capabilities.

Book: Fire Evacuation and Exit Design in Heritage Cultural Centres

Authors: John Gales, René, Champagne, Georgette Harun, Hannah Carton, Michael Kinsey
Published 2022 by Springer
Key takeaways:
- Highlights human behavior and architectural considerations for codes in emergency exits at heritage cultural centers
- Presents case studies to illustrate the requirements in case of fire emergency
- Discusses the often-conflicting intersection between architectural conservation and fire safety

The Influence of Physical and Mental Constraints to a Stream of People Through a Bottleneck
Authors: Paul Geoerg (2017 Proulx Award Winner), Schumann, J., Boltes, M., Holl, S., & Hofmann, A.
Published: 2020 in Collective Dynamics

Estimating Occupant Loads in Retail Buildings
Principal Investigator: Dr. Gianluca DeSanctis (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
Published: 2019 by the SFPE Foundation
Final report: Survey of Occupant Load Densities in Retail Buildings
Authors: Gianluca De Sanctis, Michael Moos, Christian Aumayer

Key takeaways:

Conducts a wide-scale survey looking at the density of persons in retail buildings over the period of one year in Switzerland.
Shows that the values in fire protection standards and guidelines are typically very high and do not provide a realistic basis for determining occupant load density.
Finds the retail type to be a decisive factor for determining occupant load density.
Questions the current differentiation by building floor level present in many fire safety codes since the data shows no big differences between the floor levels.
Provides data for different quantile values of the occupant load density and other sample statistics as well as parameters of fitted probability distributions for different retail types in order to allow for probabilistic or risk-based analyses.

Engineering Egress Data Considering Pedestrians With Reduced Mobility
Authors: Paul Geoerg (2017 Proulx Award Winner), Florian Berchtold, Steven Gwynne, Karen Boyce, Stefan Holl, Anja Hofmann
Published: 2019 in Fire and Materials

The Influence of Individual Impairments on Crowd Dynamics
Authors: Paul Geoerg (2017 Proulx Award Winner), Jette Schumann, Stefan Holl, Maik Boltes, Anja Hofmann
Published: 2020 in Fire and Materials

The Influence of Individual Impairments on Crowd Dynamics
Authors: Paul Geoerg (2017 Proulx Award Winner), J. Schumann, M. Boltes, S. Holl, Anja Hofmann-Böllinghaus
Published: 2019 in Conference Proceedings of the 15th International Interflam Conference

Small-Scale Studies on Evacuation Characteristics of Pedestrians with Physical, Mental or Age-Related Disabilities
Authors: Paul Geoerg (2017 Proulx Award Winner)
Published: 2018 in Journal of Physics: Conference Series

Building Fires

Review of the Mechanical Failure of Non-combustible Facade Systems in Fire
Authors: Francesca Lugaresi (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Panagiotis Kotsovinos, Peter Lenk, Guillermo Rein
Published: 2022 in Combustion and Building Materials

Beyond the Checklist – A Virtual Handbook of Engineering Resources for WUI Property Fire Risk Assessment and Mitigation
Principal Investigator: Jensen Hughes (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
This project also contributes to the Fire Service, Fire Safety Systems, and Wildland/WUI Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Disclaimer: This program is made possible with federal funding support from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Fire Prevention & Safety Grant Program (FY 2020).

Design Fire and Material Performance Database
Principal Investigator: University of Maryland, Performance Based Fire Protection Engineering, and Poole Fire Protection, Inc. (USA) (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
This project also contributes to the Fire Dynamics threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.

Final report: Design Fire and Material Performance Database Report

Authors: James A. Milke, David Stacy, Jack Poole
Published: 2022 by the SFPE Foundation
Key takeaways:

Provides an overview of the literature on fire properties and methodologies to identify a design fire scenario.
Identifies a set of gaps related to the probabilistic aspects of a design fire scenario:

Probabilistic data will need to be periodically updated and expanded to include a broader range of buildings.
Insight is needed on when a particular fractile should be utilized.

Identifies gaps for fuel properties related to the ignition source, first ignited fuel items versus secondary sources, and location of a fuel package within a room.
Proposes a work plan to provide a living database of fuel properties for design fire descriptions.

Research in Fire Engineering Webinar: Developing a Design Fire and Material Performance Database

Speakers: James Milke, PE, PhD, FSFPE, Jack Poole, PE. FSFPE, David Stacy, PE
Learning Objectives

Gaining an overview of existing sources of data of properties to describe a Design Fire.
Understanding the existing gaps with respect to those sources.
Learning about a plan to provide a living database of fuel properties for DF descriptions.

Considerations for the Use of Heat Release Rate Data in Engineering Analysis
Authors: David Morrisset (Recipient of a 2021 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Ian Ojwang, Jonny Reep, Rory Hadden, PhD and Angus Law, PhD, CEng
Published: 2022 in FPE eXTRA
This publication also contributes to the Fire Dynamics thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.

Key takeaways:

Illustrates the variation that can exist between repeat trials of identical fuel packages under the same experimental conditions as well as the variation observed when aspects of those experimental conditions are changed.
The results illustrate the significance in using both experimental data and the observation of key events in the interpretation of Heat Release Rate (HRR) data and in the application of such data in further analysis.
Engineers must also consider how relevant environmental conditions may influence the HRR for the specific fire scenario in question.

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

Modern Vehicle Hazards in Parking Structures and Vehicle Carriers
Principal Investigator: Combustion Science and Engineering Inc. (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project, led by Fire Protection Research Foundation)
This project also contributes to the Resilience/Sustainability and Non-Building Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
This project produced one report (2020) and one journal article (2021), which received the 2022 Jack Bono Award for Engineering Communication:

Final report: Modern Vehicle Hazards in Parking Structures and Vehicle Carriers

Authors: Haavard Boehmer, PE, Michael Klassen, Ph.D., PE, Stephen Olenick, PE
Key takeaways:
- Presents an analysis of the current scientific literature regarding the fire hazard modern vehicles represent to parking garages and marine vessels.
- The increased plastic content of modern vehicles manifests as faster flame spread within the vehicle, easier ignition, and more rapid-fire spread to neighboring vehicles.
- Modern parking garages tend to have narrower parking spaces than before, with increasing use of vertical stacker systems, leading to more densely packed fuel loads.
- The spread of fire between cars in a garage, especially from the initial to the second and third vehicles, is shown to be critical in determining the extent of the fire and the ability of the fire department to successfully control and extinguish it.
- Test data from older vehicles (>15-20 years at the time of writing) should not be used as the basis for the development of codes and regulations.
- The evaluation of modern vehicle fire hazards and current code requirements found that for enclosed parking garages and marine vessels the existing requirement for active protection systems appears adequate to control a vehicle fire until the fire department arrives.
- Open parking structures emerge as the main area of concern regarding fires in modern vehicles for which the current knowledge gaps focus on three areas; earlier detection and notification, viable sprinkler protection, and fire spread between vehicles.

Fire Hazard Analysis of Modern Vehicles in Parking Facilities
- Authors: Boehmer, H.R., Klassen, M.S. & Olenick, S.M
- Published: 2021 in Fire Technology

Resilience/Sustainability

Environmental and Health Impacts of Fire and Fire-Suppression Activities During Large-Scale Fire Events
Principal Investigator: Jamie L. McAllister, Ph.D. (FireTox, LLC) (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
This project also contributes to the Fire Service and Wildland/WUI Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Published: 2023 by the SFPE Foundation
Final Report: Environmental and Health Impact of Fire and Fire-Suppression Activities During Large-Scale Fire Events

Climate Change, Public Water Supplies, and the Implications for Fire Protection Systems
Principal Investigator: Oklahoma State University (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
This project also contributes to the Fire Safety Systems thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Published: 2022 by the SFPE Foundation
Final report: Water Supply & Climate Change: The Impact of Water Stress on FIre Protection Systems

Limits of Sustaining a Flame Above Smoldering Woody Biomass
Authors: Yuying Chen, Zhirong Liang, Shaorun Lin (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Xinyan Huang
Published: 2022 in Combustion Science and Technology

This publication also contributes to the Fire Dynamics thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Explores the flaming of emission gases from the smoldering wood chips (200 kg/m³) under different oxidizer flow velocities (4 mm/s-24 mm/s) and oxygen concentrations (14%-21%) through porous media.
Once ignited on the top, the smoldering front first propagates downward (1st stage, opposed) to the bottom and then propagates upward (2nd stage, forward).
We found that during the 1st-stage downward smoldering propagation, a stable flame of smoldering emissions could be piloted and sustained.
Proposes a simplified heat transfer process to reveal the limiting conditions for the co-existence of flaming and smoldering.
Enriches strategies for the clean treatment of smoldering emissions and promotes an energy-efficient and environment-friendly method for biowaste removal.

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

Modern Vehicle Hazards in Parking Structures and Vehicle Carriers
Principal Investigator: Combustion Science and Engineering Inc. (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project, led by Fire Protection Research Foundation)
This project also contributes to the Building Fires and Non-Building Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
This project produced one report (2020) and one journal article (2021), which received the 2022 Jack Bono Award for Engineering Communication:

Final report: Modern Vehicle Hazards in Parking Structures and Vehicle Carriers

Authors: Haavard Boehmer, PE, Michael Klassen, Ph.D., PE, Stephen Olenick, PE
Key takeaways:
- Presents an analysis of the current scientific literature regarding the fire hazard modern vehicles represent to parking garages and marine vessels.
- The increased plastic content of modern vehicles manifests as faster flame spread within the vehicle, easier ignition, and more rapid-fire spread to neighboring vehicles.
- Modern parking garages tend to have narrower parking spaces than before, with increasing use of vertical stacker systems, leading to more densely packed fuel loads.
- The spread of fire between cars in a garage, especially from the initial to the second and third vehicles, is shown to be critical in determining the extent of the fire and the ability of the fire department to successfully control and extinguish it.
- Test data from older vehicles (>15-20 years at the time of writing) should not be used as the basis for the development of codes and regulations.
- The evaluation of modern vehicle fire hazards and current code requirements found that for enclosed parking garages and marine vessels the existing requirement for active protection systems appears adequate to control a vehicle fire until the fire department arrives.
- Open parking structures emerge as the main area of concern regarding fires in modern vehicles for which the current knowledge gaps focus on three areas; earlier detection and notification, viable sprinkler protection, and fire spread between vehicles.

Fire Hazard Analysis of Modern Vehicles in Parking Facilities
- Authors: Boehmer, H.R., Klassen, M.S. & Olenick, S.M
- Published: 2021 in Fire Technology

Fire Service

Beyond the Checklist – A Virtual Handbook of Engineering Resources for WUI Property Fire Risk Assessment and Mitigation
Principal Investigator: Jensen Hughes (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
This project also contributes to the Building Fires, Fire Safety Systems, and Wildland/WUI Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Disclaimer: This program is made possible with federal funding support from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Fire Prevention & Safety Grant Program (FY 2020).

Environmental and Health Impacts of Fire and Fire-Suppression Activities During Large-Scale Fire Events
Principal Investigator: Jamie L. McAllister, Ph.D. (FireTox, LLC) (SFPE Foundation-funded Research Project)
This project also contributes to the Resilience/Sustainability and Wildland/WUI Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Published: 2023 by the SFPE Foundation
Final Report: Environmental and Health Impact of Fire and Fire-Suppression Activities During Large-Scale Fire Events

Energetics of Lithium-Ion Battery Failure during Use and Thermal Abuse
Author: William Calcagno (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant)
Submitted: 2022 (Master of Science Thesis at Worcester Polytechnic Institute)

This publication also contributes to the Fire Dynamics and Non-Building Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Tests the impact of the usage condition of lithium-ion batteries on their thermal runaway properties during thermal abuse in a modified copper slug calorimeter.
Compares results for two chemistries of cylindrical 18650 lithium-ion cells: LiNiMnCoO₂(NMC) and LiNi_xCo_yAl_1-x-yO₂ (NCA).
Average time to thermal runaway for NCA cells decreased as discharge current increased, while the average time to thermal runaway for NMC cells increased if discharge was present but did not increase continuously with increased discharge current.
NMC cells lost charge faster than the NCA cells, which resulted in NMC cells undergoing thermal runaway during the high-discharge tests at a significantly higher temperature than every other test condition.
The results of a variety of other comparisons between NCA and NMC are presented.
Results suggest that while the employed test methodology can be generalized and applied to different battery chemistries, the impact of a lithium-ion battery’s usage condition (i.e., discharge current) on its thermal runaway properties cannot be generalized between different chemistries and each new chemistry should be tested in the future.

How to Build a Firebreak to Stop Smouldering Peat Fire: Insights From a Laboratory-scale Study
Authors: Shaorun Lin (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Yanhui Liu, Xinyan Huang
Published: 2021 in International Journal of Wildland Fire

This publication also contributes to the Wildland/WUI Fire thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Explores the feasibility of firebreaks to control smouldering peat fires through laboratory-scale experiments with the dry-mass moisture content (MC) of peat soil varying from 10%(air-dried) to 125%.
Finds that smouldering peat fire may be successfully extinguished above the mineral soil layer, even if the peat layer is not entirely removed.
There are two criteria for an effective peat firebreak: (I) adding water to make the peat layer sufficiently wet (>115% MC in the present work); and (II) ensuring that the peat layer is thinner than the quenching thickness (<5 cm). Criterion I may fail if the water table declines or the peat layer is dried by surface fires and hot weather; thus, satisfying Criterion II is more attainable.
A sloping trench-shaped firebreak is recommended to guide water flow and help maintain high peat moisture content.

Smoldering Propagation and Blow-off on Consolidated Fuel Under External Airflow
Authors: Shaorun Lin (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Tsz Him Chow, Xinyan Huang
Published: 2021 in Combustion and Flame

This publication also contributes to the Fire Dynamics thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Quantifies the smoldering propagation rates on consolidated biomass and the blow-off limits under concurrent and opposed external airflows up to 50 m/s.
As the airflow velocity increases, the smoldering propagation rate first increases to its maximum value (Oxygen-limited Regime) and subsequently remains stable (Thermal Regime), regardless of the airflow direction. Afterward, it slightly decreases (Chemical Regime) until blow-off, and the blow-off of opposed smoldering is easier, similar to the pattern of flame spread.
The blow-off airflow velocity (13–46 m/s) of smoldering combustion is around ten times larger than that of flaming combustion, and it decreases as the fuel diameter or density increases.

This publication also contributes to the Human Behavior, Non-Building Fires, and Fire Dynamics threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Importance of studying real fire incidents in informal settlements to understand the fire spread, the human behavior, and firefighters’ response and operations with respect to those incidents.
Implications for the development of policy for safety during urban environment large-scale fires, as well as the development of improved interventions, firefighter strategies, community layouts, and response strategies for low-income communities.

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

A Review of Battery Fires in Electric Vehicles
Authors: Peiyi Sun, Roeland Bisschop, Huichang Niu, Xinyan Huan (Recipients of the 2021 Jack Bono Award for Engineering Communication)
Published: 2020 in Fire Technology

This publication also contributes to the Non-Building Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Reviews the battery fire in battery electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid EVs, and electric buses to provide a qualitative understanding of the fire risk and hazards associated with battery powered EVs.
Analyzes important battery fire characteristics involved in various EV fire scenarios, obtained through testing.
For the full-scale EV fire test, limited data have revealed that the heat release and hazard of an EV fire are comparable to that of a fossil-fuelled vehicle fire.
Once the onboard battery involved in fire, there is a greater difficulty in suppressing EV fires, because the burning battery pack inside is inaccessible to externally applied suppressant and can re-ignite without sufficient cooling.

Fire Dynamics

Fire Parameters, Behaviour, and Comparative Thermal Hazard of Food Grains Based on the Cone Calorimeter Tests
Authors: Anene Oguaka (2021 Mowrer Global Scholar Award Winner), Natalia Flores Quiroz, Richard Walls
Published: 2023 in Process Safety and Environmental Protection

Modeling Fire Spread in Large Compartments Using Transient Flux-Time Product for Ignition
Authors: Alyssa DeSimone (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Ann E. Jeffers
Published: 2023 in Fire Technology

Probabilistic Fire Simulation Assessment Using Simplified Model and Zone Modelling of a Kitchen Fire Scenario
Authors: Iffah Umairah Zulmajdi (Recipient of a 2021 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant and the 2022 Student Scholar Award), Mohd Zahirasri Mohd Tohir, S. Syafiie
Published: 2022 in Fire Technology

This publication also contributes to the Resilience/Sustainability thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Explores the flaming of emission gases from the smoldering wood chips (200 kg/m³) under different oxidizer flow velocities (4 mm/s-24 mm/s) and oxygen concentrations (14%-21%) through porous media.
Once ignited on the top, the smoldering front first propagates downward (1st stage, opposed) to the bottom and then propagates upward (2nd stage, forward).
We found that during the 1st-stage downward smoldering propagation, a stable flame of smoldering emissions could be piloted and sustained.
Proposes a simplified heat transfer process to reveal the limiting conditions for the co-existence of flaming and smoldering.
Enriches strategies for the clean treatment of smoldering emissions and promotes an energy-efficient and environment-friendly method for biowaste removal.

Energetics of Lithium-Ion Battery Failure During Use and Thermal Abuse
Author: William Calcagno (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant)
Submitted: 2022 (Master of Science Thesis at Worcester Polytechnic Institute)

This publication also contributes to the Fire Dynamics and Non-Building Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Tests the impact of the usage condition of lithium-ion batteries on their thermal runaway properties during thermal abuse in a modified copper slug calorimeter.
Compares results for two chemistries of cylindrical 18650 lithium-ion cells: LiNiMnCoO₂(NMC) and LiNi_xCo_yAl_1-x-yO₂ (NCA).
Average time to thermal runaway for NCA cells decreased as discharge current increased, while the average time to thermal runaway for NMC cells increased if discharge was present but did not increase continuously with increased discharge current.
NMC cells lost charge faster than the NCA cells, which resulted in NMC cells undergoing thermal runaway during the high-discharge tests at a significantly higher temperature than every other test condition.
The results of a variety of other comparisons between NCA and NMC are presented.
Results suggest that while the employed test methodology can be generalized and applied to different battery chemistries, the impact of a lithium-ion battery’s usage condition(i.e., discharge current) on its thermal runaway properties cannot be generalized between different chemistries and each new chemistry should be tested in the future.

This publication also contributes to the Building Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Illustrates the variation that can exist between repeat trials of identical fuel packages under the same experimental conditions as well as the variation observed when aspects of those experimental conditions are changed.
The results illustrate the significance in using both experimental data and the observation of key events in the interpretation of Heat Release Rate (HRR) data and in the application of such data in further analysis.
Engineers must also consider how relevant environmental conditions may influence the HRR for the specific fire scenario in question.

Smoldering Ignition Using a Concentrated Solar Irradiation Spot
Authors: Siyan Wang, Shaorun Lin (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Yanhui Lang, Xinyan Huang, Michael Gollner
Published: 2022 in Fire Safety Journal

Key takeaways:

Investigates the smoldering ignition of tissue paper by a concentrated sunlight spot with heat fluxes up to 780 kW/m², which is focused by a transparent glass sphere.
The measured minimum spot irradiation for smoldering ignition is not a constant and is much higher than 11 kW/m2 measured in a traditional cone-calorimeter test.
As the diameter of the irradiation spot decreases from 20 to 1.5 mm, the minimum irradiation for smoldering ignition increases from 17.5 to 205 kW/m², and the ignition energy increases from 0.084 to 2.0 MJ/m².
A simplified heat transfer analysis reveals that the lateral conductive cooling within the fuel becomes dominant for a smaller spot ignition area.

Research in Fire Engineering Webinar: Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Gypsum Calcination under Fire Exposure
Speaker: Ethan A. Fowlie - Student, Eastern Kentucky University, Advisor: Dr. Shijin Kozhumal, Eastern Kentucky University
Published: 2022 as a Research in Fire Engineering Webinar (An Academic Leadership Council Presentation)

This publication also contributes to the Forensics/Investigations thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Learning Objectives:

Understanding the chemistry behind gypsum calcination.
Understanding how gypsum calcination is utilized in forensic fire investigations.
Understanding how variances in heat flux effects gypsum calcination.
Understanding the relationship between temperature and depth of calcination.

A Computational Study on the Quenching and Near-limit Propagation of Smoldering Combustion
Authors: Shaorun Lin (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Han Yuan, Xinyan Huang
Published: 2022 in Combustion and Flame

This publication contributes to the Fire Dynamics thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Builds a physics-based 2-D computational model that integrates heat and mass transfer and heterogeneous chemistry to investigate the limiting quenching conditions of in-depth smoldering propagation in a typical biomass sample.
Simulation results predict that the smoldering quenching occurs as the sample width decreases or the wall-cooling coefficient increases, agreeing well with experiments.
The modelled minimum smoldering temperature is about 350 °C, and the minimum propagation rate is around 0.5 cm/h.
Further analysis demonstrates that either the smoldering temperature or propagation rate increases with the sample width and eventually approaches it maximum value.
Explores the influences of the ambient temperature and oxygen level on the smoldering quenching distance.

Final report: Design Fire and Material Performance Database Report

Authors: James A. Milke, David Stacy, Jack Poole
Published: 2022 by the SFPE Foundation
Key takeaways:

Provides an overview of the literature on fire properties and methodologies to identify a design fire scenario.
Identifies a set of gaps related to the probabilistic aspects of a design fire scenario:

Probabilistic data will need to be periodically updated and expanded to include a broader range of buildings.
Insight is needed on when a particular fractile should be utilized.

Identifies gaps for fuel properties related to the ignition source, first ignited fuel items versus secondary sources, and location of a fuel package within a room.
Proposes a work plan to provide a living database of fuel properties for design fire descriptions.

Research in Fire Engineering Webinar: Developing a Design Fire and Material Performance Database

Speakers: James Milke, PE, PhD, FSFPE, Jack Poole, PE. FSFPE, David Stacy, PE
Learning Objectives

Gaining an overview of existing sources of data of properties to describe a Design Fire.
Understanding the existing gaps with respect to those sources.
Learning about a plan to provide a living database of fuel properties for DF descriptions.

This publication also contributes to the Fire Dynamics thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Quantifies the smoldering propagation rates on consolidated biomass and the blow-off limits under concurrent and opposed external airflows up to 50 m/s.
As the airflow velocity increases, the smoldering propagation rate first increases to its maximum value (Oxygen-limited Regime) and subsequently remains stable (Thermal Regime), regardless of the airflow direction. Afterward, it slightly decreases (Chemical Regime) until blow-off, and the blow-off of opposed smoldering is easier, similar to the pattern of flame spread.
The blow-off airflow velocity (13–46 m/s) of smoldering combustion is around ten times larger than that of flaming combustion, and it decreases as the fuel diameter or density increases.

Effect of Freestream Turbulence on the Structure of Boundary-layer Flames
Authors: Xingyu Ren (Recipient of the 2021 SFPE Foundation Student Scholar Award), Xiaoyu Ju, Michael J. Gollner
Published: 2022 in Combustion and Flame

This publication also contributes to the Wildland/WUI Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Investigates the role of turbulence-induced instabilities on three-dimensional boundary-layer flames.
In the study’s experimental setup:

Freestream turbulence initiated an earlier onset of visible coherent flame streaks, enlarged the initial streak spacing, and accelerated the growth of the streak spacing along the streamwise direction.
Placing a bar upstream of the burner tripped the flow to the point where the downstream flame structure closely resembled flames under the highest turbulence intensity investigated, suggesting a simplistic configuration for future study.

This publication also contributes to the Non-Building Fires, Fire Dynamics, and Fire Service threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Importance of studying real fire incidents in informal settlements to understand the fire spread, the human behavior, and firefighters’ response and operations with respect to those incidents.
Implications for the development of policy for safety during urban environment large-scale fires, as well as the development of improved interventions, firefighter strategies, community layouts, and response strategies for low-income communities.

Temperature Measurement of a Turbulent Buoyant Ethylene Diffusion Flame Using a Dual-thermocouple Technique
Authors: Xingyu Ren (Recipient of the 2021 SFPE Foundation Student Scholar Award), Dong Zeng, Yi Wang, Gang Xiong, Gaurav Agarwal, Michael Gollner
Published: 2021 in Fire Safety Journal

Key takeaways:

Establishes a systematic temperature dataset with high spatial resolution for sooty flames.
Shows that temperatures for a 15 kW buoyant turbulent ethylene diffusion flame over a 15.2 cm diameter gas burner with air co-flow resolved using a dual-thermocouple technique consisting of two fine-wire thermocouples with 25 and 50 wire diameters are less sensitive to changes in thermocouple bead size. Therefore, uncertainty is greatly reduced even when soot deposition on the thermocouple bead occurs in sooty flames.

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

Reduced Chemical Kinetics for Microscale Pyrolysis of Softwood and Hardwood
Authors: Franz Richter (Recipient of a 2017 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Guillermo Rein
Published: 2020 in Bioresource Technology

The Effect of Chemical Composition On the Charring of Wood Across Scales
Authors: Franz Richter (Recipient of a 2017 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Arvind Atreya, Panagiotis Kotsovinos, Guillermo Rein
Published: 2019 in Proceedings of the Combustion Institute

A Review of Factors Affecting the Burning Behaviour of Wood for Application to Tall Timber Construction
Authors: Alastair I. Bartlett, Rory M. Hadden & Luke A. Bisby (Recipients of the 2020 Jack Bono Award for Engineering Communication)
Published: 2019 in Fire Technology

Key takeaways:

Presents a review of the pyrolysis, ignition, and combustion processes associated with wood, for application in tall timber construction.
A detailed meta-analysis of the fire resistance literature has shown that the rate of burning as characterised by charring rate averaged over the full test duration is observed to vary with material properties, in particular density and moisture content which induce a maximum 18% variability over the ranges expected in design.
System properties are also shown to be important, with stochastic phenomena such as delamination and encapsulation failure resulting in changes to the charring rate that cannot be easily predicted.
The fire exposure as defined by incident heat flux has by far the largest effect on charring rates over typical heat fluxes experienced in compartment fires.
Applying the existing body of scientific knowledge about the fire safety issues introduced by using timber in real buildings is a key knowledge gap. Exploring that gap will enable improved efficiencies and innovations in design.

Fire Safety Systems

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

Forensics/Investigations

This publication also contributes to the Forensics/Investigations thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Learning Objectives:

Understanding the chemistry behind gypsum calcination.
Understanding how gypsum calcination is utilized in forensic fire investigations.
Understanding how variances in heat flux effects gypsum calcination.
Understanding the relationship between temperature and depth of calcination.

Application of the Framework for Fire Investigations in Informal Settlements to Large-scale Real Fire Events – Consideration of Fire Formation Patterns, Fire Spread Rates and Home Survivability
Authors: Natalia Flores Quiroz (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Richard Walls, Antonio Cicione, Mark Smith
Published: 2021 in Fire Safety Journal

This publication also contributes to the Non-Building Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

The application of the Framework for Fire Investigations in Informal Settlements (FFIIS) allows developing hypotheses that more accurately define the area of fire origin and pattern formation sequence.
Fire pattern for large post-flashover fires in Informal Settlements can be treated as wildland fires pattern.

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

Wildland/WUI Fires

This publication also contributes to the Wildland/WUI Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Investigates the role of turbulence-induced instabilities on three-dimensional boundary-layer flames.
In the study’s experimental setup:

Freestream turbulence initiated an earlier onset of visible coherent flame streaks, enlarged the initial streak spacing, and accelerated the growth of the streak spacing along the streamwise direction.
Placing a bar upstream of the burner tripped the flow to the point where the downstream flame structure closely resembled flames under the highest turbulence intensity investigated, suggesting a simplistic configuration for future study.

This publication also contributes to the Human Behavior thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap
Key takeaways:

This study systematically compared survey responses of residents in French and Australian at-risk regions.
The results showed regional differences, with participants in France tending to choose to ‘wait and see’ as a response to fire cues more often than participants in Australia.
There was less waiting when participants received environmental as compared to social cues, although the type of environmental/social cue appeared to moderate this behaviour.

Climate-induced Arctic-boreal Peatland Fire and Carbon Loss in the 21st Century
Authors: Shaorun Lin (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Yanhui Liu, Xinyan Huang
Published: 2021 in Science of The Total Environment

Key takeaways:

Develops a new physical model to estimate the extra carbon emissions from artic-boreal peat fires.
The predicted total carbon loss from boreal peat fires in the 21st century is 28 Gt.
Under a larger artic warming rate, the peat fire carbon loss with further increase.
The boreal peat fires affect the ecosystem through multiple biogeochemical processes.

This publication also contributes to the Wildland/WUI Fire thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Explores the feasibility of firebreaks to control smouldering peat fires through laboratory-scale experiments with the dry-mass moisture content (MC) of peat soil varying from 10%(air-dried) to 125%.
Finds that smouldering peat fire may be successfully extinguished above the mineral soil layer, even if the peat layer is not entirely removed.
There are two criteria for an effective peat firebreak: (I) adding water to make the peat layer sufficiently wet (>115% MC in the present work); and (II) ensuring that the peat layer is thinner than the quenching thickness (<5 cm). Criterion I may fail if the water table declines or the peat layer is dried by surface fires and hot weather; thus, satisfying Criterion II is more attainable.
A sloping trench-shaped firebreak is recommended to guide water flow and help maintain high peat moisture content.

This publication also contributes to the Human Behavior thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap
Key takeaways:

This study compares survey data from residents of areas at-risk of wildfires in the South of France and Australia.
Results revealed that, across the two regions, the discrete actions in response to a wildfire threat were similar overall, albeit their priority sometimes differed. However, when analysed by category, the prioritisation of actions was uniform across samples.
Regional differences were also observed in relation to: mean number of actions, time committed to actions and the influence of socio-demographic factors, indicating geographical and cultural determinants.

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

Non-Building Fires

A Coupled Hybrid Numerical Study of Tunnel Longitudinal Ventilation Under Fire Conditions
Authors: Diego Álvarez-Coedo (Recipient of a 2020 SFPE Foundation Student Research Grant), Pablo Ayala, Alexis Cantizano, and Wojciech Węgrzyński
Published: 2022 in Case Studies in Thermal Engineering

This publication also contributes to the Fire Dynamics and Non-Building Fires threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Tests the impact of the usage condition of lithium-ion batteries on their thermal runaway properties during thermal abuse in a modified copper slug calorimeter.
Compares results for two chemistries of cylindrical 18650 lithium-ion cells: LiNiMnCoO₂(NMC) and LiNi_xCo_yAl_1-x-yO₂ (NCA).
Average time to thermal runaway for NCA cells decreased as discharge current increased, while the average time to thermal runaway for NMC cells increased if discharge was present but did not increase continuously with increased discharge current.
NMC cells lost charge faster than the NCA cells, which resulted in NMC cells undergoing thermal runaway during the high-discharge tests at a significantly higher temperature than every other test condition.
The results of a variety of other comparisons between NCA and NMC are presented.
Results suggest that while the employed test methodology can be generalized and applied to different battery chemistries, the impact of a lithium-ion battery’s usage condition (i.e., discharge current) on its thermal runaway properties cannot be generalized between different chemistries and each new chemistry should be tested in the future.

This publication also contributes to the Non-Building Fires, Fire Dynamics, and Fire Service threads of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Importance of studying real fire incidents in informal settlements to understand the fire spread, the human behavior, and firefighters’ response and operations with respect to those incidents.
Implications for the development of policy for safety during urban environment large-scale fires, as well as the development of improved interventions, firefighter strategies, community layouts, and response strategies for low-income communities.

This publication also contributes to the Non-Building Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

The application of the Framework for Fire Investigations in Informal Settlements (FFIIS) allows developing hypotheses that more accurately define the area of fire origin and pattern formation sequence.
Fire pattern for large post-flashover fires in Informal Settlements can be treated as wildland fires pattern.

Key takeaways:

Conducts a survey of practitioners showing that fire engineering tools were most frequently used for calculations of fire and/or smoke development and egress calculations. These were followed by information management tools, hydraulic flows, detection and suppression design, response to elevated temperatures, and for risk analysis.
Identifies 25 gaps based on survey responses and highlights three top priority themes (Data, Integration, New Tools).

This publication also contributes to the Non-Building Fires thread of the SFPE Research Roadmap.
Key takeaways:

Reviews the battery fire in battery electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid EVs, and electric buses to provide a qualitative understanding of the fire risk and hazards associated with battery powered EVs.
Analyzes important battery fire characteristics involved in various EV fire scenarios, obtained through testing.
For the full-scale EV fire test, limited data have revealed that the heat release and hazard of an EV fire are comparable to that of a fossil-fuelled vehicle fire.
Once the onboard battery involved in fire, there is a greater difficulty in suppressing EV fires, because the burning battery pack inside is inaccessible to externally applied suppressant and can re-ignite without sufficient cooling.

Final report: Modern Vehicle Hazards in Parking Structures and Vehicle Carriers

Authors: Haavard Boehmer, PE, Michael Klassen, Ph.D., PE, Stephen Olenick, PE
Key takeaways:
- Presents an analysis of the current scientific literature regarding the fire hazard modern vehicles represent to parking garages and marine vessels.
- The increased plastic content of modern vehicles manifests as faster flame spread within the vehicle, easier ignition, and more rapid-fire spread to neighboring vehicles.
- Modern parking garages tend to have narrower parking spaces than before, with increasing use of vertical stacker systems, leading to more densely packed fuel loads.
- The spread of fire between cars in a garage, especially from the initial to the second and third vehicles, is shown to be critical in determining the extent of the fire and the ability of the fire department to successfully control and extinguish it.
- Test data from older vehicles (>15-20 years at the time of writing) should not be used as the basis for the development of codes and regulations.
- The evaluation of modern vehicle fire hazards and current code requirements found that for enclosed parking garages and marine vessels the existing requirement for active protection systems appears adequate to control a vehicle fire until the fire department arrives.
- Open parking structures emerge as the main area of concern regarding fires in modern vehicles for which the current knowledge gaps focus on three areas; earlier detection and notification, viable sprinkler protection, and fire spread between vehicles.

Fire Hazard Analysis of Modern Vehicles in Parking Facilities
- Authors: Boehmer, H.R., Klassen, M.S. & Olenick, S.M
- Published: 2021 in Fire Technology

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