Energy & Infrastructure
New (renewable) energy sources provide significant opportunities for sustainable development, but also raise new questions, including about fire safety. These energy sources also require new infrastructure to support them, at a time when the general renewal of the (US) infrastructure at the top of the agenda. Representative topics in this area include:
- Fire hazards of new sustainable energy technologies (ET)
- Solar/wind/solid and liquid biomass/RDF/Hydrogen based
- Energy storage systems
- Manufacturing (fire and explosion risks in process chain, e.g., of metal hydrides for H2 storage, reliability of processes)
- Handling & transporting (safe transportation/HazMat procedures and definition)
- Use/Disposal (Safer chemistry, inspection, monitoring, containment, resilience and ageing of systems, safe disposal procedures)
- Safety standards implementation/revision
- Transport/vehicle fires
- Private and public transport new technologies hazards
- Fuel cells
- Batteries
- Tunnel fire protection, evacuation, design fires
- Fire safety of portable mobility vehicles (e.g., Charging and safe procedures for bikes, scooters)
- Fire protection for new energy technologies
- Fire suppression (efficacy, system design criteria)
- Fire passive protection
- Fire detection/alarm/communication systems
- Firefighting training for new energy technologies
- Smoke control systems
- Durability/ageing of FP components
- Failure modes due to extreme environments (Maritime and air transport; electrical, hydrogen fueled)
- Designing considering first responders
- Fire modeling
- Spread models
- Fire effects on building/infrastructure electrical systems
- Nonstandard fuels heat profiles in fires
- Heat radiation, blast waves effects on infrastructures
- Human behavior in fire from new ET
- CFD modeling improvement
- Heat transfer modeling for energy storage cell design
- Risk assessment
- Fire frequencies (new and old ET)
- Availability of FP systems, failure on demand
- Guidance for quantifying measurement and calculation uncertainty
- Reliability & repeatability of fire tests
- Human errors assessment methods
- Fire accident reporting/case studies investigations
- Traditional energy systems & industrial infrastructures
- Improvement to petrochemical equipment safety
- Model for safely designing tank farms
- Improvement of risk management practices at chemical facilities
- Improved identification of high-risk industrial facilities
- Revision/implementation of installation and safety standards
- Data for hazard identification/severity
- Components ageing effect on fire safety