BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering

The BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering is the research group at The Institute of Infrastructure and Environment, University of Edinburgh conducting research in fire, structures and environment.

The University of Edinburgh has a long tradition in Fire Protection Engineering research and education and is recognized internationally for its work since the early 1970s. The Centre is currently formed in association with the Building Research Establishment (BRE) to integrate the resources of both institutions and provide a thrust for fire protection engineering research and education. It has a state-of-the-art experimental facility (the Rushbrook Fire Safety Laboratory) and staff whose expertise covers a wide range of subjects in Fire Safety.

The Fire Research Centre is deeply involved in setting the direction for the Fire Safety Engineering practice.

History

The University of Edinburgh was the university to offer a degree in Fire Engineering, and appointed David Rasbash as the first ever Professor of Fire Safety Engineering in 1974. Many of those who are now leaders in the field came to Edinburgh to study and research under the supervision of Rasbash, one of the main pioneers of the discipline, and Dougal Drysdale, author of the definitive text book on the subject.[1] Teaching and research in fire safety continues at Edinburgh under the leadership of Jose Torero, appointed to the BRE/RAE Chair in Fire Safety Engineering in 2004.

Staff

The staff of the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering comprises eight academics (including Prof Jose L Torero, Prof Asif Usmani and Prof Drysdale), six research fellows, about 25 postgraduate researchers and a few undergraduate researchers.

Teaching

The Centre supports the Structural and Fire Safety Engineering degrees (BEng, MEng and MSc) [2] as well as a number of short courses for professionals.

More recently, the new International Master of Science in Fire Safety Engineering has been approved by Erasmus Mundus (the European commission's cooperation and mobility programme in the field of European higher education). The joint degree started in September 2010 and involves the universities of Edinburgh (UK), Ghent (Belgium) and Lund (Sweden).[3]

Research Expertise

Large-scale fire test

The Cardington tests were a series of large-scale fire tests conducted in over several years from the early 1990s in a real steel-framed structure at the former airship hangar at Cardington, UK.

The Dalmarnock tests were a series of fire experiments conducted in July 2006 in a real 1960s concrete tower block in Dalmarnock, Glasgow, UK.

Publications

The Centre publishes more than 100 conference papers and a dozen peer-reviewed journal papers per year. Some can be publicly accessed via their Digital Repository.

References

  1. ↑ An Introduction to Fire Dynamics, Dougal Drysdale, 2nd Edition, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, 1998
  2. ↑ Degree courses in Structural and Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh (accessed 31 July 09)
  3. ↑ New International Master in Fire Safety Engineering approved by Erasmus Mundus (accessed 31 July 09)

External links

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