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For full details of the seminar and registration, please visit the event website.
Please briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regards to fire modelling
Wojciech Wegrzynski (WW): I’m involved in fire modelling for 15 years, with recent 10 years with significant amount of projects requiring modelling of various types of road and railway tunnels. This includes over 30 different tunnel, metro and underground station design. I’m also a researcher, actively working on new approaches to initial/boundary conditions for tunnel simulations and developing novel models for visibility in smoke.
What is the top challenge facing your industry at present?
WW: Over-reliance on prescribed and too simplistic methods, resulting in overdesign in some areas (like in smoke control), while not utilizing technologies that could have a bigger impact over a safety. A lack of holistic view on the entire safety, and compartmentalization of the solutions.
How would you say your industry has evolved over the past two years?
WW: Not at all. But the future looks promising with the rise of GPGPU computation, that will possibly be a paradigm shift for fire oriented simulations.
What developments are going on in your industry that may have an impact on the development of future modelling methods?
WW: I can talk about developments in our group, that are focused on initial/boundary conditions used in CFD. Following the rule of “consistent level of crudeness”, many things that people take into account are too detailed, while others are considerably too crude. We work to find consistency in modelling. AI/ML also looks promising, and AI coupled CFD may be a thing for the future.
What will you be presenting at the IMechE: Fire Modelling seminar and how will this benefit participants?
WW: I will be talking about modelling tunnel fires, and I promise to use the phrase “critical velocity” only once and only to discredit the concept. I will show the participants the elephant in the room, and how much important phenomena we omit due to convenience. I will also show, why the areas we focus today are meaningless from the risk perspective, and how simulations can be utilized for provision of holistic safety to a tunnel.
Which other speakers and presentations are you looking forward to hearing at the forthcoming seminar?
WW: The line-up is brilliant. I will go with Restuccia and Hopkin; both are geniuses in their respective fields, both great speakers. Can’t wait that.
Why is it important for engineers and industry to come together at this event and share best practice?
WW: Is there an alternative? Has anyone heard anyone say “Oh yeah, in few years we won’t do that much simulation”? This field is only growing. You need to develop your skillset. You need to understand where the industry is going. And we need to make our simulations collectively better (not just more in numbers and revenue).
The Improving Fire Safety Through Simulation and Modelling 2024 will take place on 11 June 2024 a the ICC Birmingham.
Building on 2022's popular event, this seminar will cover the work of mechanical engineers to model fire across a range of disciplines and application areas. Whether modelling smoke, evacuation routes or material choices, understanding the computational methods of modelling is essential.
Featuring input from modelling practitioners, academic researchers and experts, attendees will gain a clear understanding of which tools, software and development platforms are the most effective in individual, real world scenarios.
For full details of the seminar and registration, please visit the event website.