Congratulations to Huahau Xiao from Aerospace Engineering for winning a best poster award at the Burgers Symposium on Fluid Mechanics at the University of Maryland. The poster was “Blue whirl – reacting vortex phenomenon?” by Huahua Xiao, Michael Gollner and Elaine Oran. Well done, Huahua!
News
PhD Student Positions Available at the University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park is recruiting one or more PhD students to work in combustion and fire research starting in the summer or fall semester, 2017. Several projects related to the physics of wildland fires including ignition, spread, instabilities and fire whirls are ongoing, primarily experimental. Strong experimental and/or analytical skills are desired […]
New Article Published: A Survey of Transient Fire Load on Passenger Ferry Vessels
We recently published a new article in Fire Technology: A Survey of Transient Fire Load on Passenger Ferry Vessels by Brian M. Hall and Michael J. Gollner. Read the article here: A Survey of Transient Fire Load on Passenger Ferry Vessels Hall, B.M. and Gollner, M.J., Fire Technology, DOI: 10.1007/s10694-016-0629-8 Abstract Aluminum ferries in the United States are unique in that they have […]
Welcoming Dr. Ali Tohidi to our group!
We are very happy to welcome Dr. Ali Tohidi, who joined our group last month as a Postdoctoral Scholar. Dr. Tohidi brings with him a wealth of experience on the transport of firebrands and fundamental fluid mechanics. Ali will be working with Michael and the rest of the group on the generation, transport and ignition […]
New Discovery, Blue Whirl published in PNAS
Fire tornados, or ‘fire whirls,’ pose a powerful and essentially uncontrollable threat to life, property, and the surrounding environment in large urban and wildland fires. But now, a team of researchers in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD) say their discovery of a type of fire tornado they […]
New paper published in the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute: "Steady and transient pyrolysis of a non-charring solid fuel under forced flow"
Read it here: doi:10.1016/j.proci.2016.07.043 Abstract In previous work, the Reynolds analogy was used to develop a theoretical expression that allowed for the estimation of local mass burning rates in steady laminar boundary layer diffusion flames established over liquid and solid fuels. This technique was used to elucidate the mechanisms responsible for pyrolysis of both solid and […]
New Article Published in Proceedings of the Combustion Institute: "Local flame attachment and heat fluxes in wind-driven line fires"
We recently published a new paper: “Local flame attachment and heat fluxes in wind-driven line fires” in the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute. Wei Tang, PhD student was the lead author. You can read it here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1540748916301225 A detailed experimental investigation of turbulent diffusion flames under forced flow was conducted to study local heat fluxes […]
Wildfire project awarded 2016 NFPA Fire Protection Research Foundation Medal
Each year, the Fire Protection Research Foundation recognizes a project that best expresses the safety mission, commitment to overcome technical challenges and collaborative execution approach that is the hallmark of Foundation projects with the Fire Protection Research Foundation Medal. NFPA is proud to announce the project, “Pathways for Building Fire Spread at the Wildland-Urban Interface” […]
Resources for Designing WUI Communities
We have posted several resources from our presentation today at the NFPA Conference. They can be read here or downloaded via PDF. A copy of the final presentation will also be posted soon. Resources for Designing WUI Communities (PDF) Presentation from NFPA 2016 (PDF) Resources for Designing WUI Communities Fire Modeling BEHAVE Plus: https://www.frames.gov/partner-sites/behaveplus/software-manuals/ A […]
Two new papers on how fires spread in the WUI published in Fire Technology!
How do fires spread into and within wildland-urban interface communities? Two new reviews published in Fire Technology have investigated this topic, breaking down the mechanisms which cause ignition of homes and communities. While radiative heat fluxes and local flame contact contribute to ignition in the WUI, firebrands are a dominant mechanism that is also poorly understood […]