Three online workshops will take place on Friday 10th December 2021 – the day after the end of the AOSFST 2021. Attendance to all workshops is FREE for AOSFST 2021 registered delegates.
WORKSHOP A: FAÇADE FIRE REGULATIONS AND TEST METHODS
WORKSHOP B: FIRE SAFETY FOR INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS IN ASIA
WORKSHOP C: MACHINE LEARNING FOR REAL-TIME FORECASTING IN BUILDING FIRES
Workshop A
Façade fire regulations and test methods
Speakers: Hideki Yoshioka, Alex Webb, Greg Baker, Xinyan Huang, Kye-Won Park, Johan Anderson, Eric Guillaume, Juan Hidalgo
When: Friday 10th December 2021 (16:00 – 19:00 AEST)
Who should attend this workshop?
Façade engineers, fire engineers, researchers, architects, code officials and fire officers with interest in the façade fire safety.
Workshop’s content:
The purpose of this workshop will be to:
1) Disseminate the latest information on the regulatory context and test methods to address the fire safety of façade systems in Asia-Oceania and Europe, and
2) Establish a discussion of major façade fire safety issues that have occurred internationally.
Façade fires in recent years, such as the Grenfell tower fire in the UK, the Lacrosse fire in Australia or Torre dei Moro fire in Italy, has driven, internationally, the revision of the regulatory framework, including the state of the fire safety engineering profession, buildings codes and fire test methods.
In Europe, the project of “new European fire test for facades” has been conducted since 2020, primarily focused on the large-scale façade fire tests BS 8414 and DIN 4102-20, but with some modifications. European round-robin façade tests are expected to take place in the near future.
In ISO/TC92/SC1/WG7, an international survey on the usage of ISO 13785-2 was conducted in 2018. It was found that four countries (Belarus, Czech Republic, Japan, and South Korea) have experience using this standard test with some respective modifications to the original protocol in the standard. Furthermore, investigation of relevant scientific publications is being conducted in order to draft a roadmap for façade fire safety in general.
As per such growing international concern on façade fire safety, in this workshop, seven speakers are welcomed to share the latest information on façade fire safety issues from each country/region in Asia-Oceania and Europe, followed by open discussion participated by all attendees.
After the presentations on fundamental concepts of façade fires during the first half of the workshops, the last second half will cover the following round table discussions:
1. Comparison of façade fire regulations in each country/region.
2. Comparison of façade fire tests in each country/region.
3. Trends in regulation and testing.
4. What are the challenges for harmonizing both façade fire regulations and test methods among different countries/regions?
5. What could numerical analysis do to compensate for the expensive large-scale façade tests?
6. Is it possible to establish a common platform of façade fire safety in the Asia-Oceania region for information sharing?
Workshop B
Fire safety for informal settlements in Asia
Speakers: Yu Wang, David Rush, Lesley Gibson, David Lange, Danielle Antonellis, Richard Walls, Chia Lung (Farian) Wu
When: Friday 10th December 2021 (16:00 – 17:35 AEST)
Who should attend this workshop?
Practitioners and researchers with an interest in the informal settlement fire and fire safety inequality.
Workshop’s content:
This workshop primarily includes three discussions:
1) The informal settlement fire in Asia countries and regions including the definition of the informal settlement in China Mainland, fire safety regulatory issue in Taiwan and refugee camps in Bangladesh.
2) Introduction of methods in other disciplines, such as Geographic Information System and Social Science, and lessons from other continents such as Africa.
3) The interaction between the speakers and audience to discuss the possible way to solve this global fire safety inequality. Seven 5-min presentations will be delivered by diverse researchers from Australia, China Mainland, Taiwan, South Africa, United Kingdom and United States, who are active in either academia or industry. The speakers, panellists and audience will have a free, deep and constructive discussion for global informal settlement fire and fire safety inequality.
Workshop C
Machine learning for real-time forecasting in building fires
Speakers: Thomas Cleary, Xinyan Huang, Rino Lovreglio, Xilei Zhao, Andy Tam, Eugene Yujun Fu
When: Friday 10th December 2021 (20:00 – 22:40 AEST)
Who should attend this workshop?
Practising engineers and researchers interested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) relevant to fire engineering applications in the built environment. This workshop aims to provide a forum for bringing together engineers and researchers from the fire research community to 1) discuss the challenges, 2) identify priorities, and 3) establish directions going forward for applications of AI. More specifically, ML-based approaches on real-time forecasting of fires in buildings, designed to provide actionable insights to the fire service and occupants.
Workshop’s content:
The workshop will focus on recent research ranging from sharing practical experience ML-based models to the description of new technology leveraging ML to provide actionable insights to the fire service or building occupants. The objective is to explore new ideas to facilitate the use of ML-based approaches with a particular focus on addressing the following questions:
- What are high impact areas for research?
- What types of large data sets need to be developed?
- What data sets (full-scale experiments or model simulation) can be shared now?
- How can we collaborate and co-operate (data sharing, curated data sets, working groups)?
- How do we move from academic exercises to stakeholder acceptance and implementation?
- How will one validate/certify solutions for implementation standards and AHJ approvals?
Call for workshop proposals
Are you interested in organising and chairing a Workshop the day after the 12th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology? Online workshops will take place on Friday 10th December 2021; the day after the end of the AOSFST 2021. Please send us an email to [email protected] and a member of the local organising committee will be in touch with you soon.