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A holistic framework to evaluate water availability for post-earthquake firefighting
Published in Paolo Gardoni, Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, 2018
Negar Elhami Khorasani, Maxwell Coar, Amir Sarreshtehdari, Maria Garlock
Previous studies by the authors demonstrated that the cascading dependency between power and water networks after an extreme event, where pumps require power, is the most documented dependency among the lifelines, and the power network seems to be the most critical network. Meanwhile, the availability of water pressure and flow is the key parameter for suppressing fire ignitions after an earthquake, and to prevent conflagration. This work provided a framework to evaluate post-earthquake performance of a water network, considering its dependency to power, for fire following earthquake applications. As part of the framework, fragility curves were used to measure post-earthquake damage at the component level. The parameter, capacity index, was defined to quantify operability of a component following an earthquake. A probabilistic formulation could be applied to incorporate uncertainty in determining the capacity index parameters. In case of the electric network, a streamlined approach with graph theory-based maximum flow analysis was employed to build and analyze system level performance of the network. The drop in power flow after the earthquake, compared to the grid capacity for the intact condition, provided a “flow ratio” which was evaluated against a limiting value to identify “bright” vs. “dark” regions in the community. In case of the water network, a hybrid-method with conservation of mass and energy was applied to quantify water flow and pressure across the network.
Procurement and Risk – The Big Picture
Published in Richard Russill, A Short Guide to Procurement Risk, 2017
Just as fire is extinguished when either fuel, or oxygen, or temperature, is removed from a conflagration, so removing or reducing one or more elements in the above equation prevents being ‘at risk’. However, effective PRM does include accepting some risks, with these situations being monitored to avoid being caught out if things change. Other situations can be left ‘at risk’ but contingency plans are ready should risks materialise. And where real trouble lurks, urgent action is required followed by regular audit.
A suggested model for mass fire spread
Published in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, 2020
Muhammad Masood Rafi, Tariq Aziz, Sarosh Hashmat Lodi
The proposed model is implemented using an open-source agent-based simulation framework called GAMA (Grignard et al., 2013). The simulation results have been compared with the observed data of fire spread to evaluate suitability of the model to predict urban mass conflagration in different environments and conditions. The presented work can be helpful for civic agencies, disaster managers and town planners in the development of urban conflagration strategic plans. A conservative approach has been considered in this study by assuming that fire services remain unavailable for several hours and the suppression systems are either unavailable or inactive due to unavailability of water and electricity. Although the development of the model has been carried out in the perspective of earthquakes, it has been shown that the model can also be used for mass fire spread in other conditions not related to earthquakes.
Burning Behavior and Parameter Analysis of Biodiesel Pool Fires
Published in Combustion Science and Technology, 2018
Hao Sun, Changjian Wang, Haoran Liu, Manhou Li, Aifeng Zhang, Mingjun Xu
Biodiesel belongs to a typical renewable biomass energy, which has been developed as a clean-burning alternative fuel in the last several years (Azeem et al., 2016; Ma and Hanna, 1999). Generally, biodiesel is principally derived by the transesterification of raw material from animal or vegetable fats (Amini et al., 2017; Demirbas, 2009). In recent years, with the rapid reduction of traditional energy, biodiesel is becoming increasingly popular in industry and transportation. However, the accidental leakage of biodiesel from pipelines or oil tanks into surrounding space can establish a hazardous pool fire once an ignition source is available. These pool fires usually caused significant economic losses and human casualties. For example, on June 18, 2008, a biodiesel pool fire occurred in Longhai City in China due to the oil spilling, and the accident caused two people to be burned and more than 200 people were evacuated (China News, 2008); on January 22, 2014, a biodiesel plant in Mississippi in the United States caused a serious conflagration, and resultantly the fire spread to the surrounding area and lasted about 2 days (China CCTV Network, 2014). The fire safety problems of biodiesel in the aspects of storage, application, handling, etc. have received much attention due to its flammability and high calorific value. Therefore, tentative investigation on the burning behaviors of biodiesel pool fires is imperative to predict and further control such fires.
Investigation on the physio-mechanical properties of carpet waste polymer composites incorporated with multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT)
Published in The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2023
Jogendra Kumar, Kuldeep Kumar, Balram Jaiswal, Kaushlendra Kumar, Rajesh Kumar Verma
Fire retardants are a type of experiment that prevents the ignition of combustible materials, slows the burning process, and eliminates the causes of fire and conflagration. It is essential to conduct fire retardant testing on composites that can utilize them for structural applications to ensure the safety of humans and polymer products from fire. The specimens of each composition with dimensions mm3 were cut from the ASTM D-635 standard for the fire-retardant test. The horizontal fire setup is used for ignition, with 30 s of torch ignition followed by 30 s of evaluating sample self-burning. The experimental setup for water absorption, swelling, compression, and fire retardant is detailed in Figure 2.