European Master and Certification Program
in Risk Engineering and Management

IIIB-R08 FIRE
Fire Protection

Course code: 136478 (SEM)
Language of instruction: English
Duration of the course: 5 days (45h)
Lecturers: Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil Ulrich Krause (Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Process and Systems Engineering, Institute of Apparatus and Environmental Engineering)
Assessment: Written Exam Transfer Paper [optional topic for Project Study Paper]

Short description

The course starts with the theory of fire and extinguishment, and thoroughly explains fire protection principles. Further, the course gives details related to the fire protection concepts including legal background and requirements with special focus on industrial fires and risk analysis. The course introduces basic principles and application of fire modeling, explains the phenomenon of a fire and gives an overview of the fire models and their hierarchy and discusses particular models, including numerical. The theoretical part is complemented with number of examples, including calculations, that illustrate the use of different fire models.

Objectives

This course aims to extend the knowledge about fire protection in industry based on the regulation and practice in EU, as well as to provide basic knowledge on fire modeling.

Target Attendees / Participants

The contents of the course is structured to satisfy the needs of

  • engineers and regulators
  • Health, Safety and Environmental practitioners
  • academics and researchers from Industry
  • design/operations/maintenance staff from all sectors
  • project management
  • consultants in the area of HSE/Risk assessment/Safety.

Course Content by Units

Unit 1: Fire Protection in Industry (Fundamentals)

  • Structural fire protection
  • Theory of fire
  • Fire protection installations
  • Risks of fire
  • Theory of extinguishment
  • Sources of risks
  • Behavior
Unit 2: Fire protection and prevention
  • Fire Prevention - Reducing ignitability and combustibility of materials, Prevention of ignition sources
  • Fire Protection - Reaction to fire of construction materials, Fire resistance of construction materials, Extinguishing systems, Smoke, Simple chemical models
Unit 3: Fire protection concepts and application
  • Introduction
  • Behavior of structures in fire
  • Extinguishing systems
Unit 4: Industrial fires
  • General - Industrial fires vs. fires in housing, Two industrial fire examples
  • Building regulations – an example
  • Performance based design: Prescriptive codes vs. performance based design, Design fire scenarios
  • Determination of fire load
  • Active fire protection: Heat and smoke ventilation, Automatic extinction systems, Oxygen reduction systems
  • Silo fires
Unit 5: Fire modeling
  • Introduction: Basic principles, Application of fire modeling, The phenomenon of a fire, Hierarchy of fire models
  • Balance equations for mass, momentum and heat transfer (CFD models)
  • Closure laws for CFD models: Turbulence, Chemical reaction models, Mixture fraction, Radiation models
  • Fire modeling: Zone models, Plume model, A brief survey on numerical methods
  • Computational example: A downward propagating fire in a two-storey
Unit 6: Review of the main course issues and preparation for final exam

Unit 7: Final exam

Teaching Methods

The course includes:

  • introductory note explaining aim and structure of the course, and used methodology as well
  • ex cathedra lecturing illustrated by number of examples
  • one computational example
  • review of main topics in the end of each lecturing unit
  • preparation for final exam by repetition of all course units and main issues
  • final exam

At the end of the course the students are expected to:

  • be familiar with the theory of fire
  • understand basics of fire prevention and protection measures in industry as well as of structural fire protection and fire protection concepts
  • know principles of fire modeling and be familiar with fire models.

Literature

  1. Textbook:
    Fire Protection and Modeling, version 2, January 2010
  2. Transparencies:
    Unit 1: Introduction
    Unit 2: Fire protection and prevention
    Unit 3: Fire Protection Concepts and Applications
    Unit 4: Industrial Fires
    Unit 5: Fire Modeling
  3. Certification material, version 3, January 2010
  4. Additional material
    • ISO-CD_16731_rev - Data needed for fire safety engineering (N_498)
    • Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Guidelines for Substantiating a Fire Model for a Given Application, Draft for Comments, September, 2009


For more information about the European Master and Certification Program in Risk Engineering and Management in general, go the Homepage.
For more information about the European Master Program in Risk Engineering and Management in general, go the Master Study page.
To see more courses in the curriculum, go to The curriculum page, or by date and topic go to the Calendar of Courses page.
Contact: via email sti889@risk-technologies.com or phone +49 711 1839 781 or +49 711 1839 647
(Course profile ID: IIIB-R08, generated on March 28, 2024)