Speakers
Simo Hostikka
The first confirmed keynote speaker for this 7th version of the International conference »Applications of structural fire engineering«, ASFE’ 2021, is Simo Hostikka. Simo Hostikka is an Associate Professor of Fire Safety Engineering at Aalto University School of Engineering, Finland. He received MSc in 1997 and DSc in 2008 from the Helsinki University of Technology. Since 1997 he worked as a fire researcher at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, focusing on the development of numerical fire simulation. He was the principal scientist in the projects concerning fire safety of nuclear power plants, as well as numerous projects around fire simulation. In 2000-2001 he worked as a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, becoming a member of the development team for Fire Dynamics Simulator -software. In 2014, he joined Aalto University Department of Civil Engineering. He leads a team of about 10 doctoral students and post doc researchers.
Title of presentation: How passive the passive fire protection layers actually are? (Simo Hostikka, Deepak Paudel)
Passive fire protection products are commonly based on mineral materials with porous structure for low thermal conductivity. Although the mineral materials can often be considered inert in fire temperatures, many products contain additional binder materials that decompose at temperatures much lower than the typical criteria for product acceptance. This is especially important for mineral wools, such as stone wool. In this presentation we demonstrate the influence of exothermic binder reactions on the cold side -temperatures during fire resistance tests. By multi-physics simulation, we investigate the effects of the stone wool properties, such as binder content and density, and boundary conditions (permeable or non-permeable). We show that the binder oxidation reactions can reduce the product’s fire resistance time and pose a threat to protected materials with low critical temperature. The efficiency of thermal protection greatly improves when the stone wool core is closed between non-permeable surface layers. In such products, however, two- and three-dimensional transport effects may start to play a role, indicating the need for future research.
Neno Torić
The second confirmed keynote speaker for this 7th version of the International conference »Applications of structural fire engineering«, ASFE’ 2021, is Neno Torić. Neno Torić graduated Civil Engineering from the University of Split, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture in 2006, and defended his doctoral thesis at the same University in 2012, within a research group at the Department of Metal and Timber Structures.. His doctoral research focused on the development of a general numerical model for behavior of structures in fire, and was supported by an experimental testing of the behavior of pre-stressed, hollow-core slabs exposed to fire. During the post-doctoral period, he spent three months at the University of Sheffield, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering (Structural Fire Engineering research group led by Prof. Ian Burgess), working on the development of the Vulcan software in conducting quasi-static analysis of steel structures exposed to creep. The collaboration with the University of Sheffield later led to further research efforts in investigating creep behavior of steel and aluminum columns exposed to fire within a project funded by Croatian Science Foundation 2015-2018. He currently conducts experiments on metallic structures exposed to creep and focuses on the development of a universal material model for metals applicable to different heating and loading scenarios. Furthermore, he is engaged in the development of a new type of structural engineering product made of hardwood species. He has currently published 28 research papers in various journals referenced in the Web of Science database.
Title of presentation: Towards an advanced, time-dependent analysis of fire exposed steel structures
The keynote presentation will address the possibilities of extending the approach to modelling of fire exposed steel structures by taking into account various heating and loading scenarios. Since steel structures are generally exposed to variable heating rate, it is necessary to include an additional strain component (creep) that depends on the length of time exposure. The lecture will discuss whether or not a time-dependent analysis should be taken into account, and the possible implications arising thereof. The latest research efforts directed at the influence of time-dependent strain on the behavior of steel structures will be addressed, as well as in the development of a unified material model for steel that would be heating- and strain-rate sensitive. This type of an advanced material model would be capable of simulating material behavior when a structure is exposed to transient heating regimes, including stationary heating.