Envisage Seminar by Dr. Rory Hadden (School of Engineering): "Wildlfire: fighting fire with physics"

Engineering Seminar Link: http://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/about/events/20170223-1245/envisage-seminar-dr-rory-hadden-school-engineering

Wildfires are full of contradictions: devastating to wildlife but necessary for its survival, beguiling but deadly, untamed yet tameable. In recent years, the research at the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh has sought to develop new understanding of this phenomenon to improve societal resilience, develop informed land management practices and control risk. This research has spanned fundamental experimental studies of combustion of solid fuels, evaluation of emissions, multiscale numerical CFD and field scale experimentation. This talk will highlight the multidisciplinary nature of the wildfire problem, the lessons that are being learnt and the engineering solutions that are being delivered to improve resilience of the vulnerable communities at the wildland urban interface. The talk will touch on geoscience, ecology, meteorology, heat transfer and fluid mechanics and how these come together to understand this deadly force of nature.

Rory M. Hadden is the Rushbrook Lecture in Fire Investigation. He obtained a MEng in Chemical Engineering and PhD from the University of Edinburgh. His thesis evaluated the dynamics of smouldering combustion with particular application to smouldering peat fires. After spending time at the University of Western Ontario developing a novel soil remediation technology, he moved to Imperial College London in 2013 before joining the University of Edinburgh. His research interest is primarily in the fire behaviour of solid fuels with application to the built and natural environments. He currently holds grants with the Joint Fire Science Programme (US), National Institute for Standards and Technology, the Department of Defense, Arup and BRE.