Life-saving NYU-Poly research presented at FDNY symposium - April 22, 2009
Representatives from NYU-Polys fire research team and symposium presenters from the FDNY. Left to right: Anisur Rahman, Prabodh Panindre, Chief Jerry Tracy, Chief George Healy, Lieutenant John Ceriello, Vishal Prajapati, Elton Kwok.
Chief officers from the Fire Department of New York presented potentially life-saving research results at a March 19 – 20 symposium based on a study Polytechnic Institute of NYU mechanical engineers conducted through a $1 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency via the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Research Grant program.
The symposium, like the research study, focused on techniques to fight wind-driven high-rise fires, which are unpredictable, fast-moving, and can quickly exceed temperatures of 2,000 degrees.
Dr. Sunil Kumar, professor of mechanical engineering, led the research group who have analyzed data collected during a series of February 2008 test fires conducted on Governor’s Island in collaboration with FDNY and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) who are also part of the $1 million grant.
The research group’s primary focus has been the effectiveness of positive pressure ventilation (PPV), a suppression tactic that proved very successful during the experimental burns. The group has conducted several simulations using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and fire simulator software to better understand the physics governing the PPV tactic, which when deployed appropriately, can reduce the intensity of fire conditions and provide safer conditions inside a burning high-rise building.
The results from NYU-Poly’s study are being used to train members of FDNY — one of the top fire and rescue organizations worldwide. The symposium served as way to spread the FDNY’s extensive experience and knowledge of fighting high-rise fires to fire departments across the nation — from Los Angeles to Chicago — and the world — from the United Kingdom to China — who attended the symposium.
NYU-Poly was the principal investigator in the study and aims to maintain its relationship with FDNY and NIST by continuing its fire research activities and providing relevant scientific data and information to firefighting communities.
Fire research at NYU-Poly enhances the research opportunities available at the Institute and contributes to its continued goal of being a place for innovative research and technology development that serves local, national, and international communities.
Polytechnic representatives at the symposium included members of the research team: Dr. Sunil Kumar; Vishal Prajapati, Prabodh Panindre, and Anisur Rahman of the mechanical engineering department; and Elton Kwok, a graduate student in the integrated digital media program.
Poly teams up with FDNY to fight fire with engineering - February 28, 2008
(L to R) President Emeritus George Bugliarello, Principal Investigator Dr. Sunil Kumar, FDNY Deputy Chief John Mooney and FDNY Battalion Chief Gerald Tracy help to bridge the gap between science and the art of firefighting.
While soaring flames and dark clouds of smoke rushed out the windows of a seven-story building on Governors Island on Monday, Februrary 25, video cameras recorded the scene and onlookers observed calmly. What looked like a movie set was actually more like a giant laboratory.
For a week, the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) will be setting fires in the vacant building as a team of Poly engineers and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) study techniques to control wind-driven high-rise fires.
The test fires are part of a $1 million grant to Poly from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) via the Department of Homeland Security's Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program for Research (DHS-AFG). The grant program is part of a push by the Department of Homeland Security to study fire, the cause of more economic damage in the U.S. than all other natural disasters combined.
Dr. Sunil Kumar, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, the study’s principal investigator and an expert on thermal heat transfer and fluid mechanics, described the study as unique among research universities.
“Something of this scale, where an entire building is literally destroyed, is not just costly, but takes the right combination of firefighting, engineering and research expertise,” said Dr. Kumar. “The Poly, FNDY and NIST partnership makes such an important study possible.”
At the press conference preceding Monday’s test fire, Battalion Chief Gerald Tracy echoed that sentiment, saying, “We are bridging the gap between science and the art of firefighting. What we are doing is groundbreaking.”
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Fire Officials Tackle Challenges of High-Rise Blazes - February 25, 2008
In the smoky caldron of a high-rise fire, it is the firefighter’s worst nightmare: a door left ajar, a window that suddenly breaks under intense heat and a blast of wind.
At its worst, the outcome is catastrophic. Known to firefighters as a blowtorch effect, the instant combination of fire and wind can blast fireballs across rooms and down corridors without warning, within seconds, and at temperatures that render hoses and protective clothing of little use.
In New York City, at least 11 people, including four firefighters, have died as a direct result of those kinds of fires since 1980, and dozens of others have been badly burned. For firefighters, “it is like walking into the barrel of a loaded shotgun,” Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said.
Now, amid an expanding search across the nation for better ways to prevent or contain high-rise infernos, the Fire Department, federal fire experts and engineers from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn have taken over part of Governors Island, the 172-acre former Coast Guard installation off Lower Manhattan, for a week of pyrotechnics intended to test “alternative strategies and tactics for wind-driven events.”
Firefighters from departments in Los Angeles; Chicago; Austin, Tex.; and several other cities across the country will be observing.
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