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Construction work is physically demanding and often associated with bodily pain. This article presents a study of construction workers’ practices of using and relating to their bodies at work through an agential realist framework for analysing the (re)configuration of the workers’ embodied subjectivity. The analysis draws on interviews with 32 Danish construction workers as well as brief observati

During the 90ies, ISO TC92 SC1 started the development of full-scale tests for facades based upon an international review. The work resulted in two standards namely ISO 13785 part 1 and part 2. The work was performed in WG7 and a substantial input from international experts was given. The paper gives a short historical update on the development but also includes a short overview of the major type

This study aims to give an overview over different reaction-to-fire prediction models developed over the last decades by finding similarities and differences between models, as well as identifying their robustness in scaling. The models have been divided into four categories - empirical, thermal, polynomial and comprehensive - depending on how pyrolysis is modelled. Empirical models extrapolate be

Fires in enclosures equipped with mechanical ventilation remain one of the key issues for fire safety assessment in multifamily homes and industries. Therefore, a wide variation of methods for preventing smoke spread through the ventilation system exist and are applied, in performance-based designs. Through the use of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) model in the fire dynamics

This work has been made as a thesis for a BSc degree in Fire Protection Engineering at Lund University. The work has been supported and funded by ESS AB, European Spallation Source, in Lund. ESS AB is a publicly held company, owned by Sweden and Denmark as host countries. These host countries, together with at least 17 other European countries, will build and establish a multidisciplinary research

The characteristics of smoke are highly dependent on the materials undergoing thermal decomposition and the environment in which this decomposition takes place. With the rising complexity in dedicated fire simulation tools, there is a need for increased information on the composition and properties of smoke in order to develop/validate and extend the fire safety engineering community's smoke and v

Traditionally in fire modelling, a solid fuel has been assumed to ignite when the solids surface reaches a specific temperature or when the heat flux upon the solid reaches a critical level. Although these approaches of determining ignition for the condensed phase are practical, ignoring the gas phase conditions may lead to incorrect assumptions regarding material safety. A more 'physical' explana

It has been shown in previous studies that the current standard used to fire test interior materials in civilian and military vehicles, ISO 3795 (FMVSS 302), has led to a low level of fire safety of interior materials in civilian vehicles. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the fire safety of interior materials in military vehicles. The aim was to suggest a fire test method to be used on in

The current fire testing and classification system and corresponding tests is mainly based on prescriptive building fire codes. This has certain limitations resulting in restricting the possible use of these tests for performance-based design within fire safety engineering (FSE). It also restricts innovation and cost-efficiency for companies supplying materials/components for buildings and transpo

The Cone Calorimeter test method has been for years one of the most used small-scale fire test methods. It is certainly one of the methods which is most widely spread over the world at this moment. In contrast to many other fire test methods, the Cone Calorimeter provides a range of data with sound scientific basis, which allows a wide range of applications. In this article five different areas of

Three types of high-resilience PU foam representing a wide range of combustion performance are tested in conjunction with three fabrics: polyester, polypropylene and flame-retardant cotton. It is shown that covering of the foam with fabric usually results in a delay of ignition and peak rate of heat release. Mock-up performance is mainly influenced by the fabric, but is also influenced by the qual

The first part of this study focuses on the effect of cone calorimeter test variables on polyurethane flexible foam properties such as ignitability, heat release rate, effective heat of combustion and mass loss. Three of the main commercial foam types were used, i.e. conventional slabstock foams, high‐resilience slabstock foams and all‐MDI (methylene diphenyldiisocyanate) moulded foams. A decrease

The relative contributions of fabric and foam on important fire hazard parameters as measured in the cone calorimeter were determined for various mock‐up combinations. Three commercial types of high‐resilience PU flexible slabstock foams, representing a wide range of combustion performance, were combined with three different fabrics: polyester, polypropylene and combustion‐modified cotton. Total h

This paper summarizes the second part of a study over a two year period carried out at the Laboratory for Fuel Technology and Heat Transfer of the University of Gent in cooperation with Dow Benelux N.V.. The first part of the study, focusing on the effects of cone calorimeter test variables as well as polyurethane (PU) flexible foam variables on the foam combustion characteristics, has been publis

The relative contributions of fabric and foam on important fire hazard parameters as measured in the cone calorimeter were determined for various mock-up combinations. Three commercial types of high resilience PU flexible slabstock foams, representing a wide range of combustion performance, were combined with three different fabrics; viz. polyester, polypropylene and combustion modified cotton. To

The first part of this study focused on the effect of cone calorimeter test variables on polyurethane flexible foam properties such as ignitability, heat release rate, effective heat of combustion and mass loss. Three of the main commercial foam types were used; viz. conventional slabstock foams, high resilience slabstock foams and all-MDI moulded foams. A decrease in heat flux (down to 40%) with