Building The Safety Case
Research area
Luke Bisby is The Arup Professor
of Fire and Structures at the BRE
Centre for Fire Safety Engineering
at Edinburgh University. He
graduated originally in structural
engineering and his PhD research
His own postdoctoral research
focused on the issues raised, “As
a structural engineer, I was trying
to figure out if we could have –
or should have – prevented what
happened, and how structural
engineers should think about fire
and design for different scenarios
as part of their duty of care.
looked into the use of advanced
polymer composites as new
” With his emphasis gradually
materials for strengthening
moving away from composite
reinforced concrete in buildings.
materials, and, keen to back
Part of this research entailed
his structural fire engineering
investigation into the fire
research with data from realistic
performance of new materials
tests, he moved to the Edinburgh
and the bond that fixes them to
centre. Here, he started working
existing structures. Fire research
alongside subject specialists in
was only part of his work at that
fire science and engineering, and
early stage.
broadened his research into real
fire events and analysing their
The work has profound
implications for international
building design codes and
the ways that fire is treated in
structural engineering, and
Professor Bisby said that norms
that have been accepted for
more than a century are now
being exposed as inefficient or
inadequate in some cases. As
a result, the top structural re
engineers now operate in a design
space where the building codes
are simply used as tools within a
performance-based framework,
rather than as static, prescriptive
requirements.
Academy support
effects on real structures.
Professor Bisby is currently
on 11 September 2001 were not a
The fundamental aim of his
Chair. “The Academy’s support has
mainstream or typical fire event
research is to be able to model fire
in terms of structural engineering,
in buildings (and vice versa), and
but that it rightly raised the subject
to be able to derive and validate
of structural performance in fire up
computer models which can be
the research agenda at the same
applied to the structural and fire
time.
safety design of buildings. The
Professor Bisby said that the
terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers
models will look into various
factors, ie the dynamics of the fire
itself, other ignition sources, the
“Our research can be used
to great advantage to safely
optimise buildings, and in
most cases it can save clients’
money and allow architects
to do more interesting things,
all while preserving or even
enhancing safety.”
Professor Luke Bisby
effects of other elements such
as glazing and heat transfer into
the structure, all as a dynamic
transient event where the heat
generated by the fire affects
the response of the building
structure.
supported by an RAEng Research
made a fundamental difference
to me professionally”, he said.
“More importantly, the support
of the Academy has given me
independence to develop my
research career which will help
society at large”.
The Academy is also sponsoring
further sociological research at
Edinburgh that will investigate
how the university can make
its technology important in ‘a
regulatory and practical enactment
sense’ – Professor Bisby said this
is fundamentally important, since
his work is intended to lead to new
design codes, but these will be of
limited value unless enacted.