Department(s):
School of EngineeringCongratulations to WPI Fire Protection Engineering Professor and Interim Department Head Albert Simeoni for his recent award entitled “Collaborative investigations of fuel properties and fire dynamics in the laboratory and field” sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture. This award covers two main aspects of our collaboration with the US Forest Service Research Station in the Northeast US: collect fire behavior and fire impact data during experimental fires in the field and conduct wind-tunnel experiments at WPI. The experiments at WPI will cover the measurement of the flow through a vegetation layer and the measurement of fire behavior for a fire spreading through a shrub layer under the influence of controlled wind. In addition, simulations of both the field and laboratory experiments will be conducted to test and improve existing CFD fire spread models.