Fundamentals of Structural Fire Engineering

This talk will provide an introduction to the basic principles of designing structural systems for fire safety. Concepts such as fire scenarios, standard fires, fire testing, heat transfer and designing members at elevated temperature will be covered. Principles of designing structural systems such as steelwork, reinforced concrete, timber and composite floors will be addressed. The aim of the talk is to allow engineers to be able to answer questions such as: What is a one hour fire rating? How do I achieve a fire rating? Details regarding saving money on passive fire protection will be covered.

Prof Richard Walls (PrEng, PhD, MSc, GDE, BScEng, BTh, FSAICE) is the head of the Fire Engineering Research Unit at Stellenbosch University (FireSUN), Africa’s first research team with a focus on fire engineering and structural fire design. Various fire related topics are currently being investigated by his team, such as informal settlement fire behaviour, the design of steel structures in fire, analysis of structures in fire, forensic fire investigations, 3D printed concrete in fire, and materials behaviour. He contributed to the 2017 Knysna fires investigation project looking at the destruction of almost 1000 homes. In 2020 he was awarded the prestigious TW Kambule-NSTF Emerging Research of the year in South Africa. Before joining academia he worked as a consulting structural engineer in industry, designing heavy industrial, petrochemical and commercial structures. He has contributed to a wide variety of technical publications, including work published on developing world fire safety issues by the United Nations and World Bank.

For any questions please send an email to tech-talk@istructesa.org