About this Research Topic

Background

Fire safety is having a growing evolution thanks to the recent advances in many technological fields, like for instance the improvement of building materials, the evolution of urban landscapes, the optimization of ventilation systems, the introduction of new energy sources such as Li-ion batteries, and so on. Nowadays, because of evolving fire scenarios for newly developed structures and upcoming technologies, traditional fire safety measures might be quite out of date. Therefore, novel technologies and strategies to improve fire safety and mitigate fire risk are necessary.

Heat transfer modeling is essential in the field of fire safety, being utilized for predicting spread of fire, mitigating and analyzing fire hazards, and protecting lives and property. Considering fire spreads via coupled modes of heat transfer, with radiation as the main mechanism, multiphysics modeling (e.g. including complex chemical reactions, thermal stress analysis, and battery electrochemistry) is fundamental. Radiation modeling with multiple chemical reactions within a semi-transparent medium is extremely challenging nowadays, largely because of a lack of physical properties for the models being developed. Modeling heat transfer also enables the assessment of materials in terms of their fire resistance, therefore contributing to the selection of fire-resistant materials and the design of structural elements. Despite heat transfer modelling being essential to the field, there are several challenges still open, e.g. upscaling of models, code validation, and appropriate modeling in relatively novel fields such as fires due to thermal runaway in batteries.

The goal of this Research Topic is to highlight the recent challenges in the field of fire safety and investigate new solutions in terms of detection, prevention, and response mechanisms. This Topic aims to continue the discourse on fire safety while looking for novel technologies and related aspects that might mitigate fire risk and generally enhance resilience in facing fire emergencies.

The Topic invites original experimental, numerical, and theoretical contributions relevant to fire safety engineering, with those that include heat transfer modeling approaches being especially welcome. Submitted articles must be pertinent to fire safety challenges in modern times, and multi-disciplinary approaches are of interest to enhance the understanding of potential solutions for novel problems raised in fire safety engineering.

Topics within the scope of this collection include, but are not limited to:
• advances in heat transfer modeling for predicting spread of fire, and mitigating and analyzing fire hazards
• novel technologies for early warning systems, smart fire detection and monitoring, and climate change-related fire risks
• the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning methods
• fire dynamics and diffusion flames
• Li-ion battery fires
• hydrogen and ammonia fires
• façade fires
• structural fires
• tunnel fires
• smoke modeling

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Fire Safety, Climate Change, Battery Fires, Combustion, Fire spread, Fire Risk, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Fire Passive Systems, Fire Propagation, Hydrogen, Multiphysics modeling, Fire radiation heat transfer, Thermal runaway

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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