Trouvé Delivers Fire Science Talk at China National Symposium on Combustion

Arnaud Trouvé, a professor of fire protection engineering (FPE) at the University of Maryland (UMD), traveled to China recently with a two-fold purpose: 1) touring the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS) at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, and 2) participating in the China National Symposium on Combustion in Tianjin.

“Everything in China is big!” said Trouvé. “With more than 120 PhD students, the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science is the biggest graduate-level fire research program in the world.”

While there, Trouvé met with SKLFS Director, Dr. Naian Liu, to encourage greater collaboration between SKLFS and UMD, as well as between SKLFS and the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). Trouvé gave a seminar on compartment fire dynamics – emphasizing in particular computational modeling as a unique tool to bring fundamental insights into the basic mechanisms responsible for flame spread and fire growth – as well as a tool to help practicing safety engineers develop suitable design solutions to limit the risk of fire.

The China National Symposium on Combustion, boasting more than 1500 attendees, has emerged as the largest combustion science meeting in the world (on par with the International Symposium on Combustion). Trouvé also gave an invited plenary talk on the coupling between combustion and radiation, which emphasized the specific scientific challenges associated with fire problems. While the Symposium regularly features diverse applications of combustion science, Trouvé’s presentation marked the first time that the China National Symposium on Combustion organizers featured fire research.

Published November 1, 2019