Ian Pope

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Consultant at DBI - The Danish Institute of Fire and Security Technology

This paper seeks to provide key fundamental knowledge underpinning the use of self-extinction principles as part of a design framework for buildings with engineered mass timber structures. The results from six compartment fire experiments in a cross-laminated timber (CLT) enclosure with different ratios of exposed timber are presented and analyzed...

A series of large-scale experiments has been conducted on under-ventilated mass timber room compartments with kerosene pool fires. To characterise the role of exposed timber walls on the fully-developed phase of the fire, the exposed surface area of mass timber was varied between experiments. Experiments with all timber surfaces protected were comp...

In order to adequately quantify and predict the fire performance of novel construction materials and systems, their thermo-mechanical response to representative fire exposures must be defined through appropriately tailored experimentation. One of the most important components of these experiments is measurement of the in-depth temperature profile,...

When a thermocouple is embedded in a material of lower thermal conductivity, under certain heating or cooling conditions, the presence of the thermocouple can distort the surrounding temperature field. As a result, the measured temperatures may be very different to the ‘undisturbed’ temperatures that would exist without the thermocouple. This study...

Fire safety remains a major challenge for engineered timber buildings. Their combustible nature challenges the design principles of compartmentation and structural integrity beyond burnout, which are inherent to the fire resistance framework. Therefore, self-extinction is critical for the fire-safe design of timber buildings. This paper is the firs...

This paper presents a review of the possible methods for testing the fire performance properties of reused timber through non-destructive techniques, focusing on structural elements. Evaluating the fire performance of old wooden specimen is necessary to facilitate reuse, in the support of the transition to a circular economy. The use of non-destruc...

Tolerance gaps in wood connections are unavoidable, for reasons of constructability and the effects of natural shrinkage in timber elements with changing moisture content. During a fire, these gaps may lead to a substantial heat transfer to the metal connectors that are considered heat protected being embedded by the wooden components of the connec...

Tolerance gaps or slips in wood connections are unavoidable, for reasons of constructability and the effects of natural shrinkage in timber elements with changing moisture content. During a fire, these gaps may lead to increased heat transfer through the connection. Aluminium connectors are becoming more popular due to their high malleability and a...

A series of large-scale experiments has been conducted on under-ventilated mass timber room compartments. In order to characterise the influence of the fuel nature and geometry on the fire dynamics, the movable fuel load in the compartments was alternated between a kerosene pool fire and a wood crib, while the number of exposed timber surfaces was...

Limited knowledge of the fire behaviour of bamboo is one of the main reasons bamboo constructions are mostly limited to a maximum of two storeys, and its use as a primary structural component in buildings is restricted. The main objective of this paper is to develop the fundamental groundwork of a performance-based design methodology specific to fi...

An investigation has been conducted into measurement errors associated with the thermal disturbance created when a thermocouple is inserted perpendicular to a thermal wave in a charring material of low conductivity. Laminated bamboo was used as the embedding material because in-depth temperature measurements are of practical relevance to the charac...

A series of experiments have been conducted to measure the in‐depth heating of laminated bamboo samples subjected to heat fluxes of 5, 10, 30, and 60 kW/m2, either perpendicular or parallel to the grain. These heat fluxes were chosen to induce different phenomena within the material—from inert heating to moisture evaporation, pyrolysis, oxidation,...

Traditionally, bamboo has only been used for structural purposes in low-rise buildings, and one of the main reasons is that the fire performance of load-bearing bamboo structures is not well understood. Before this material can be used in applications where fire safety considerations are critical, for instance in mid-rise buildings or other complex...