Flame spread up the facade of high-rise buildings or in the interior of atria is a serious risk because of its high consequences for life safety and property conservation. It is worthwhile to note that this fire risk increases because new building materials are introduced as the number of buildings and atria increases. In addition, new tall buildings and atria incorporate innovative architectural styles, which demand non-conventional considerations for fire safety. Flame and fire spread on the external walls of a building may be initiated from fully involved enclosure fires at a given floor of the building (or atrium), from a fire in an adjacent space or from other extreme events such as an external impact on the building or an earthquake. Even though significant early research in this area has been transferred to practical regulatory guidelines, large uncertainties and contradictions exist in the current methods for determining (a) the burning rates in fully involved enclosures, (b) the flow of air into the enclosure for under ventilated (post flashover) conditions, (c) the associated heat fluxes to the structure and (d) the heights and heat fluxes of the flames emerging out of openings of the enclosure. For example, serious questions have been raised in the ongoing debate regarding the conditions of burning (i.e. ventilation or fuel controlled) in the floor impacted by the airplane in the World Trade Center disaster.This proposal investigates these phenomena in enclosure and facade fires by studying the physics of burning and flow dynamics through 1. experiments in various enclosure and external wall geometries to provide accurate measurements of the heat fluxes , 2. similarity (non-dimensional) analysis to generalize the results to different size geometries and 3. numerical simulation (modified FDS and MILES)with an ultimate aim of providing new accurate calculation methods for assessing the fire hazard in enclosure and external fires.

Urban populations are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events related to climate change, especially heat waves and floods. This vulnerability is caused by a combination of factors including existing inequalities, high population, and high exposure to certain types of environmental hazards. As cities emerge from smaller settlements and nearby adjacent cities, little design goes into ensuring that they are established in appropriate locations, that new infrastructure is adequately resilient to current and future extreme weather events, and that governance systems and growth take into account the specific needs of marginalised groups. Instead, urban development often appears chaotic and unplanned, locking citizens, particularly those who are most marginalised, into high states of vulnerability. If we could influence how burgeoning settlements turn into cities and megacities at the start of their growth trajectory, even marginally, the positive repercussions for resilience and wellbeing would be colossal. But just how and where do new cities emerge, and what are the opportunities for influencing their design while they expand to be resilient to extreme weather in a changing climate? African urbanization, in particular, is exploding. Decisions on how development will take place have time-limited intervention points. There are as yet no pre-determined pathways for development in Africa, providing a unique opportunity for influence. There is also a growing imperative and desire from African initiatives to develop sustainably, to support the implementation of the UN Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly Goal 11 on Sustainable cities and communities. Here we will focus on setting the foundations for increasing climate resilience and sustainable urbanisation in African. U-RES brings together a rich team of academic and non-academic experts, to explore multiple aspects of the very early stages of urbanisation: Through the lenses of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), U-RES will examine the current state of urbanisation and how this aligns, or not, with the projected increasing risks from climate change. This will be done through remote sensing and GIS analysis techniques to assess changes in land-cover. In addition, model simulations used by the IPCC to project climate change will be analysed for two risk-related climatic indices, one around heat waves and one around heavy rainfall (a driver of flood risk). This workstream will provide an overview of the patterns of urbanisation in Africa, and an initial picture of the alignment of current urbanisation with risks of extreme climatic events. Through the lenses of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), U-RES will conduct case studies of urban governance, two around Durban South Africa, and two in Isolo Kenya. These case studies will provide on-the-ground understanding into how information is gathered and used by decision makers, and provide insights into how this can be modified to better take into account the needs of marginalised groups. Through the lenses of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), U-RES will examine archaeological evidence of changing positions of human settlements over time, and how the changes related to environmental factors. This will be done by focusing on Egypt and Mesopotamia, which are a good analogues for environmental changes occurring in Africa. Analogues from the past will be used here to examine how decision-making process is influenced by complex interrelationships of opportunities and constraints afforded by a range of drivers, set against long-term societal traditions, ideologies and religion. The interview material from the governance case studies will be further used to develop narratives of good governance and to raise awareness of the importance of evidence to guide decision-making on urbanization.

Since antiquity the construction industry has been using lime based binders to manufacture mortars, plasters and renders...Despite this history there is still a lack of fundamental understanding of the hardening processes and how these influence time dependent mechanical properties. In addition dolomitic limes, containing magnesium, exhibit enhanced properties when compared to their pure lime counterparts, however there is limited knowledge of the underlying reasons. Lime based mortars are ideal candidates to replace cement mortars in many applications where lower strength is an advantage such as new build housing, forms of construction utilising organic fillers such as lime-hemp, and conservation and restoration applications. Indeed lime mortars offer many advantages over cement in terms of moisture permittivity, ability to accommodate movement, self-healing properties and ability to sequester carbon dioxide. Cementious binders are produced at much higher temperatures compared to lime and have large carbon dioxide emissions associated with their manufacture. Atomistic modelling provides a unique opportunity to probe these mechanisms at a fundamental level thereby elucidating the processes responsible for developing the properties of industrial importance. Many existing and past studies of building lime binders have focused on bulk properties for instance through large scale bulk property testing, whilst not taking into account atom level processes. In recent years the cement industry has employed atomistic modelling of hydrated silicates as a means of understanding material behaviour. Recent studies have demonstrated that the morphology and composition of a lime crystal can influence the carbonation process, and by association mechanical behaviour. In addition magnesium containing dolomitic limes show improved performance in many respects including strength development. Rate of carbonation is an extremely important issue as this can dictate the speed at which a building can be erected and therefore the associated costs. The ability to improve the carbonation rate and therefore hardening rate through control of composition and morphology will lead to enhanced products with better environmental credentials. In the first instance this proposal seeks to develop atomistic models to describe the important aspects of lime binder behaviour and validate these against laboratory samples. Atomistic models will generate Raman spectra and X-ray diffraction patterns for direct comparison with experimental measurements. These initial models will then be developed further to investigate firstly carbonation and then time dependent and plastic mechanical properties. Additionally the research will investigate the underlying reasons for the improved performance observed in magnesium containing dolomitic limes. The project is expected to bring long term benefits to the construction industry over the coming decades. In the shorter term industry will benefit through planned workshops and site visits which will showcase the application of atomistic modelling to lime manufacturers. The project will support the development of enhanced projects through the new knowledge gained.

Energy Management of existing non-domestic buildings is wrought with many challenges, a number of which arguably exist due to the diversity found amongst individual buildings and amongst the humans who occupy them. Buildings are inherently unique systems making it difficult to generalize technology solutions for any individual property. Instead, to make robust investment decisions for the energy-efficient upkeep of a particular building requires some degree of tailored engineering and economic analysis. To understand why this is the case, one need only to consider the chain of questions one would likely need to address for decision-making in an arbitrary building. For instance, we might ask: what is the age of the building and the equipment currently installed in it? Does the heating system need to be replaced? If yes, is the current system a boiler, and if so, how efficiently does it perform? Would the building benefit from a new boiler or an electric heat pump? Would it benefit from replacing the heating distribution pipes? Do the cost / benefits of any of these technologies depend on government tariffs and subsidies? What is the risk faced if any available subsidies are cut in the future? How robust is either technology to the future price of natural gas and electricity? Would that risk be worth taking? Is it too expensive to even start thinking about the options and associated risks? How would a facility manager visualise the options available and possible spreads of benefits and risks for all these aspects? This project aims to respond to these challenges. Indeed, in order to make sound decisions on future building operation and technology investment, evidence shows that one needs adequate information on a number of engineering, economics, and social science matters pertaining to each individual project. To obtain this information has so-far been viewed as a costly exercise, and has contributed to the general perception that undertaking deep cuts to building energy consumption (achieving more than 15% in energy savings per investment) is an economically risky affair. This proposal is the first to develop and recommend an altogether new approach to performing building audits, energy simulation, uncertainty analysis, data visualization, and finally investment decision-making. It will lead to a marked reduction in the cost of acquiring information for robust retrofit and facility management decisions. The direct outputs of this project will be a series of software tools for three distinct but related purposes: (i) collecting building data on relevant uncertainty parameters (i.e., "what do we know now?"); (ii) propagating and quantifying uncertainty using building simulation models, measurements obtained from key monitored building sites, and cutting-edge statistical approaches (i.e., Bayesian analysis); and (iii) the display and interpretation of uncertainty. During the course of the project, workshops will be organised to lay out the current (uncertain) knowledge that has been, until now, largely undocumented in the buildings sector and inaccessible to the energy research community. This includes gaining understanding on the most common faults observed in managing conventional energy systems, and how spatial layouts in building evolve. The graphical presentation of risk information and understanding users' perception of uncertainty and risk will be key elements of these workshops and the research programme. Our software tools, user guidance, and numerical runs of test cases will be made available, as the web-based B-bem portal, via the University of Cambridge web site.

The prevention of the ingress of contaminated air into habitable space has been a central concern in the design of building drainage and vent systems since the 1850s. Failure to provide the necessary protection, primarily through appliance water trap seals, was a major contributor in the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong in 2003 and in particular to the fatalities in the Amoy Gardens housing complex where the WHO(1) identified dry trap seals as a primary cause. Prevention depends upon both good design and good maintenance, however a maintenance regime within a large complex building network requires a degree of prior knowledge of possible defective appliance trap seal locations. This application proposes a novel and timely use of air pressure transient simulation and transient response measurement to identify, during periods of system non-use, the location of depleted trap seals.Low amplitude air pressure transients propagated within building drainage systems obey the mechanisms of transient propagation and system response. The propagation may be simulated by the proven method of characteristics solution of the St Venant equations so that the changed response of a network with a dry trap to a low amplitude applied pressure pulse - effectively a new open termination with an identifiably different reflection coefficient / may be predicted. In practical terms it is possible to predict the arrival time of a new termination reflection at any monitoring location within the network. Predictions at two monitoring locations within the network would clearly identify the location of the dry trap. In practice it would be necessary to subject the building drainage and vent system to a low amplitude pulse / probably by activation of a fan / during a quiescent period, practically a nighttime short duration automated pulse would be sufficient. Activation at periods of non-flow within the network will enhance the probability of a successful identification of the dry trap seal and will remove many of the operational difficulties encountered in similar methodology directed towards water supply network leakage identification.In view of the proven consequences of poor maintenance and trap seal depletion in complex building drainage networks this application is seen as both novel and timely. Its application will have implications for Facilities Management in complex buildings and the research will involve FM academics at HWU and appropriate support organizations that will make available suitably complex buildings for site trials. Identification of persistent trap seal depletion allows local installation of active control devices to prevent further failures by the addition of either Air Admittance Valves to limit trap seal loss due to negative transients or variable volume containment devices to limit trap seal loss due to positive pressure transients.This application will develop the necessary system simulations as well as undertaking laboratory and site validation of the proposed technique. The laboratory tests will draw on the group's experience and test facilities and will support and validate simulation development.Site trials will be undertaken in suitably complex building drainage networks with the full cooperation of the FM group of the Royal Bank of Scotland, with buildings in both Edinburgh and London being made available. These trials will allow an evaluation of the proposed methodology under operational conditions and will generate 'good practice ' guidelines for further implementation across the FM sector. The objective will be to deliver a proven defect identification methodology that will be of direct application with the Facilities Management of large complex buildings.Dissemination will be a primary objective and it is intended that close contact will be maintained with the both the organisations formerly supporting the application and the larger support group with whom the researchers are in constant contact.