School of the Built Environment

Welcome

FireSERT is the Institute for Fire Safety Engineering Research and Technology within the School of Built Environment, Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment. It is located on the Jordanstown Campus. The main endeavours of FireSERT are:

1. its postgraduate teaching and PhD programmes in fire safety science and engineering 
2. its strategic and commissioned research, and 
3. its support to industry and commerce.

Through these endeavours, FireSERT is a world-leading provider of:

• higher education in scientific and technical fire safety engineering,
• tailor-made fire safety short courses and training programs,
• strategic fire safety science and engineering research,
• commissioned fire safety science and engineering research, 
• commercially sponsored fire safety science and engineering research,
• fire safe product and component development,
• fire testing,
• fire safety engineering support to industry and commerce and
• independent advice to government and its agencies.

FireSERT is supported through a diversity of externally funded research programmes, its share of Research Assessment Exercise (REF) income, university strategic funding and university student income. 

FireSERT's research is focused on four key areas:

• Fire Dynamics and Materials,
• Structural fire engineering 
• Human Behaviour in Fire
• Fire protection

The facilities developed for undertaking research in this area are exceptional, a 600m2 burn hall allows full-scale fire research to be undertaken. A 20 MW facility, a large-scale combination wall and floor furnace (3m x 3m x 4m long), intermediate and small size furnaces facilitate investigations over a wide range of scales. These facilities are complemented by a well equipped fire dynamics and chemistry laboratory furnished with TGA/FTIR/DSC/MS and two cone calorimeters, one standard and one having a controlled oxidizer atmosphere. In addition to the experimental laboratories, extensive dedicated computer facilities are available for fire modelling, using CFD. A specific set of laboratories are also available for the investigation of human behaviour in fire, allowing fundamental work to be undertaken on human responses to fire and evacuation simulations.