Infrastructure and Environment

Dr Welch has a PhD in combustion and over 30 years of experience in fire research and teaching. He worked for a decade at BRE's Fire Research Station, including full-scale fire tests at BRE Cardington, before joining the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh in 2004. His research spans a range of topics related to computational simulation of fire and structures and has had involvement as first or second supervisor of around 30 graduated PhD students and served as examiner for over 30 more (including external examiner appointments). His teaching is related to fire safety engineering practice, providing a training in engineering approaches to applied problems, with critique and analysis of relevant regulations, codes and design principles. He was Programme Director for the one-year MSc Structural and Fire Safety Engineering (SAFE) 2008-23 (120+ graduates), and is a management board member for the International Master in Fire Safety Engineering (IMFSE), since 2010 (300+ graduates).  He was Discipline Programme Manager for Civil & Environmental Engineering 1/1/14-30/4/18 & 14/3-14/8/22 and is now Deputy Director of Students in the School of Engineering.

• BA hons Engineering, Cambridge University
• MSc Automotive product engineering, Cranfield University
• PhD (Computational modelling of diesel engine smoke emission), Cranfield University

AIFireE, AIOP (Combustion Physics subgroup), IAFSS newsletter associate editor

Deputy Director of Students, School of Engineering

Management Board, International Master in Fire Safety Engineering (IMFSE)

Programme Director, Structural & Fire Safety Engineering (SAFE) MSc

Current teaching: Fire Safety Engineering 5/MSc/IMFSE (formely Current Methods in Fire Safety Engineering/Fire Safety Engineering 4) (short-listed for "Outstanding course" via 22/23 EUSA Teaching awards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cslN1EdULWQ) Fire Science Laboratory 5/SAFE/IMFSE, Fire Safety Engineering 3

Previous teaching: Fire Safety Engineering Design Project 5, Fire Safety Engineering Analysis and Design 5/MSc, Quantitative Methods for Fire Safety Engineering 5, Numerical Methods and Computing 2, Engineering 1, Civil Engineering 1

• Travelling/post-flashover fires, including fire spread simulation using High Performance Computing (HPC) resources (EPSRC UKCTRF/EU TRAFIR, SureFire Hong Kong) (video)
• Fire-structure coupling methodologies for large/complex spaces (RFCS FIRESTRUC)
• Sensor-linked fire and egress models, including ICU evacuations (BRE Trust PhD studentships)
• Fire hazard prediction, including smoke and toxic species (EPSRC, Nuffield)
• Thermo-mechanical response of composite and steel vessels in fire (EU FireComp, EPSRC PhD studentship with Akzonobel/Promat)
• Fire behaviour of energy efficient constructions and facade fires (Rockwool)

Room 3.08, Alexander Graham Bell building https://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/maps?building=0618

• M.Sc. in Materials Chemistry, Merit, School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 2022
• B.Sc. in Applied Science, First class with Distinction, PSG College of Technology, Anna University, India, 2021 

• Polymer Science and Engineering
• Environmental Nanotoxicology
• Atomic Force Spectroscopy

Dr Ricky Carvel is Senior Lecturer in Fire Dynamics in the Edinburgh Fire Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. 

Originally from Edinburgh he studied at St Andrews University, obtaining a BSc (hons) in Chemistry and Physics in 1992 and an MPhil in Chemistry in 1994. Since then he has worked for the University of Aberystwyth, Heriot-Watt University, International Fire Investigators and Consultants and the University of Edinburgh.

He is editor of the ‘Handbook of Tunnel Fire Safety’ (2nd Edition, ICE Publishing, 2011) and was associate editor of Fire Safety Journal (2009-2015). He has been working in the field of fire science and tunnel fire phenomena since 1998. 

His research work has focussed on the interaction between fires and ventilation (specifically tunnel ventilation systems, crosswinds and, currently, underventilated fires such as in basements and ships' holds). In 2004 he was awarded a PhD from Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland) for his thesis “Fire Size in Tunnels”. In addition to fire vs. ventilation research, he has also been involved into research in dust explosions, ignition, material flammability, CFD modelling and fire suppression.

As well as his teaching and research responsibilities at the University, he currently provides fire safety engineering consultancy services to a number of different companies, primarily with regards to tunnel fire safety and fire dynamics. He has authored more than 20 journal papers and more than 40 conference papers. 

He was runner up in the 'best course' category at the 2018 EUSA Teaching Awards.

He currently teaches the courses "Fire Science & Fire Dynamics" and "Models for Fire Safety" to undergraduate and MSc students. 

Chang Liu is a PhD student supervised by Drs Stephen Welch and David Rush at the Edinburgh Fire Research Centre (The University of Edinburgh) working on the topic of 'Characterisation of Travelling Fires in Large Compartments Using CFD modelling', following on from my research on the pertinent issues regarding the cooling phase of travelling fires as a Structural & Fire Safety Engineering (SAFE) MSc Student at Edinburgh. He has expertise in carrying out numerical simulations (mainly CFD-based) of full-scale compartment fire tests under the High-Performance Computing (HPC) environment e.g. ECDF Eddie and ARCHER2, c/o UKCTRF project. Having background in both civil and fire safety engineering, he also has experience in characterising thermo-mechanical response of fire-exposed structural members. 

Edinburgh Fire Research Centre: https://www.fire.eng.ed.ac.uk/

• PhD in Fire Safety Engineering, The University of Edinburgh 2022-present
• MSc in Structural and Fire Safety Engineering, The University of Edinburgh 2019-2021

• CFD-Based Computational Modelling of Fire Related Problems in the Built Environment
• Fire Behaviours in Large Open-Plan Compartments (Predominately With Wood Cribs as Fuels)
• Pyrolysis and Ignition of Cellulosic Materials
• Enclosure Fire Dynamics

Room 1.4, John Muir Building, https://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/maps?building=0605

• PhD, National Technical University of Athens
• Post-Graduate Diploma for Teaching in Higher Education, NIE Singapore
• BEng, Tongji University
• MSc, Southeast University

• Fellow, Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE)
• Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers (FASCE)
• Chartered Engineer (CEng, Registered with the Engineering Council)
• Member, European Academy of Sciences and Arts (M.EASA)
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• Associate Editor, International Journal of Protective Structures
• Associate Editor, Journal of Structural Engineering - ASCE
• Member of Editorial Boards: International Journal of Impact Engineering; Advances in Structural Engineering; Structural Engineering and Mechanics; Advances in Concrete Construction; etc
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• Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 447: Finite Element Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Structures
• ASCE Technical Committee: Structural Identification of Constructed Systems (past)
• ACI Committee 370: Design for Blast and Impact (past)
• ASCE Technical Committee on Methods of Monitoring
• ASCE/SEI Standards Committee on Seismic Rehabilitation
• Board member, UK Association for Computational Mechanics

• Structures and concrete materials against extreme dynamic loading: earthquake, shock and impact
• Resilience of civil infrastructure; time dependent structural performance and reliability 
• Dynamic testing, condition assessment and health monitoring of structures
• Computational modelling of concrete and cementitious composites for complex and high rate loading
• Damage diagnosis, strengthening and retrofitting of structures

• Defence Technology Prize 2006 by the Ministry of Defence, Singapore
• Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award 2004 by the Institution of Engineers, Singapore

• PhD studentship opportunities in computational modelling of brittle/composite materials for dynamic loading; low-carbon concrete materials and structures; integrated structural health monitoring. Enquiry: yong.Lu@ed.ac.uk.