1994FSJBookreviewHarmathy PDF

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Fire safety design and concrete
Article in Fire Safety Journal · December 1994

DOI: 10.1016/0379-7112(94)90007-8
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Fire Safety Journal 23 (1994) 439-442
Elsevier Science Limited
Printed in Northern Ireland
0379-7112/94/$07-00
ELSEVIER
Book Review
Fire Safety Design and Concrete. By T. Z. Harmathy. Longman

Scientific & Technical, Essex, UK, 1993. ISBN 0582 07687 0. Price:
£70.00. US publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. ISBN 0470
20005 7. Price: $150.00. xii, 412 pp.
The title of this new book is a bit misleading, a more suggestive title
would have been: The Collected Works of Tibor Harmathy: Condensed
and Updated Encyclopaedic Edition. The book essentially reprises the
full fire safety research career of Dr Harmathy. Harmathy, who retired
a few years ago from the National Research Council of Canada, was
one of the best-known Canadian researchers in the fire area. His career
was fascinating, both because of the very wide range of his interests, but
also because of the many controversial notions which he formulated
and campaigned for. His stated objective in writing the present book is
to present nearly the totality of fire science from an unconventional
approach: with emphasis on condensed phase rather than gas phase
phenomena. Prior to World War II, fire science (or fire safety
engineering) was viewed as a sub-speciality of structural engineering.
During the post-war period, the implicit point of view changed--fire
science is now often seen as a speciality within fluid mechanics. It may
not be appropriate to restrict fire science to be a sub-speciality of
anything, but, in any case, perusing Harmathy's book may suggest to us
whether going back to such an older philosophy is or is not promising.
The book begins with two brief but very good chapters, one on fire
statistics, the second on building regulations. The third chapter is a
perfunctory look at fire tests. It seems out of place, since generally an
engineering treatise is expected to lay down some principles first, before
delving into a technician-level discussion of some specific testing
apparatuses.
Chapter 4 covers moisture flow in porous media. This seems
remarkably out-of-sequence and perhaps entirely too specialised. One
recalls, however, that the Ph.D. dissertation of Harmathy was on
exactly this topic. Chapters 5 through 8 are devoted to an exposition of
materials science. Together, Chapters 4-8 account for some 36% of the
439
440 Book review
total text. This would, again, be incomprehensible were it not remem-

bered that Harmathy's early career focused mostly on materials science
issues alone. Unfortunately, the materials science chapters will be
nearly impossible for most readers to finish: they are likely to drop the
book entirely upon discovering that these chapters are extraordinarily
top-heavy in definitions. They read, in places, much more like a
technical dictionary even, than an encyclopaedia." Applications occur
only towards the very end and they are skimpy. Furthermore, the
author tends to jump immediately from definitions to conclusions;
apparently space limitations required that he exclude all of the
derivations and the logical development of technical ideas. One could
summarise this part of the book by noting that a reader could not hope
to learn materials science from the presentation here. On the other
hand, for readers who already have had coursework in the subject, the
review is likely to be unnecessary.
For those who have persevered to this point, the book gets much
more interesting. Chapter 9 presents the author's view of fire chemistry,
flame heights, smoke production, and some other related topics. The
review is brief and the section on smoke is, especially, out of date.
In line with his notably unconventional point of view, Harmathy
dismisses Pre-flashover fires out of hand and then devotes Chapter 10 to
summarising his post-flashover fire theory. This theory has been worked
out in some careful detail, but has won few followers. It is definitely
worth reading, however, as a counterpoint to more mainstream fire
modelling principles, such as laid out, say, in Drysdale's An Introduc-
tion of Fire Dynamics or in the SFPE Handbook.
Chapter 11 gives some good but very brief advice on designing
buildings to limit fire spread, after which the author discusses applica-
tions of his 'heat load concept', his 'fire drainage' notion, and his
philosophy for installing 'pop-down eyebrows' on the facades of
buildings for preventing storey-to-storey flame spread.
Chapter 12 is the outstanding chapter of the book: it recaps
'Harmathy's Ten Rules' (which are well-known bits of guidance on heat
flow in fire resistance test specimens) and his review paper where he
carefully and clearly summarised the best rules of extrapolation and
interpolation of fire resistance test data.
Chapter 13 provides a brief introduction to finite-difference and
finite-element methods for computing heat flow in structural members.
The presentation is reasonably clear, but badly out of date: the
assumption is made that users will compute everything by hand-crank
methods. Certainly nobody would perform such calculations today
without recourse to computer programmes. Thus, a discussion of
Book review 441
computer methods in general, and a review of some of the available

computer routines are sorely missed here. Chapter 14, which is only 30
pages long, presents the totality of structural fire design guidance. A
number of interesting points are made here, but the information would
not be enough to guide readers actually engaged in such tasks and is
probably much more than the rest would need for their general
education.
Chapter 15 primarily presents the Delphi Method, of which the
author was a strong proponent. This pseudo-scientific technique (which
was in vogue in the late 1970s) is used to deduce the answer to a
technical problem by repeatedly polling a number of individuals, none
of whom possess the necessary information. The general philosophy is
that one person's uninformed judgement may not be adequate, but by
combining many uninformed judgements a useful conclusion can be
derived. Chapter 16 briefly and usefully summarises guidance on
restoring concrete buildings after fire.
Throughout the book, the author's organisation makes it difficult for
the reader. Technology for measuring material properties is invariably
discussed before there is any development of engineering principles for
which material properties would be called upon. This is the opposite of
normal technical exposition, where principles are discussed first, ap-
plications next, lastly any material measurement issues. In Harmathy's
book, the typical reader will most likely have to progress through the
book 'back-to-front', which can be frustrating. In going through the
book, one finds that the author's avowed intention to present fire
science from the condensed-phase point of view is less comprehensive
than stated: combustible materials are given short shrift, with emphasis
being placed only on those condensed-phase materials (concrete, steel)
which are non-combustible. This philosophy was sensible in the
pre-World War II era, when the then available combustibles could be
treated as all the same, with computational efforts reserved solely for
proportioning concrete columns, brick walls, and the like. In the current
era, such a limited point of view does not seem to adequately
encompass the fire problems needing to be addressed. In a similar vein,
the author's dismissal of the importance of pre-flashover fire behaviour
will find very few supporters. The mainstream view has generally been
that post-flashover (e.g. fire endurance) problems generally can be
solved with simple handbook-type approaches. Pre-flashover fire phen-
omena (which include ignition, detection, hazards of rapid flame
spread, and hazards associated with fire of high heat release occurring
in the compartment of fire origin) are generally seen as being much
more complex and requiring advanced engineering efforts. Indeed, one
442 Book review
of the main objectives of modern fire safety science has been to prevent
fires from growing large enough to reach the flashover stage. The
author presents no convincing arguments in the present book, however,
to justify his view that returning to the era when only post-flashover
fires were being studied is warranted.
In summary, the book can be recommended to research fire
scientists, especially those who have followed Harmathy's theories in
their original development. The book, unfortunately, omits most of the
technical development for each of the topics being summarised (it is,
after all, an encyclopaedia rather than a textbook), but compensates by
updating with numerous new references his major theories and philo-
sophies. For undergraduates, the book would be suitable from the point
of view of mathematical difficulty, which is mostly minimal, except
where the author leaves the reader in the lurch by jumping from
definitions to conclusions. The undergraduate student, however, would
be undoubtedly confused by the whole presentation and certainly could
not be expected to sort out the ideas which are quixotic from those
which are widely accepted. For graduate students working on research
projects in areas which Harmathy encompasses, the book could be
recommended as 'additional reading'. One could especially envision
instructors assigning appropriate students to compare and contrast the
Harmathy view to the mainstream view for any of a number of areas
covered within this book.
The book is well-produced and sturdily bound, but is deficient in
illustrations. It is especially chagrinning not to find a single photograph
of the microstructure of any substance among all the chapters devoted
to materials science. The book is well proof-read and copy-edited. This
reviewer could only identify one instance of significant technical
proofing error, wherein the ASTM D 3894 mini-corner (recently
withdrawn by ASTM and not relevant to building codes) is confused for
the UBC room-corner test, which is often cited in building codes for
certain products.
Vytenis Babrauskas
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Fire safety design and concrete

Article in Fire Safety Journal · December 1994

Environmental health and safety View project

Arc mapping: New science or new myth? View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Fire Safety Design and Concrete. By T. Z. Harmathy. Longman

total text. This would, again, be incomprehensible were it not remem-

computer methods in general, and a review of some of the available

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