SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden"

Rachel Burke
5 years ago
Views:

2 2.2.1 SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden Who From the SP Fire Technology Brochure [3]: SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden is a

1 Figure 12: Bonnie Roberts in front of the Uppsala University Botanical Garden SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden Who From the SP Fire Technology Brochure [3]: SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden is a leading international research institute employing around 1200 staff. The Group consists of the parent company and a number of subsidiaries. Together, they create a powerful group of research and development institutes aimed at innovation and sustainable development of industry and society. Figure 13: SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden Headquarters. 13

2 We have chosen to focus in particular on six business areas in order to add value to the sustainable development of industry and society. These are: Energy, Risk, Safety and Security, Information and Communications Technology ICT, The Built Environment, Life Science and Transportation. The overall strength of our six business areas means that we can effectively contribute to industrial competitiveness and help to tackle the major challenges faced by society What This was a personal meeting I set up through Michael Stro mgren, a project manager and fire safety engineer at SP. Michael had come to Austin last year to attend the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) Annual Meeting. I met him at that time, as he gave a presentation about SP in Dr. Ezekoye s Fire Science class. Michael connected me to his colleague, Margaret Simonson McNamee, whom he believed would be a good person to talk to about my research When May 28, Where SP headquarters and main facilities in Bora s. Figure 14: Bodhi sculpture in Bora s, Sweden. 14

3 2.2.5 Why I was very impressed with Michael s presentation on SP back in Austin. Once I knew I would be attending the Cleantech Forum in Stockholm, I decided it would be a prime opportunity to travel to Borås to meet the researchers at SP. Unfortunately, Michael was not able to make the meeting, but Margaret planned an exciting full day for me at SP. Upon meeting Margaret, she first provided a brief overview of SP Fire Research. This included the areas of fire modeling, research, engineering, testing, investigation, and standards certification. Next, I gave a presentation to a room of about 6 employees who were interested in my research. My presentation introduced them to my upcoming paper in the ASME IMECE 2014 conference, A Multi-objective Fire Safety and Sustainability Screening Tool for Specifying Insulation Materials. They had a lot of helpful feedback, which led me to make a couple changes to the paper before the final version was submitted. The presentation of my work also led to the discovery that SP is actually thinking about starting a similar project, in that they are wanting to develop an optimization tool for fire safety and sustainability in building construction projects. Afterwards, I met with Francine Amon, the resident life-cycle assessment (LCA) expert. Francine had just recently come to SP, after having a long career at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She Discussed their previous and current LCA projects as well as the limitations of LCA in general. She emphasized to me the uncertainty in LCA and cautioned that there is a lack of publications noting these sometimes significant uncertainties. She was also helpful with suggestions on several resources and publications that could aid my LCA research. Johan Sjöström and David Lange then spoke with me about LCA activities relating to construction. They were the researchers attempting a similar idea to mine. We discussed the challenges and limitations, one major issue being the justification 15

of their chosen weighting schema. Needless to say, we had a lengthy, productive discussion. Figure 15: SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden Fire Test Facility. Photo Credit: SP.

4 of their chosen weighting schema. Needless to say, we had a lengthy, productive discussion. Figure 15: SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden Fire Test Facility. Photo Credit: SP. Johan and David also gave a tour of SP s impressive fire test facilities. They showed me the large (18x22x19 m / 59x72x62 ft) main burn hall, with two calorimeters capable of measuring heat release rates up to 2 MW and 15 MW. I also saw the smaller burn halls and fire laboratories, where they perform various standards certification tests (e.g. ISO 9705 Room/Corner test). They also have a vertical furnace for testing doors and facades. In addition to their burn facilities, SP has an impressive research laboratory. One piece of equipment was a simultaneous thermal analyzer, the NETZSCH STA 449 F3 Jupiter, which measures changes in mass and thermal effects between -150 o C and 2400 o C of small samples. This was an awesome apparatus, capable of analyzing minute thermodynamic, and heat and mass transfer phenomenon. Goal Status: Exceeded my expectations. There is a lot more overlap in our research than expected, and the conversations we had were very productive. We exchanged ideas and useful publications we thought would help one another. I will be keeping in touch with SP and there is potential for further collaboration in the future. 16

Stockholm is a beautiful city that sits atop an archipelago, so anywhere you look there is a magnificent view of dark

5 2.3 Sightseeing Highlights Figure 16: View of Stockholm from the Djurga rden Bridge. Figure 17: Gamla stan s Stortorget (The Big Square) in Stockholm. Stockholm is a beautiful city that sits atop an archipelago, so anywhere you look there is a magnificent view of dark blue water with an architecturally stunning city skyline. Exploring Gamla stan (The Old Town) was amazing. Gamla stan is the very origin of Stockholm, with medieval buildings dating from the 13th century. 17

She was very poorly designed, being too narrow, too tall, and insufficiently ballasted. Her cannon portals were too low, and when she keeled, they instantly allowed water to devour her.

6 My favorite piece of history, though, was the Vasa Museum. In 1628, the Vasa warship set sail on her maiden voyage from Stockholm s harbor, only to sink nearly instantaneously when a stiff wind keeled her over. She was very poorly designed, being too narrow, too tall, and insufficiently ballasted. Her cannon portals were too low, and when she keeled, they instantly allowed water to devour her. She lay at the bottom of the harbor for over 300 years, until she was salvaged and spent decades under restoration. Now, she is the only nearly completely intact 17th century ship on display. She is huge, elegant, and so well preserved, it is amazing to behold. Figure 18: The Vasa warship inside the Vasa Museum, Stockholm. Photo Credit: Karolina Kristensson, The National Maritime Museums. Figure 19: Even Swedes love Stubb s! The famous Austin BBQ sauce found in a Stockholm grocery store. Priced at Swedish Kronor ($7.25 USD). 18

EURO MATERIAL SCIENCE 2018

EURO MATERIAL SCIENCE 2018 20th International Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science & Engineering Sep 10-11, 2018 Stockholm, Sweden Theme: Optimizing The Demand of Material Science With The Help of Recent Technologies conferenceseries.com