We can engineer the built environment to limit the likelihood of catastrophic fires occurring. The shift from a prescriptive approach towards performance-based fire safety designs creates a growing demand for advanced expertise in the multidisciplinary field of fire safety engineering. Now, climate change and the global transition toward more sustainable ways of living are increasing fire risks, making fire safety engineering more essential than ever. Fire safety engineering is the application of engineering principles, rules and expert judgement based on a scientific understanding of fire. Fire engineers study fire and its phenomena as well as its effects on the built environment and human behaviour, to identify and quantify the risks. By implementing the principles of performance-based design, they optimize fire protection measures to safeguard life, the environment, property, and cultural heritage. Fire safety engineering students will learn: the nature and characteristics of fire and its spread how structures, materials and people behave in the event of a fire how to evaluate, quantify and mitigate fire risks - how to design fire detection, ventilation and suppression systems how building design interacts with firefighting and rescue operations how to analyse fire incidents and which lessons to draw from them
The MFSE programme consists of four terms of thirty credits each. In the first term, the general course units cover basic knowledge on thermodynamics, heat transfer, structural (fire) engineering, fire dynamics and fire science in general (at Master’s level). In addition to those general course units, we offer several elective course units on design, structures and fire safety engineering. We also have elective course units available with a focus social skills, such as the work placement.
The advanced FSE course units are taught in the second and third terms . The broad domain of FSE is covered in the built environment and industry, including risk assessment and human behaviour. The fourth term is mainly devoted to the Master’s dissertation, which can be completed in collaboration with the industry. The structure of the MFSE programme supports education within the worldwide context of evolution from prescriptive to performance-based codes and standards regarding fire safety and fire protection. Starting from the basics of fire safety science (including thermodynamics and fire dynamics) and structural (fire) engineering, and adding the important topics of risk assessment and human behaviour, the students evolve in the spirit of performance-based fire protection designs as they are taught specialist course units and advanced fire safety science and structural fire engineering. The students’ Performance Based Design [PBD] skills are assessed through their Master’s dissertation and in the PBD-devoted course unit.