Fire Research and Innovation Centre (FRIC) started in spring 2019, as a response to the challenge of that fires annually lead to major losses both in terms of fatalities, injured people, and in terms of lost values. The main objective of the centre is to increase knowledge within the field of fire science in order to support decisions and develop better solutions providing increased fire safety in buildings. FRIC strengthens cooperation and leads to a long-term increase of competence and dissemination of knowledge within the fire safety field.
The research is organized into four work packages:
- Evidence-based decision-making within fire safety
- Fire dynamics and modeling
- Building Technology and design
- Fire safety measures and new technology
Multidisciplinary cooperation is a prerequisite for development of good solutions in the centre. FRIC is led by
RISE Fire Research in Trondheim, with
NTNU and
SINTEF as research partners. FRIC has partners from the fire and rescue service, the public sector, consultancy engineers, manufacturers of building materials and building installations, as well as within real estate development and management. An important partner is Trøndelag Fire and Rescue Service (TBRT), which represents a central target group for the research.
FRIC develops knowledge for improved mathematical modelling of fire development, and studies fire safe use of new technology in buildings (e.g. solar cells,
batteries/energy storage, innovative build
ing materials and
construction solutions). Fire safe dwellings, fire safety for vulnerable groups and safety for the fire brigades are other topics that are studied, as well as new extinguishing systems and the efficiency of different fire safety measures. Various research methods are applied, e.g. investigation of fires, experimental activities and theoretical analyses. The research results provide the basis for further development of products, services and regulations that can increase fire safety in our society.
Communication and sharing of the research results are important tasks for FRIC. This includes new knowledge and development from the research in FRIC, but also communication of existing knowledge on subjects relevant to FRIC.
The centre is funded by all the partners, in addition to funding from the Research Council of Norway (program BRANNSIKKERHET, project number 294649). The funding from the Research Council includes a substantial donation from the Gjensidige Foundation through their project
Det store brannløftet.
Here you may find the yearly FRIC progress reports:
https://fric.no/en/publications
In
this video, Centre Director Anne Steen-Hansen gives a brief intro to FRIC:
Contact:
Anne Steen-Hansen, Centre Director,
anne.steen.hansen@risefr.no
anne.steen-hansen@ntnu.no