Last days in Lund

One week ago, all our second year students invited us, first year students, to attend their presentations on thesis day at the Lund University. 
The event took place in the V building, the main building of our master here in Lund. All the candidates had one hour to present their thesis. Unfortunately, my classmates and I were not able to see all the presentations of the thesis, because now we are under the period of final exams. 
During our study break, we went to support our old classmates. The biggest reason was because we knew that this would probably be the last time we met them. All the theses were really interesting and stimulating for us to work hard and finish the master as soon as possible. It has been nice to see how most of them were nervous and anxious for their presentations of the thesis. They knew it was the last step before stopping to be a student, and started thinking about the job from that moment on. Somehow, that day even helped us to repeat arguments for our exams. 
My classmates and I took advantage of this blog to thank all the second year students for having been always nice and helpful during this year. 
We wish all the best for the future to Hilco, Jonathan, Ksenia, Matthias, Mohammed, Ogun, Selenay and Sompoom.

South American Dinner

This past Wednesday, Andres, form Colombia, and David and Francisco, from Ecuador, decided to cook for us a South American dinner. I had been waiting for this moment for so long! This dinner was one of the last occasions to be all together here in Lund, since exams are approaching and then we will all go to different countries for the summer. Some people will go back home, and some will stay in Belgium to do an internship. Also, it was one of the last times we would see the second year students, who will graduate in September. The food the guys prepared was so good; they really did a great job! We had rice and fired plantain, as well as ceviche, which is fish marinated in lemon. In Ecuador you also eat this dish with popcorn, which sounds so weird! I tried it and didn’t really like it, but others who tried it as well actually said it was good.

Then, after the dinner, most of us went out to the club to enjoy our last evening of freedom before we had to start studying for exams.

Here is a picture of Andres, David and Francisco with the ceviche they prepared.

A visit to Adinex and Fike

During a course in the third semester in Gent, called Explosions and Industrial Fire Safety, we had a visit into two companies; Adinex and Fike.

The explosions safety course is given by a professor from Adinex which is one of the most important companies in this field. The course gives the basic knowledge of shock waves and the properties of different hazardous materials. In addition, information about basic standards for industry is included.

In the morning of the visit day, a bus took us from Gent. The journey took more than an hour to the company, Adinex, near Antwerp. We got into there and had coffee before starting a session about explosions’ types along with some explaining experiments.

After the short session, the professor showed us a number of tests using the equipment in the company. For example, He did a test to show how gas explosion passes through pipes. In addition, a number of dust explosions were performed inside tight equipment.

Then, we were invited to a nearby restaurant to have lunch. To be honest the food was great and the restaurant’s style is nice.

After Lunch, we went to another company called Fike, which manufactures a number of protection products like containment devices and Relief vents. A short presentation about the company was given then we moved to the lab to test bursting discs which are a type of relief vents.

Then, the manager guided us in a tour inside the company to illustrate the different types of products produced in it. A number of state-of-the-art machines are used in the production line to insure the high reliance of safety products.

After this long enjoyable day, we took the bus again and headed back to Gent to continue our theoretical classes before having additional visits in other courses.

Sami

A funny day in Revinge

On Tuesday, all of us in our IMFSE class, including some Swedish students, went to the Fire Academy in Revinge, close to Lund. 
Everything was organized by our teacher Stefan Svensson. Although the departure was at 7:30, all of us managed to be at the meeting point on time. After our arrival to the Fire Academy and after all the presentations were finished, we all went to take our firefighting suits. This was the first challenge of the day since those sizes are different from the normal ones. After spending almost half an hour to get dressed up as firefighters, we had a tour through the whole academy and they showed us all the equipment that they have just for education. Honestly, their educational equipment are much better than all the ones I have seen so far. 
One of the firefighters taught us how to use all the equipment and how to wear it, so that we were ready to deal with the experiment we were going to take part of. We were divided into two different groups, each group had its own container and its own experiment. During our experiment, we saw how the fire behaves in a situation where the fire runs out of oxygen and how fast it’s growth is with oxygen supplied again. It caused nice flame jets over our heads. During the second experiment we felt and saw the behaviour of the fire and smoke in a closed container. We saw a phenomenon that we always studied, called pyrolysis, which means when the heat flux from the smoke is so high that it starts igniting other objects. Our suits could have been ignited as well and therefore after a while the heat flux was too much that we had to evacuate the container.
After those experiments, we thought we could catch our breath. But another experiment was in front of us. Some of us, who felt like taking part of the experiment, had the possibility of extinguish a developed fire in an enclosure.
It has been an amazing experience. In addition, we took this outstanding picture.

Evacuation experiment

In the beginning of May, for our Human Behaviour class, we did an evacuation experiment. We were divided into groups, and each group had a task to do. The coordinating group organized the experiment, then there was a group operating the smoke machine, one that tried to create panic and then one that was supposed to just stay in one place to observe and to see if anyone would warn them to get out.

We did the experiment in the economics building at Lund University. After lunch time, when there were three lectures going on, and there were some people studying in the hall, we activated the smoke machine, and before the alarm started to sound, a person from the “panic group” went into the lecture halls and told everybody to leave. Once people left the classrooms, they saw the smoke and started to go to the emergency exits. While the alarm sounded, everybody was evacuating, and someone even tried to extinguish the fire, guided by one of our “actors”. A lecturer and some students also told our “actors”, who were sitting in the entrance hall pretending nothing was happening, to evacuate the building.

Once everybody had gone out of the building, we told them it was an experiment and we gave out some questionnaires to see if it was easy for them to evacuate or if they had encountered any difficulties.

Overall, it was a great experience for us, and we got to see some Human Behaviour theories in action.

A visit to Promat

In the third semester in Gent, there is a course called Passive Fire Protection which gives the knowledge related to fire protection through confined spaces and how different building materials behave under fire circumstances.

This course is given by people from a company called Promat, which is one of the leader companies in this field and has a big factory in a city called Tisselt, to the north of Brussels. It was decided that we have a day visit to this company during the semester.

On the day of the visit, a bus waited us in Gent early in the morning and it took around an hour to reach the company. We got into there and had coffee before starting a morning session about passive systems and how they are applied in buildings by showing some samples they do produce in the factory.

After the session we were invited to have the lunch in their restaurant which serves very good meals. Then we continued the second part of the session before having a tour inside the factory to see the lab and the production line.

In the lab we saw different sizes of testing equipment that suit the various products, the manager welcomed us and showed a test for a penetration seal produced in the company. The test lasted around 15 minutes and it illustrated the importance of compartmentation in passive fire protection.

After the test, the manager led us in a guided tour around the factory and illustrated the different parts of the production line, starting from the preparation of raw materials through processing to packaging without forgetting controlling.

After this long enjoyable day, we took the bus again and headed back to Gent to continue our theoretical classes before having additional visits in other courses.

A picture of the entrance to the company.

Sami

Summer is coming…

I thought it wasn’t possible, but there is actually summer in Sweden. Since we came to Lund we dealt with all the worst possible weathers that you can imagine and we survived. Now we are enjoying the nice weather. The summer is coming here in Sweden!
In order to celebrate the nice weather, few days after Valborg, all IMFSE students met up for a barbeque in Delphi. Actually that day was a party for the second year students, not really for us. They were celebrating their freedom from the master, all of them handed in their thesis a few days before. On that day, even Mert who worked on his thesis in Ghent was in Lund to celebrate this moment.
We, students of the first year, joined the barbeque to spend time all together. Of course, the main topics of that day were our master program, exams and work. After a great meal, cooked by Mohammed and Jonathan, the time went so fast. It seemed like the biggest problem though was that we were in the sunshine and as you can imagine some of us got sunburnt! I did not know it could happen here in Sweden…
In the end, this day was unforgettable. Good company, amazing food and warm weather joined us together. We are getting closer and closer to each other’s with our interesting conversations about our common passion, the IMFSE master.

Valborg

On the 30^th of April, in Sweden, Valborg is celebrated to welcome the arrival of spring. Lund is quite known among students, because the city organizes a big celebration. In the morning the park was full of people, and there was a main stage where a DJ was playing. We arrived around 11 am, and we barely could find a spot on the grass, because it was very crowded. We were so far from the main stage that we couldn’t even hear the music, but fortunately some people next us were equipped with their own music! We spent our morning and early afternoon just hanging out in the park, and then we decided to go to Nikhil and Shelly’s house to grab a bit to eat. In the evening we went back to the park to see the bonfire. Before the fire was lit, we listened to the performance of a local choir, who sang traditional songs of spring. Then the ceremony to lite the bonfire began. Once it was lit, we stayed in the park for a while, enjoying the warmth of the fire, and then went back to Delphi, where we live, to continue the celebrations.

Here is a picture of us in front of the bonfire.

A BBQ party at Delphi

Delphi is one of the housing areas for students in Lund. It contains many buildings and occupies a large area to the north of the city. It has been a practice for the majority of IMFSE students to choose this area to stay in during the semester in Lund.

As the weather was becoming warmer at the end of the semester and it has been a while since we did a common activity, we decided to have a party at one of the backyards in Delphi as most of us were staying there.

Having different food culture among IMFSE students is natural, but none of the cultures says no to a barbecue party. Therefore, we confirmed on a weekend day to do a major party.

As we were a lot of people who needed a big amount of food, we started the preparation for the party a day before. Some went to buy meat, while others bought vegetables for salad. We also got a big grill and a lot of beverages.

On the day of the party, the weather was awesome. Surprisingly, it was a sunny day which is something untypical for Sweden! We started gathering at noon and each group got something to do. Some were chopping vegetables, while others were setting on the fire in the grill. The preparation of the table was done by late comers. On the other hand, people who didn’t find anything to do, preferred sitting in the sun.

The most important thing for us was starting to eat at the same time, so it was essential to have a guard for the ready food to prevent anyone hungry from starting to eat! It took around two hours to prepare everything and when we started to eat it took less than 15 minutes to finish everything.

After that, we enjoyed the rest of the day sitting in the sun and talking. When the sun was about to set, we started to clean everything and then everyone left home after a long enjoyable day.

Sami

STEPS

During my studies, I always heard about evacuation of people but I always wondered how it is possible to predict the time needed for people to leave the building. Here in Lund my classmates and I became aware of a software called “STEPS”, which gives you the possibility of running a simulation which helps you predict future evacuations by calculations made by the programme.
Our teacher Enrico taught us how to use this software and try to make us understand the advantages and disadvantages of it. In the positive view, this helps us in our future careers as we will be able to run the simulation and to use the results in an almost proper way. But also in the negative point of view, even if this is such an advanced software, it does not give really reliable results. It is almost impossible to predict human behaviour and the reactions in such dangerous situations.
In this field, there are different softwares that are able to give you reasonable results. However, every software has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to the engineer to know which one to use and how to use the results from the software. Every engineer has to weigh the results, thinking if they are reliable, true or false.
Hopefully, one day a new software is able to give us usable results, ones that can even take into account people’s behaviour during evacuations. This is something almost impossible to create but maybe one day the technology is even more advanced than what it is now. When that day comes, our job will be a lot easier.