126 research outputs found
The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire April 18, 1906 and Their Effects on Structures and Structural Materials
Immediately after the San Francisco earthquake and fire of April 18,1906, it was decided to arrange for an investigation of their effects on buildings and materials of construction. According!}\u27, on April 19 Richard L. Humphrey was sent to San Francisco for this purpose, as secretary of the National Advisory Board on Fuels and Structural Materials and representing the structural materials division of the United States Geological Survey. At the request of the President, Capt. John Stephen Sewell, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, was sent to San Francisco on a similar errand by the War Department under order of April 23, 1906. Frank Soule, dean of the college of civil engineering of the University of California, was asked late in the fall of 1906 to prepare a report on the general earthquake and fire conditions. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, also a member of the California earthquake investigation commission, who was near San Francisco at the time of the disaster, was asked to prepare a brief special report on the phenomena of the earthquake.
The investigations of these three engineers were conducted independently, and their reports have been prepared without collaboration. Under these circumstances there are necessarily some differences of opinion as to matters of detail, but as to the more important features the writers are in hearty accord. About four hundred illustrations were submitted with the original reports; many of these do not appear with the printed reports because their use would have involved duplication, but wherever a view given by one author was rejected because of its similarity to a view by another author showing the same engineering features, a reference to the accepted view has been inserted. The legend appended to each illustration indicates whether the original view was actually taken by the author or was procured from another source
Laws of the state of New Hampshire, passed January session, 1911. Legislature convened January 3, adjourned April 15.
Laws of the State of New Hampshire passed by the legislature during the legislative session indicate
Forest Fires as a Common International Concern: Precedents for the Progressive Development of International Environmental Law
Without a better global effort to prevent and cope with forest fires, the remaining wild forests\u27 resources of the world are at risk. Quite apart from the present loss of commercial timber and species habitat, and the present problems of flooding and erosion in the aftermath of fires, the loss of these wooded lands will reduce the capacity of regions to absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, thereby making the challenge of managing emissions of greenhouse gases all the more problematic. Forests sequester carbon in their woody tissue as a result of photosynthesis, and are often termed the “lungs” of the Earth. The recurring forest fire events put much more at stake than just the apparently transient and dramatic event of the fire itself. How does, or should, the law attend to this situation
The Vigiles of Rome
The Visiles were a fire brigade, carrying out nightly patrols throughout the City of Rome. Originally 3,500 strong, they were increased to 7,000. The scale of their fire patrols' makes them unioue. Their equipment was basic but effective. The aqueducts made their operations possible by providing adequate supplies of water throughout the City. Rome had a very bad fire problem, accentuated by the occurrence of several fires at once. Augustus applied the military technique of patrolling to the water resources already available. The conventional sizes of centuries and cohorts were appropriate for fire fighting, and the Visiles were organised as soldiers. But they were non-combative, and recruited largely from freedmen. The continuous night duty was arduous, and around 8% of the men resigned each year. In contrast with soldiers, visiles served for a normal period of only 6 years. There were a few openings for promotion to nco or technician, but further opportunities on the operational side were rare. Nco's and technicians could serve for many years. The officers (centurions and tribunes) had a military background. Centurions could serve for many years; tribunes did not. The prefect had judicial functions in addition to overall responsibility for the Vigiles, and was less concerned with active fire fighting. The two fields of ancient history and fire fighting have been brought together. The evidence used to be under-utilised, but can be very informative. Probably the most neglected aspect was that of numbers. The two nominal rolls of the Fifth Cohort are key items, telling us the total numbers of men and also providing us with clues as to the length of service and the nature of the career. Within this framework, we can fit the evidence into a coherent picture. With so many points at which the Vigiles were potentially effective, they must be ranked among the world's more effective fire brigades
Bibliography on aircraft fire hazards and safety. Volume 2: Safety. Part 1: Key numbers 1 to 524
Bibliographic citations are presented to describe and define aircraft safety methods, equipment, and criteria. Some of the subjects discussed are: (1) fire and explosion suppression using whiffle balls, (2) ultraviolet flame detecting sensors, (3) evaluation of flame arrestor materials for aircraft fuel systems, (4) crash fire prevention system for supersonic commercial aircraft, and (5) fire suppression for aerospace vehicles
Development and testing of dry chemicals in advanced extinguishing systems for jet engine nacelle fires
The effectiveness of dry chemical in extinguishing and delaying reignition of fires resulting from hydrocarbon fuel leaking onto heated surfaces such as can occur in jet engine nacelles is studied. The commercial fire extinguishant dry chemical tried are sodium and potassium bicarbonate, carbonate, chloride, carbamate (Monnex), metal halogen, and metal hydroxycarbonate compounds. Synthetic and preparative procedures for new materials developed, a new concept of fire control by dry chemical agents, descriptions of experiment assemblages to test dry chemical fire extinguishant efficiencies in controlling fuel fires initiated by hot surfaces, comparative testing data for more than 25 chemical systems in a 'static' assemblage with no air flow across the heated surface, and similar comparative data for more than ten compounds in a dynamic system with air flows up to 350 ft/sec are presented
Violent Conventions: An Analysis of the Unintended Aesthetics of On-Stage Accidents
In theatre scholarship, the event of the on-stage accident is a fairly neglected area of research. Aside from brief archival detailing of some of the more tragic events, scholars have not approached the accidents from a theoretical or historiographical position. Many, I surmise, find little of interest in an on-stage accident due to its lack of aesthetic purpose or intentionality. In this project, I focus on those neglected accidents and, more specifically, accidents that take place due to a violent failure of theatrical convention. I discuss three specific moments where a theatre convention – established to concretize the world of the play for the audience – turns violent before a live audience. I detail the apparatus of the convention and how it worked, as well as how it violently failed. Additionally, I discuss the cultural and material make-up of the event. My study begins with the recent on stage death of KÀ performer Sarah Guillot-Guyard in Las Vegas and a review of the terminology and scholarship pertinent to this study. I then focus on three discrete events/theatre conventions: nineteenth century gas light and the fatal accidents caused by its use, the recent Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark and accidental injuries caused by prop weapons used during stage combat. What separates these conventions from an average theatre accident is their reliance on a technology in establishing the illusion of violence or danger. In my analysis I examine the phenomenology at play when a violent convention actually causes injury to the performer in front of an audience
Nothing succeeds like failure : the development of the fireproof building in the United States, 1790-1911
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (p. 376-381).by Sara Eve Wermiel.Ph.D
Inorganic hydrogeochemical responses to fires in wetland sediments on the Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia
In the past decade the wetlands of the Swan Coastal Plain (SCP) region of Western Australia have been subject to increasing fire frequency and intensity. Whilst wetland sediment fires (also known as peat fires) on the SCP are not new phenomena, the increased frequency, duration and extent of combustion have been concomitant with an increase in urbanisation and reduction in average annual rainfall for the region. This has led to a decrease in ground- and surface-water levels which, in turn, has increased the susceptibility of the wetland sediments to ignition and combustion events. Increased wetland fire severity has resulted in the loss of large pools of organic matter as well as numerous geochemical changes in wetland sediments. The physical and chemical modifications of wetland sediments have implications for the water quality of these wetlands, particularly on the SCP where an intimate link between water quality and the underlying geomorphology can be demonstrated. Previous wetland sediment disturbance events, such as drought and dewatering, have led to the oxidation of sediments, which has resulted in the acidification, base cation leaching and metal contamination of both ground- and surface-waters. The buffering capacity is strongly linked to the underlying geomorphology. Wetlands on the highly-leached, poorly-buffered Bassendean dune geomorphic unit tend to acidify readily, whereas wetlands on the well-buffered, Spearwood dune geomorphic unit, generally tend to be less acidic and have the capacity to recover (i.e. return to near-neutral conditions). In recent times, some of the wetlands on the Spearwood dune system have remained acidic. This suggests that the buffering capacity of this system is finite and may be linked to the severity of the oxidation event. The physical, temporal and chemical nature of water quality response from dried, heated and combusted wetland sediments are not well understood nor are the processes that drive them. The aim of this research, therefore, was to identify and characterise the inorganic water quality responses to the combustion of organic-rich wetland sediments. The study examined post-fire sediment pore-water and downstream ground-water quality, and the short and long term temporal characteristics of these responses. A laboratory microcosm experiment was conducted to investigate the role of temperature and sediment heterogeneity on observed water quality responses. The porewater of burnt sediments differed greatly from that of unburnt sediments and was indicative of pyrite oxidation. There were also temporal changes associated with seasonal rainfall events and groundwater fluxes. Results of the long-term temporal analysis indicated the exhaustion of the in-situ buffering capacity of the wetland sediments, which resulted in the permanent acidification of the groundwater downstream of the burnt sediments. These patterns were partly obscured by transient buffering supplied by the ash created from the combustion of vegetative organic material and the influx of carbonate-rich groundwater. Laboratory microcosm analyses confirmed the inorganic hydrochemical signals, and the significance of sediment type; including parent geomorphology, in influencing the water quality response. The increased frequency, duration and extent of drying, heating and combustion of wetland sediments suggest an erosion of buffering, and thereby a loss of resilience for these wetlands, threatening their ecological integrity. This research enhances our understanding of the environmental impacts of wetland sediment fires and increases the potential for pre-emptive, rather than reactive management services
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