Biography/Career Progression
1993–1997 Undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, McGill
University, Montreal, Québec
1997–1999 Master of Science degree in Structural Engineering, Queen’s University,
Kingston, Ontario
1999–2003 PhD in Structural Engineering, focusing on structural and fire
performance of polymer composite structural strengthening materials, Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario
2003–2008 Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Chair, Queen’s University,
Kingston, Ontario
2008–2013 The Ove Arup Foundation/ RAEng Senior Research Fellow in Structures and
Fire, School of Engineering, Edinburgh University
2013–Present Arup /RAEng Research Chair in Structures and Fire, School of
Engineering, Edinburgh University
importantly, the support of the
Academy has given me independence
to develop my research career which
will help society at large”.
The Academy is also sponsoring further
sociological research at Edinburgh that
will investigate how the university can
make its technology important in ‘a
regulatory and practical enactment
sense’ – Professor Bisby said this is
fundamentally important, since his
work is intended to lead to new design
codes, but these will be of limited value
unless enacted.
Other support
Arup’s Fire Engineering practice
currently co-sponsors the work of
Professor Bisby and his team, and Arup
is a principal collaborator in the overall
project. Professor Bisby spends time
each year in Arup’s offices and Arup
engineers collaborate with Edinburgh in
both education and research contexts,
to the benefit of both parties.
Research impact
Luke Bisby’s work is redefining the way
fire is treated in the structural design
of buildings. He said, “Fire should be
considered as a design load in the
same way that wind, gravity, and
seismic effects are treated. Current
codes for new buildings are based on
data collated more than a century ago
and, even if they were state-of-the-art
then, they take little account of the
many advances since.”
The research he and his colleagues at
Edinburgh have done so far indicates
that the current definition of a credible
worst-case design fire leads in many
cases to a significant over-estimation
of risk and effects – although in some
cases it produces under-estimation.
“It means that there is a massive
opportunity to optimise buildings
for fire and in many cases to make
structures lighter, more beautiful and
sustainable,” he said. Over-design
implies higher cost in terms of initial
construction and of the building
lifecycle. And in those fewer cases
where the current codes underestimate the negative impacts of fire,
there may be safety issues.
In order to be able to treat fire as a
design load, “you need to be able to
model a specific building, the specific
construction techniques, the materials
and then design for that load”,
he said. “So that means you need
computational tools to do that and you
need to validate those computation
tools with experimental data. That is
essentially what we are doing.”
Future challenges
A big challenge for the future,
Professor Bisby said, will be to
persuade regulators that design codes
and regulatory processes for significant
buildings should be changed. “Often
when we try to take an innovative
approach to fire safety we come up
against a regulatory process that
doesn’t want to hear it,” he said.
“The current methodologies are a
century old and the numbers they’re
based on are decades old as well.
There is a lot of inertia in practice, and
we know that it will take time to affect
real and lasting
change.”
“Our research can be used
to great advantage to
safely optimise buildings,
and in most cases it can
save clients’ money and
allow architects to do
more interesting things, all
while preserving or even
enhancing safety.”
Professor Luke Bisby
Issue 16 PECM
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