165 - Best Practice vs. Appropriate Practice with Arnold Dix

I think it's as important as all the previous subjects we've touched in the Fire Science Show . So I'll give you some context . I have a friend who's been here multiple times , professor Arnold Dix , and Arnold has literally sent me an email saying how about we do best practice versus appropriate practice ?

And when Arnold sends you an email like that , you know there is much , much more to dig about the subject . And then I've started contemplating what does the best practice in engineering mean ? What does appropriate practice in engineering mean ?

A few days later , I had an entire page of notes and thoughts around the topic , and then I've joined Arnold online to record the episode . It was a really interesting discussion , one of the kinds that does not tell you the final answer , because there is no final answer .

There is no unbiased definition of what the best practice is , there's no universal best at all , but I think we've reached some really , really interesting places in that discussion and I would welcome you to be a part of this discussion .

I would welcome you to listen to what we had to say and present your stance on what's the best practice and what would be an appropriate practice . I promise you it's really interesting and much better than it may sound from a definition space .

And , of course , you get Professor Arnold Dix , who , from my perspective , is perhaps the most interesting human being on the planet right now . So I hope you won't miss the chance to listen to this .

And , of course , one more element of context Arnold is president of International Tunneling Association , so it's understandable that a lot of the discussion is carried about the subject of tunneling and underground infrastructure , which is also keen to the world of buildings , and I also think it would translate to the world of wildfire engineering or any other aspects where

we have to bring fire safety to a specific case or task or specific group of people or solution . So , without further ado , let's spin the intro and join us in the discussion about what the industry believes is the best practice and what actually is an appropriate practice . Welcome to the Firesize Show . My name is Wojciech Wigrzyński and I will be your host .

This podcast is brought to you in collaboration with OFR Consultants . Ofr is the UK's leading fire risk consultancy . Its globally established team has developed a reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise , with colleagues working across the world to help protect people , property and environment .

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In 2024 , ofr will grow its team once more and is always keen to hear from industry professionals who would like to collaborate on fire safety futures this year , get in touch at ofrconsultantscom . Hello everybody , I am here , joined today again by Professor Arnold Dix . Hello , arnold , hey , greetings .

Great to be here , good to see you back in the podcast and wow , you've become quite a persona nowadays , mr President , oh to be here . Good to see you back in the podcast and wow , you've become quite a persona nowadays , mr President .

You've asked me like what's the best practice and what's an appropriate practice . I would love to pull that further . And first let me ask what does best practice mean to you ?

But I think it's been twisted and perverted into what is the most insanely high-tech , latest state of the art , most onerous , most burdensome . If we could have anything we want , what would we have ?

And that's what people are interpreting as best practice , and I think that is a total perversion of the concept and that's why I said to you provocatively I'd like to talk about best practice versus appropriate practice and appropriate practice .

So some people would want to argue that , in order to get the ventilation system correct , we're going to do a very extraordinary analysis of all the circumstances of the tunnel , we're going to do all the modeling and we're going to get a ventilation system with a control system that gets our critical velocity within point .

Whatever it is Doing that , there's a whole lot of burdens . It's going to bring on a project which may or may not be appropriate in a particular location . There's a consulting burden to do that . There's a control system burden . There's a hardware burden . There's a what energy supply like how much power do we have burden . So I'm saying it's got to be .

We'd say , either horses for courses , or cut the cloth to the size , or however you want to put it , what do we need around here to do the job ? So am I making sense or am I just gone off ? You know ?

Like we're tunnel enjoyers and you know , tunnel ventilation is something close to my heart and I'm trying to educate people in here a lot about the concepts of ventilation and how we've twisted it in a way , because critical velocity is your component and you're supposed to achieve it right , but you're supposed to achieve it in the absolutely worst wind conditions , in

the absolutely worst location of a fire in your tunnel and , by the way , the tunnel was filled with absolute maximum number of people who can pass through it at the day , and the day is the worst , and the fire brigade is after a Polish wedding and half of them are unavailable .

And suddenly you are designing for a combination of factors , which means that the last time such an event happened was when the dinosaurs were roaming the world and perhaps they were building tunnels , and the next one will be in 100 million years .

And what really happens on your building , on your building side , is then when you have this massive system , you plug it in , you suddenly have 10 meters per second in your tunnel and whoa , whoa , whoa , wait , wait . Didn't we design it for three ?

Yes , you did , yeah , but you have added seven meters on top of that for a case that perhaps will never happen and even if perhaps it's acceptable For me it's ridiculous .

So not only isn't it appropriate for your tunnel , but you've just denied your community access to a whole lot of the capacity of your power station . And it's actually because this infrastructure is so big . The roll on the consequential effects for this .

Pessimism on pessimism on pessimism , or best practice , best practice , best practice , best practice , which isn't best practice , it's just like crazy practice . It doesn't achieve the mission . And the mission is infrastructure fit for and appropriate for that community , because you've just denied that community a whole lot of efficiency in their power generation .

So for me , this is where we , as engineers , we have to take a little step backward and go . Let's stop being so myopic , so focused , so looking down a magnifying glass , trying to impress our girlfriends or boyfriends or bosses and everything about how clever we are , about putting A plus B plus C plus D and being so onerous , and instead go .

How could this fit properly around here ? What would be an appropriate fit ? What's an acceptable level of residual risk here , given this particular context ? And that doesn't have to be the biggest and best of everything .

and I thought this is brilliant , you know , because the pipe will always have water and it will always have pressure . We can discuss whether it's sufficient pressure for extinction or not , but I would say any water is better than no water .

So , again here , your best practice could be two redundant pumps and whatever PSI of pressure and whatever amount of water per nozzle at a specific length of the tunnel . Cool , okay , that's true , that's the best practice , but you cannot argue that putting a lot of water in a tunnel will not do a job . It will do some job .

But the second part is why do we need the redundancy in pumps so you always have water In here

? If the guy loses his water , that means Stockholm has a lot more problems than a fire in the tunnel . This is brilliant because he just matched , he just found a proper solution .

And look , I've actually just because you mentioned it , I've done something similar here with my , because I live on a farm in a fire prone area and I had a choice of having a completely separate reticulated fire suppression system for protecting my home , or just my normal hose , just big , longer versions .

And I opted for the longer hoses , not because the separate system on paper wouldn't be better performance , but because using my normal system as the fire system means it's more likely to work , because I use it all the time . I'm using it to water my plants . I'm using it all the time . So the Stockholm thing you're right .

If there's a problem with the system , all the mums and dads and bald-headed babies of Stockholm will say we've got no water , whereas if the tunnel had a problem with the separate system , maybe no one would notice , maybe the repairs will be delayed . The next budget .

And even Lars , he faced that Like oh , it's not going to be approved by authorities , and he's like I'm the authority , I'm the authority , let's burn this in rice , let's check it out . If it works , it works . We put it in tunnel . Yeah , brilliant .

But okay , we know that we should do good and and I guess we could now end the podcast everyone's around inspired . Let's do best we can , let's find appropriate solutions . But you very well know that it's not possible everywhere in the world because there are boundaries that systematic boundaries that prevent you from doing your appropriate practice .

Want to start on those yeah .

But there's a whole industry promoting best practice , because if you can get your gadget or your widget into the table of best practice and you can get your contracts to specify compliance with the standard , that just happens to have your widget in the table . Thank you very much .

So best practice , it's a really , really subtle form of tertiary , educated Tupperware marketing . Now , that doesn't mean it's wrong to follow tables , but as engineers , we need to be alert for the influence of vendors promoting products and getting those products into the tables in the standards as a way of using the concept of best practice just to guarantee sales .

We're engineers . I'll give you an example of a technology that I love . So , for example , public address systems . So public address systems , so public address systems for emergency announcements . How often do we actually see intelligibility mentioned ? Rarely , actually . What we do see is that there's a public address system .

We might even see some description of how many DB or whatever they have to be , or maybe even some description of how the architecture is set up , how they're accessed dB or whatever they have to be , or maybe even some description of how the architecture is set up , how they're accessed , whether or not they're digital , pre-recorded messages , whether or not they're

with a live person . And we all sit around and argue amongst ourselves as to whether a canned message is better than a live message and everything . But really isn't the more important question whether A do we want to communicate using one and B ?

The word communicate means if we're going to have one , we should be able to understand it , and so the intelligibility should be the issue , and yet somehow we've missed that generally in the best practice for the whole world intelligibility , and I don't know if you've experienced it but in opening by many months because of the intelligibility of the public address

system .

It had a connection to the newest technology and perhaps the market forces were a little different . Perhaps the vendors who had better and more useful tools had a market advantage on the old boys who were selling everything for every project for decades .

So perhaps in one way that we I wouldn't say we control it or we made sure , whoever we are as a country , but we got the good stuff in here and it worked . And the same with pressurization systems , the same with a lot of smoke control technologies , the same with a lot of water mist technologies .

But I would say it's because one the fire department is an extremely strong stakeholder in the discussion . They can literally not open the Warsaw main airport because they don't like the public address system . That's how powerful they are . Can you imagine the political force behind that ?

And they don't give a crap , they just say it's not safe , we're not going to allow it and everyone respects it . And here the firefighters would to some extent voice the society , voice the user , voice the safety . They're not monetary incentivized , they don't have anything from not opening the building . They act from a higher level .

But also , if I may continue on this example , it also creates other issues Because , for example , when we were doing a tunnel in Warsaw , it created charges with us because they only understood the best practice in smoke control . You know the one tunneling handbooks , ingots , cobbles and stuff like that .

That's the level of comprehension they had of smoke control systems . But those books don't tell you how to design a very specific 20-meter-wide transversely ventilated tunnel in a windy passage in Warsaw . And we've designed a very robust system which basically meant that with one single configuration of the system .

The system would act perfectly in 95% of wind conditions in Warsaw , one setting and in 5% . It had some challenges but we made sure that we're still on the safe side .

And they did not accept the design because on the day of commissioning we had the 5% wins and they said , oh , the smoke has passed through the smoke control zone and it's not acceptable anymore , even though it reached a point where no one would be in the tunnel and they had us to redo the design because it did not align with the best practice .

They were acting on behalf of the society and said no , this is not safe , we have to redo it . And we've implemented 700 scenarios for every possible measured wind in Warsaw . We have a different scenario of operating jet fans in the tunnel to cancel wind . And tell me which is more robust , one with one scenario or one with 700 ?

Because I see 700 scenarios that can break . So I can go on and on and on , and I know you can do as well . You're the guest , so I'll give you back the mic , but it's complicated , you know it's complicated .

But going back to what you said , I agree that best practice became kind of a marketing tool or market opening tool game , kind of a marketing tool or market opening tool .

I like that idea and that idea would be consistent with what we saw in Australia originally when our first big urban tunnels came and we embraced things like fire suppression , so like the deluge systems , and that was actively resisted by the old boys club older , I'll call it the old established countries , um , who were saying that's just ridiculous .

It's going to de-stratify smoke and cause explosions and steam burns and all that sort of stuff and you lose visibility on top of it . Oh , and you lose visibility , yeah , and then I was around at that time and we're saying , yeah , but wouldn't it be kind of handy if we didn't get the big fires like that ? We actually kind of kept them little Like .

Wouldn't that kind of be an advantage ? And surely it's not a surprise that if you have a great big fire and then you dump a whole lot of water on it , you get steam and de-stratification , but hello , wouldn't we be trying to debate this system quickly , isn't that the point ?

So we were able to have that discussion because the old boys club hadn't actually formed yet and the regulator and the fire brigade were happy to have that sort of discussion .

And I recall , when Mont Blanc happened , a delegation from Australia going across to France and one of our God bless , their little cotton socks firemen getting up saying well , you know , if Modblog had happened in Australia it wouldn't have happened because we've got fire suppression systems .

And then , of course , everyone wanted to fight each other to the death and everything . But the point , I think the point you're making is a good one . Surely , best practice means and best practice isn't just using everything .

It has to be having an open mind , having a palette available to the latest thinking and engineering and being receptive to innovation and fit for the purpose around here , wherever here might be .

How do you see countries implement best practice ? You're involved with many countries on the rise yeah , yeah .

And I think in the foreign lands , wherever they might be , there's always an appetite to find out what should we do here , and there's always an appetite to do the best , like we're going to do best here , which is that's a lovely thing too .

But often the budgets are restricted and often the intellectual resources are restricted , and often there's a political dimension , particularly in the early stages when a country is adopting underground infrastructure , and so there's a political need to get a project on the books and delivered , and politicians often like to you know , I don't want to name the countries ,

but we're going to have one of those ones like they've got over there here , sort of thing and yet I often beg . I'll give you an example , let's not muck around . I was looking at a tunnel through the Andes between Argentina and Chile and I was at a meeting somewhere up in the Andes , which was literally cool .

If you've ever been to the Andes , it's very nice . Thank you very much .

And I remember literally begging the decision makers not to commit to a Western European solution for the trans-Andes Tunnel straight up and suggesting to them look , just build one tube , just one , and get your local people there as well , and maybe don't do the full lighting and maybe don't do the full vent , but maybe have it scaled so you can do it later .

But just see what it's like up there . It's a high altitude tunnel . We're not really sure what the winds are going to do . We're really not sure what the emissions are going to be from these internal combustion engines because we're at such high altitudes we don't really know what the mix of the engine types is going to be on the vehicles .

Why don't we kind of just turn the volume down a little and let's do Argentina-Chile practice instead of Western European practice and then build from there as we learn how to do this ? And I thought that was a really cool . I thought that was a very responsible idea . It meant that there was less burden on the economies .

It paved the way for each of the countries to develop their own expertise , their own industry , their own universities and technical institutes to support that sort of thing . But it didn't happen and the project didn't . And one of the reasons it didn't happen was because best practice shock horror is really , really expensive and the countries couldn't afford it .

So the it didn't happen was because best practice shock horror is really , really expensive and the countries couldn't afford it , so the project didn't happen . So that can't be best practice , because it means the countries of Argentina and Chile have been denied a link that they so desperately need through the Andes .

It's pretty complicated . So you need the starting point somewhere and when you have a starting point , it's difficult to know how far from the starting point you can move .

And even though imagine , you have a group of brilliant engineers who say , okay , we're going to deliver that , we're going to learn , we're going to deliver that , like Professor Bjorn Karlsson said , when he needed to design something in Iceland , he just sent a PhD student to Lund to do a doctorate on that .

The person came back and they had a specialist in the country . Brilliant way to reach a specialist in your country . I'm not sure how many PhD positions are open in Lund , but you can take this approach . Anyway , you can train a group of people , but then you need more people .

You need verificators , you need third-party auditors in the building , you will have contractors that will battle for the project and may have their own design teams who would like to optimize or change the design . So training a small group of people is not enough .

You have to literally build the competency of an entire nation and in Poland we are 30-something tunnels in and I believe it just happened we now have multiple stakeholders who are probably capable of delivering tunnel projects .

So you have a competent designer , competent verificator , competent third party , competent subcontractors , because the experience is here after a decade of building tunnels , which , with the first ones being like Italians come and tell us how to do it , austrians come and tell us how to do it .

It's not something you can build from one day , so you need a starting point .

I mean China , over 20 years , has gone from really not much sort of . I mean , they had capacity to build tunnels , but it wasn't something to write home about , Like they were doing it , but it wasn't like amazing . Now , 2024 , oh my God , they are just the technological position of the organizations within China and their delivery capability is just amazing .

So Malaysia , Malaysia , are like that . Now Malaysia have got this incredible domestic capacity to build In Asia , Poland , as you've just described it , and then you've got the early superpowers . I mean the early superpowers would be the Austrians , the Germans , the Italians , the Swiss and the Scandinavians . I think they're really they were the superpowers .

And I think Japan came along and it really got up to speed in the 80s . I think China's , as I say , it's just amazing right now , Like it's absolutely peaking at the moment . There's cycles to this , but it takes time . But there's other countries like Papua New Guinea .

I'm over in Papua New Guinea at the moment trying to help them with their tunneling society , so that's from zero , basically .

Make it leaner , the requirements , because the best practice it seems like entropy can just grow .

They've got such a mature way of doing business and regulation and contracting and building and operating it's almost like a perfect little ecosystem there to actually deliver this underground infrastructure in a really good way . So their appropriate practice and best practice converge . But interestingly , the Swiss too . They're not quite what you think .

When you go on a project in Switzerland you discover , for example , during construction , that they have quite an appetite for construction risk and if you compare it with , say , in the United Kingdom , which is absolutely risk adverse , paralyzed by risk assessments and job statements of how to do things , so that technique in the United Kingdom , if you send it across

to Switzerland , would cause all the chocolate to melt and all the cows to go backwards up the hills . I mean , it would be terrible .

But what they do in Switzerland is fit for purpose , it is best and appropriate practice in Switzerland and I think it's a very interesting model of excellence in underground and everything about the underground , from the consulting , the design , the construction , the operation , the integration , even the digital twins and the digital modeling of the whole country .

Just amazing Compared with Papua New Guinea , which has got nothing and pretty much starting from zero and just with an incredible need and a whole group of engineers and a big mining sector and cities that flood , and transport systems that don't work and power generation that's not there and water systems that aren't there and sewage that's not there .

She's a wide , she's a big world out there , so we're not best practice . Swiss style will not work in Papua New Guinea .

sentence . But look , the average age of railway tunnel in Germany is above a hundred years . Yeah , those constructions will live centuries and I don't think we can be ignorant of that . I think we need to recognize that .

It's not that I believe we need to solve future problems that don't exist yet , but I believe we should be careful of providing space to others in the future , like we would like to have space from the ones who designed the tunnels 100 years ago .

Refurbishment projects are hell , and they're mostly hell because there was not enough space or there's some limiting boundaries that don't allow you to do something very cheaply . How best practice is treating future and how appropriate practice should include future .

It's not even an elephant in the room , it's just the elephant is the refurbishment of underground spaces and , unlike a building where you can just push it over and build another one , these underground spaces the purpose might change , the space remains , or a variational space remains , and even little things , like if you're using a tunnel boring machine and you want

to put a deck in for a road or a rail , there's often a temptation just to backfill it and use the backfill as the base . And wherever I'm involved , I'm always saying are you insane ? Wherever I'm involved , I'm always saying are you insane ?

We've just spent all of these resources to dig a hole through a mountain or wherever , and that space is incredibly valuable . We spent a lot of resources to make that space . We should keep that space even if we don't know what it's for .

The preference should be to keep that space because in the future there may be a need and we've seen that recently with things like fiber optic cables , other data transmission . There's been recent technological developments , even little robots you know the little robot sort of scoot along .

There's all sorts of things that you can do with a space that you can't , with a space that you can't imagine . Actually , we can't imagine right now , but we need the space . The one thing we don't want to do is just backfill it as if it's useless because we can't think of how to use it now . So that's an example I think of .

I mean , arguably best practice might be , you just leave , you do backfill it . And yet I think appropriate practice would be try and preserve the space for the future , even if you don't quite know what that future might bring , because linear usually linear corridors are really valuable and very rare .

Yeah , that's that as a perfectly fine goal . But I wonder like which goals skew the practice ? You know which goals perhaps shouldn't be used because they lead to this over design or overuse .

I mean , for me , very specific , targeted goals , like we need to lower the temperature in the tunnel in this one specific design fire when the probability is very low , or like with the vent velocity that've designed . It's a goal right , but I think it's a stupid goal . I think it doesn't reflect the true need .

It's a goal in the head of somebody , but it's not a true goal for the goodness of the project , it's not the best for society . I wonder how do you see goals and which goals we should pick ? Which should we ?

So if you can keep one eye on the connection aspect then , for example , some would say best practice is secondary liners . Say we're dealing with a road tunnel or sometimes even a rail tunnel . A secondary liner , that's pretty , it's like a veneer , it's something that looks .

It's a liner that you put in , that you can wash and everyone can go through and say , oh , that looks pretty . Well , is that really best practice ? It might look pretty , but it denies you the opportunity to look at the structure of the tunnel . It's not necessary . It's got some huge carbon footprint , it requires maintenance , it can fall in .

There's a whole lot of things about it which , on its face , in many countries would view it as best practice . And yet I would strongly argue you don't need it . And in fact , in the current context of a resource-stressed world , the climate emergency , just generally , a lack of money for stuff like hospitals and schools and everything like that .

How about we don't do it ? We don't need it , even though some people would say that's best practice and in countries where the budgets are even more stressed and where the infrastructure is more needed , morally and ethically , why would you even promote doing something like that ? You need to get the connections to enable these people .

You don't have to build a tunnel that they all want to get selfies in because it's the most pretty tunnel . We want connections . We're trying to help our people and planet . We're not a beauty competition , and I think that's something that the Scandinavians are doing pretty well at the moment .

I've noticed they've done some very creative artistic things with primary structural liners . You typically wouldn't think a best practice because it's just concrete or spray-applied concrete or whatever , and yet they do it beautifully , and I think actually in Poland I've seen some pretty wild ones as well in the metro .

This is where I get back to your best practice doesn't have to be what is done in the richest country or as promoted by a particular vendor . What would work around here , what makes sense here and what gives our community the best value in terms of what they want from this underground connection or space ?

In Poland , you would have a specific law that defines what you have to have in tunnels and you would have a specific sub clauses that are defined for per contract every single time , and I usually just find them annoying .

But I would love to just have a general functional requirements to which I can engineer my tunnel , instead of having said that my escape exit has to be every 250 meters period , right ? Is there anything we can advise to people working in in those kind of contracts ? Like we're engineers , we strive to do the best . It's like you're not a tunnel vendor .

You want to create something that will outlive you and people in 100 years will benefit from that , something that can transform society . Like , if you're in such a rigid boundaries , how can you strive for that ? Because I find it's really challenging .

If we're sitting on the side of the client who's making specifications , and then I'd love to blow a whistle and sort of , just in case anybody's here , just blow a whistle like , okay , simulated whistle , blow whistle , blow right , there's the whistle .

Any of you listening to this who act for the clients who are setting specifications for projects , don't do a Google search to work out what you want in your tunnel , right ? Don't copy paste what someone else has had in their project and fake it to your boss that you've just done two months really difficult work when you haven't .

You rang up your friend who was doing a job in another country on your private email , sent the schedule . You've copied it out . You've actually been going to the beach for the last whatever . Come on , don't do that . That's not cool .

Actually , be an engineer , because your table of specifications are the burden other people are going to have to carry and if you try and deviate from it then people go oh , why are you trying to deviate from that ? Oh , maybe they've got some devious reason , maybe there's some money under the table , maybe , whatever it is , when in fact it might be .

One of my favorite ones is cross-passage separations , particularly in metro , newsflash metros . Nothing happens in a modern metro Like we have got our metros , our modern metros , if you actually build one and you've got decent rolling stock and you maintain it properly .

Okay , there are caveats there that you've got to do it properly , but it's really really , really , really , really reliable . And when you look at the data around the world , nothing happens , really nothing happens . It's just so good these days as long as you've done it correctly .

So if you've got one of those sort of metros and you're building it in really horrible ground conditions and you're going to specify cross passage separations , say of depends which standard , but let's just , I'll pick one out of the air . I'll say 150 meters , 500 , oh , you want 500 . 500 is pretty . That's generous you're being .

You know some of them are down , like in the hundreds of meters , the crosspass . I have pulled more bodies out of collapses in building cross passages in metros than anything else , because the process of building those cross passages in altered ground between , say , two tunnel boring machine bores and it's like a spacewalk and the bloody things collapse .

So probability of killing someone doing that is much higher than the hypothetical probability of an incredibly unlikely event one day , maybe in the future , for using the cross passages in an emergency . So in cases like that I'd want greater cross-passage separation , just to minimize the risk during construction that sort of stuff .

Let's be a bit more grown up about how we balance risk . Let's stop being so microscopic . Back up a little bit and look at the bigger picture of risk and be engineers doing that . I think there's a case for that . I'm not suggesting everyone just do whatever they feel like . I'm not suggesting a free-for-all , but we're engineers . This is what we do .

This risk stuff is what we're really good at .

Yeah , what to do in countries where the system is rigid and it's a longer observation , like when the system is very rigid , to bring the discussion about the very obvious things , like what you've just said let's replace one technology with another , because the benefits are obvious . You face , oh , it's not possible . Why ?

Because we cannot do it , why Because there's no practice that allows that ? And why is that ? Because we're not allowed . And that's the discussion you will have right , and I feel changing within the system is not possible . But I think there are opportunities to change the context of the discussion , to change the entire framework in which we discuss .

Like , look , you could not talk about many things related to energy efficiency of systems , even though you knew that it's important to have energy efficient systems . And then the UN sustainability goals came and we're talking about sustainability and it's obvious that for sustainability , you need a more energy efficient systems .

The framework has changed , the context has changed , the background has changed and now you're allowed to talk to that . Background has changed and now you're allowed to talk to that

. And I believe that if you want to change a part of the system , a clever way to change it is changing the narrative . And I'll tell you . It's something that I'm trying to do here to put some things in the tunnels that I would like more and get rid of the things that I know that do not contribute .

And the narrative that I try to impose is resilience . Why ? Because I believe that if you build a truly resilient system , it includes life safety , it includes efficiency , it includes everything , because you cannot build a resilient system which kills people . It's not resilient . You know what I mean . It's a higher goal that I see .

And I see those discussions only possible , not within the context of the discussion that has been ongoing , but saying , okay , let's stop this discussion , it's irrelevant now , because today we have sustainability , today we have resiliency , today we have environmental goals , today we're treating this as a socio-technical system .

Now , and I find only those spaces as opportunity to truly change the tiny fractions which are rigid within my current framework .

I'll just speak for the International Telling Underground Space Association . As you mentioned , I happen to be the president , so I am being presidenty now . We're really troubled that inappropriate use of tools developed for buildings that are in the sustainability space don't capture the performance of underground infrastructure .

Space don't capture the performance of underground infrastructure Because actually , while the words are correct and the narratives correct , the tools aren't developed to actually capture and quantify the peculiar benefits of the underground . So , for example , as we've already discussed , our underground infrastructure lasts hundreds of years . Buildings don't .

Our underground infrastructure lasts hundreds of years . Buildings don't . In fact , our underground infrastructure effectively lasts forever because you tend to refurbish them and they come along , whereas buildings you just tend to push them down . So what you're saying is right . You need almost permission to give everyone permission to talk about resilience .

One of my favorite objects that doesn't get used and I don't think works are little manual telephones in tunnels , the little old-fashioned telephones , because most people don't even remember what they are . Virtually no one's ever used them anymore , because they're not as old as us and in an emergency no one uses them anyway .

So in terms of resilience , they're in there and a whole lot of resources often go into having them there and keeping them running , but in emergencies no one uses them . No one even knows where they go .

So it's a really interesting example of something which would compromise resilience , because perhaps in a matrix you'd say oh yeah , we've got a communication system , we've got these little phones all the way through our tunnel , but actually no one even knows what they are and people don't even know how to use them .

I shouldn't mention buildings , but the number of times I've got into trouble by using the emergency stairwells and I get to the bottom of the building to discover that the doors to go out are locked and alarmed and now I'm trapped in an emergency stairwell when I was just wanting to use the stairs and not the lifts .

So there's an example in the building space where there's a disconnection between what you're wanting people to do in an emergency , the use of a staircase , the fire and emergency safety concept and little old Arnold deciding to use the stairs and ending up becoming a criminal regularly .

One last thing that I wanted to to mention is that I would say that every technical system that we develop can be improved by definition , and especially if the goals are objective or the criteria change . Like we also have to agree on the fact that the best is not the best .

Like every single system , you can tweak and improve , like I could do endless revisions on my projects and come with endless amount of new iterations of those projects , and there's just simply a need to stop at some point because we need to build the goddamn building , not to revise the location of JetFence for the 70th time , right .

And I believe there's also like a value in the guidance the best practice guidance here that it gives you some boundaries , that you know that this will work . How about this value that you implement the best practice ?

It may cost too much , but at least you can implement it quickly because it's not tailor-made , it's ready shelf solution that you put into your project and you're done with it . How do you feel about this dynamic ?

to this . I just wanted to raise it to toss it around with you . But on , say , your ventilation . I'm a barbarian when it comes to this . I just wanted to raise it to toss it around with you , but on , say , your ventilation . I'm a barbarian when it comes to ventilation . I go in tunnels and I just say to people turn your fans on .

And I , literally , I'm going to do the visuals because hell I can . But even though it's a podcast , I measure my light with my light meters , I've got my anemometer and I'm just , you know , for the podcast , I'm pulling the anemometers out .

Hello , how many tunnels have I been into when they're not even wired correctly ? But anyway , that's another thing . And can we do it in a reasonable timeframe ? And that's the real stuff . And it all boils down If you're in a tunnel , you just want it to work , and if there's not enough power to fire up those fans , the whole exercise has been worthless .

So maybe you shouldn't have bothered in the first place . Maybe you should have been looking at a concept that didn't rely on it if you haven't got the power to run them , or if you haven't got the money to maintain the systems .

I've been in countries I can't name them because for sure they'll send people with little guns and shoot me but I've been in countries where the systems in the tunnels have never been turned on , they have never been connected , the alarms have never been energized , and yet the consultants have signed them off , and it's just more luck than anything else that nothing's

gone wrong . Looking at desks pretending that all the comms is working between the tunnels and the control room , and it's a lie . A whole lot of the systems are not connected . This is obscene .

This is the disconnection between best practice and appropriate practice , because people have prescribed best practice and in that or those particular countries they can't deliver it . So what can they deliver ? What would be reliable ? Because I want to see systems that work .

I don't want to see some mind game or mind experiment and then the reality is just a mess and I get really upset about that . I just see the look on your face . You're thinking , oh what , I know what he's talking about .

I love to have less points of failure , and the less points of failure I have , the more sure I am about the system , and I believe the most refined solutions are the most elegant ones .

You know , the simplest , like in science , the most beautiful formulations are ones that you can put on a t-shirt right , not a seventh level polynomial on on the critical velocity . I find that ridiculous , and the same goes into engineering and , I believe , also being honest with yourself about what you can support over the years , continuously .

This is an exercise that's necessary to the authorities , the people who define what the best practice is , because the life cycle of building , the life cycle assessment , I think it's critical , and there's no point of installing a 10 million euro jet van system if you are not planning to have a technician twice a year visit it and check it out , right .

Fans took the lid and put it on an angle and so had an angled cover that actually ventilated to the atmosphere and then , using CFD , was able to demonstrate that the bigger the fire , the better it worked . No active ventilation system , a bit like what was done in the olden days with steam trains . Hello , it just worked .

And the CapEx and OpEx savings for that just simple , elegant design were huge . But it's not according to the standard .

And then in another country , where I was punching a tunnel between some mountains , I discovered that there was a a consistent pressure differential between the two sides of the mountain , a consistent pressure differential between the two sides of the mountain . I didn't do this by some fancy thing . Oh , if I had it in my desk I'd hold it up .

I had two watches with pressure gauges and over a period of about a month I was able to document , before the tunnel was built , the pressure differential between the two sides of the mountain . And then I suggested that the normal mode of operation was not to fight the natural flow but to augment .

It Must be better because it's elegant and simple and you can develop a safety strategy . If you think about it long enough , you can actually develop a safety strategy which requires almost no ventilation system if you take advantage of the natural pressure differential . It's still excellent . Fire engineering , it's just not best practice .

It's kind of painful because the world will not change over a day , but I think it's a nice reality check for a lot of engineers and I know that the moment people were listening to this conversation , people went into passionate arguments , with us having their own opinions of what's best , what's appropriate . I actually would love to hear those opinions .

If you , the dear listener , have your own opinion , let's talk about it . That's interesting , it's intriguing , it moves us forward , it's inspiring . So I would love to hear you , arnold , anything you want to close up with from your side .

Thanks , arnaud , and see you around . Hey , thanks for having me , and that's it . Is there even a need to wrap this up ? I can just tell you that I've really spent a lot of time preparing for this interview to try and find as many angles on the subject of the discussion as I could . Arnold knew only the topic .

I did not give him a chance to prepare , but I think he excelled in his opinions and I love that we've reached so many practical conclusions . I also knew and expected that from Arnold , that he's going to present a global point of view . This is not an episode about Great Britain or US .

This was a global episode bringing experiences across the globe between the polish guy and australian guy in a principle , uh , which does not mean what we've said is not applicable to uk I . I think it's very , perhaps even more applicable to contexts like this . Of course , a bigger challenge , bigger challenge .

But hey guys , we really have our best practices wrong in many spaces and we really don't use appropriate practices .

And for many of our engineering projects in the developed countries , where you have all the money , you have all the technology , you have all the consultancy , all the tools you can dream of , and yet we're doing stupid things which are not appropriate for the context for which they're designed .

I know I would be naive if I thought we can change this with you know podcast episode and just talking it over . I'm sure it's not that easy . It's a process , as I said in the episode . From my perspective , it requires changing the narrative at which we discuss .

Otherwise the contents of the discussion are meaningless because it's hard to reach an agreement to establish a new status quo . But anyway , I believe that participating in discussions like this helps us growing and perhaps someone will end up in a position where they will have a true ability to shift the paradigms in their countries and make

a big change . And if you do that , we would be super happy . We'd also be extremely happy with Arnold if you share your opinions with us , if you have an opinion about what is best practice , what's appropriate practice , if you share that with us , we would be delighted , and we invite you to this conversation with us . You know our state of mind .

We're looking forward to learn yours . That will be it for today's Fire Science Show episode . Thank you for being here with me . Next week , next Wednesday , another Fire Science Show episode with another dose of fire science , and I hope you'll enjoy that dose as well . Thank you for being here with me . See you , bye .