Kazunori Harada Ken Matsuyama Keisuke Himoto Yuji - Fire science and technology 2015: the proceedings of 10th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology

Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017

Ritsu Dobashi 1 , Takeshi Suzuki 2, Masataro Suzuki 3, Lijing Gao 4, Kazunori Kuwana 5, Wan-Ki Chow 6, Bogdan Dlugogorski 7, Patrick van Hees 8 and Jinhua Sun 9

Abstract

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death on February 13, 2014 of Professor Toshisuke Hirano, who was a father of AOAFST. At the occasion of the 10th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology (10th AOSFST), we share the memories of Prof. Hirano and renew his will on the progress of fire science. In this article, his achievements are summarized, such as the activities in academic societies, achievements on scientific researches, major awards received, and so on. The eulogies given by Prof. Wan-Ki Chow (Hong Kong), Prof. Bogdan Dlugogorski (Australia) and Prof. Patrick van Hees (Sweden), and Prof. Jinhua Sun (China) are included in this article.

Keywords

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death on February 13, 2014 of Professor Toshisuke Hirano, who was a father of AOAFST. Prof. Hirano, aged 74 and Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo, passed away after 2 months medical treatment at Tokyo Metropolitan Neurological Hospital in Tokyo, Japan. At the occasion of the 10th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology (10th AOSFST) held in Japan, we would like to share the memories of Prof. Hirano and renew his will on the progress of fire science.

Prof. Hirano made enormous contributions to the globalization of fire science. He had rendered great services to the International Association of Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) continuously from the time of its founding. He served as a secretary (19851991), vice chairman (19911997), and chairman (19972002) of IAFSS. He had dedicated his efforts especially to developing the Association into a more globalized community for the fire science. He worked as a bridge across areas of Asia, Oceania, and Russia, and broadened international activities of IAFSS in these areas.

He established the Asia-Oceania Association for Fire Science and Technology (AOAFST) as a branch of IAFSS in 1992 to promote international collaboration of fire safety science within, and beyond, the Asia-Oceania section. AOAFST organizes Asia-Oceania Symposiums for Fire Science and Technology (AOSFSTs). The first AOSFST was held in 1992 in Hefei, China. The symposium was followed by the 2nd in 1995 (Russia), the 3rd in 1998 (Singapore), the 4th in 2000 (Japan), the 5th in 2001 (Australia), the 6th in 2004 (Korea), the 7th in 2007 (Hong Kong), the 8th in 2010 (Australia), the 9th in 2012 (China), and the 10th in 2015 (Japan).

At the time when AOAFST was established, the acceptance rate of papers submitted from Asian countries was lower than those from Europe or the United States. Prof. Hirano supposed two reasons: one was the difficulty in writing in English; the other was research topics closely related to Asian-specific problems, with which the European and U.S. people were not familiar. With this in view, he established AOAFST to improve mutual understanding and to enlarge opportunities of exchanging ideas in English. At the present day, papers from Asian countries have a considerable presence among whole papers from the world. AOSFST also becomes a very important regular symposium, which many researchers attend from not only Asia-Oceanian countries but also countries outside that region.

Prof. Hirano performed pioneering researches in fire safety science and engineering. For example, he studied flame spread phenomena above combustible solid and liquid. He carefully examined the airflow near the flame and succeeded in describing the exact flame structure as a diffusion flame in a boundary layer. He studied also flame propagation phenomena in combustible particle clouds and flammable gas mixtures (dust explosion and gas explosion, respectively). Propagation mechanisms were analyzed on the basis of aero-thermo dynamics. These fundamental studies revealed how these phenomena of flame spread and propagation are governed by processes including mass and heat transfers, combustion reaction, and flow behavior. His results have contributed immensely to scientific understandings of flame spread and flame propagation that occur in fire and/or explosion incidents. Those results were presented in more than 170 original papers, 65 review papers, and 27 books. Toward these achievements, he was granted the Award for the Outstanding Paper (Japan Society for Safety Engineering, 1981), the Komo Prize (Tanikawa Fund Promotion of Thermal Technology, 1987), and other noted awards. His achievements in research are of great importance for the promotion of fire safety science and engineering, and also have had great impact on other academic areas such as combustion science, transport phenomena, and energy engineering.

Prof. Hirano was an active person and his leadership was exceptional. He served not only for AOAFST and IAFSS, but also for the Combustion Institute (Executive Committee member, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Board of Directors), and Japan Association for Fire Science and Engineering (President). He has also served as a member of editorial board for the Journal of Loss Prevention in Process Industries, the Journal of Japan Society for Safety Engineering, and Combustion and Flame. Toward these great contributions, he was awarded Bernard Lewis Gold Medal (Combustion Institute, 2004), Award for Prominent Contribution (Japan Association for Fire Science and Engineering, 1985), Dionizy Smolenski Medal (Polish Academy of Sciences, 1997), Award for Prominent Contribution in Science (Japan Institute of Energy, 1999), International Science and Technological Cooperation Award of the Peoples Republic of China (2003), AOSFST Award for Founding and Active Promotion (2007), and AOSFST Lifetime Contribution Award (2012).

Prof. Hirano made considerable efforts to build young generations. He was known as a strict teacher; however, he trained them with warm heart. Many of his pupils have played important roles in the research field of fire safety science. He was an attractive person who loved sports (association football) and flowers (especially roses). We believe his legacy will endure in many ways.