Ferrari Mailing List: Re: NFC: I'm a P.E.!!

[Fellippe Galletta (fellippe.galletta]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 9:39 PM, Robert W. Garven Jr. <rgarven [at] 
gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Congratulations, what exactly does a Fire PE do?
>

A Fire Protection Engineer can do numerous things...the PE exam tests for
minimal competency in all of the following areas, but typically most FPEs
specialize in one or two of these tops.

1) Design sprinkler systems for buildings - anywhere from normal office
spaces to complex and high hazard warehouses and aircraft hangars. Also
included is fire pump specifying/sizing, fire hydrant marking, water
supplies.

2) Design fire alarm systems for buildings - my specialty. Smoke detector
placement, speaker and strobe placement among other things.

3) Conduct risk analysis for the insurance industry - Chubb, XL Global, etc.


4) Life safety - egress calculations and specs for buildings. This includes
minimum corridor and stairwell widths, occupant loading, travel distance
limits.

5) Design special hazard suppression systems - gas suppression like we
talked about a few days ago like Halon, FM-200, Inergen....Carbon Dioxide
systems, Foam Systems, etc.

6) Specify fire resistance for building construction - walls, ceilings,
doors, fireproofing of beams and columns.

7) Design smoke control systems - pressurized stairwells, atrium exhaust,
engineered smoke purge systems.

8) Explosion prevention - Pressure relief of rooms to prevent
deflagrations/detonations.

9) Flammable Liquid Storage - Specifying what quantities and how much of
them can be stored together in close proximity.

10) Fire Dynamics - this is more of the science aspect.....calculating
flashover points in a compartment, ceiling jet temperatures, plume
widths...basically the behavior of fire.

11) Human Behavior - Occupant speed, typical human behavior in fires,
response times to fire cues, etc.

There are a few more areas, but these are the topics that one has to be
somewhat familiar with to pass the exam. No one FPE is an expert in all of
these areas....too broad. Also, a few of the areas above are done by
mechanical and electrical guys...there's overlap.

I'm not a purist FPE in the sense that I work for a firm that does all of
these things like a Rolf Jensen Associates, Arup, Schirmer Engineering. I'm
an EE by degree who got into fire alarm design along with building
electrical systems...I could have taken the PE in electrical but found fire
to be more interesting.

There's only one school offering a B.S. in FPE in the US, and that's the
University of Maryland. It's still a rather new profession.

FG