Overview

Visibility in fire induced smoke is a critical determinant of safe egress. When smoke reduces the visibility, especially of signage like emergency exit signs, occupants are at risk of becoming disoriented, increasing their exposure to toxic fire products and thermal hazards. Despite its importance in performance-based fire safety design, the physical mechanisms of smoke-light-interaction and how this translates into human perception are still subject to considerable uncertainty and therefore remain an active area of research.

This three-day workshop is intended to bring together fire safety researchers and engineers working on different aspects of visibility in fire. It covers the full chain from experimental investigation of soot formation and aerosol characterizations, light extinction measurements and CFD-based smoke transport prediction, to human observer studies and physically-grounded models for application in day-to-day engineering practice. 

The seminar features a programme of contributed talks. We welcome further talk abstract submissions from anyone working on related topics, as well as participants without a contribution.

Scope and Topics

The workshop addresses topics from experimental research, modelling and practical application:

• Investigation of soot formation, particle size distributions, and aerosol characterization
• Innovative approaches of light extinction measurement
• Numerical modelling of smoke transport via Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
• CFD post-processing in the context of performance-based design
• Modelling of pedestrian dynamics in smoke impaired environments
• Human observer studies on perceived visibility of signage in fire smoke
• Physically based rendering of smoke-impaired scenes
• Discussions about current practice, limitations, and paths toward more physically grounded visibility models

General Information

Date

Wednesday 23.09. (starting 09:00) – Friday 25.09.2026 (ending 12:00)

Venue

University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

Language

English

Registration

Please send an email to visibility@lists.uni-wuppertal.de including: name, affiliation, billing address, talk contribution (title and short abstract)

Participation fee

€350, please note that payment is only possible via bank transfer

Registration and Talk Submission Deadline

17.AUG.2026

Check their website HERE