HNTB’s Yunlong Liu Appointed to Fire Safety Journal Editorial Board
Bellevue, WA (PRWEB) June 18, 2014 -- Yunlong “Jason” Liu, Ph.D., PE, senior tunnel ventilation and fire-life safety engineer for HNTB Corporation, has joined the editorial board for a journal published by Elsevier, a provider of information for science, health and technology professionals. The journal, Case Studies in Fire Safety, provides a venue for researchers and practicing fire-safety engineers to present new ideas on the development of fire science or to apply fire research to projects in a case study context.
“Being appointed to this editorial board is a testament to Yunlong Liu’s knowledge and expertise, and a confirmation of HNTB’s ongoing commitment to providing full services for tunnels and underground construction projects, including ventilation and life safety aspects,” said Nasri Munfah, PE, senior vice president and HNTB chair tunnel services.
Dr. Liu, an expert in the field of ventilation and fire and life safety based with the mechanical department in HNTB’s Bellevue, Washington, office, specializes in tunnel ventilation design and analysis using computational fluid dynamics and the Subway Environment Simulation computer program. Over the past decade, he has led the concept design of tunnel ventilation systems, and conducted detailed ventilation and fire safety design for road and rail tunnels.
He also is a panel member for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program – a program funded by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials – for Project 20-07/Task 363 on Tunnel Ventilation. He has been assisting the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies to setup an outline for preparing funding proposals, and identifying potential contractors, and screening the submitted proposals from candidates to award the project.
Liu is a registered professional engineer in mechanical engineering in Washington state, a Chartered Professional Engineer of Engineers Australia, and a registered mechanical engineer of the National Engineering Registration Board in Australia. He has professional experience in Australia, China, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States.
Working together with his team, Liu has proposed a modified critical velocity when longitudinal ventilation is operating simultaneously with a dedicated smoke exhaust system. This critical velocity, obtained from the performance based analysis, has saved equipment and operation cost while ensuring the safety for managing the fire emergency conditions. This finding has been applied to the design of ventilation system for Washington State Department of Transportation’s Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel in Seattle.
Since joining HNTB in 2011, Liu has served on numerous high-profile projects nationwide, including performing structural fire-safety thermal analysis for the Presidio Parkway Public-Private Partnership in San Francisco; occupants egress analysis for a tunnel project at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport; independent verification analysis for ventilation design of the Istanbul Strait Road Tube Crossing Project in Turkey; Warm Springs Extension Line Railway Station ventilation in California; and an independent review of the emergency ventilation for Interstate 90 Two Way Transit – Mt. Baker Ridge Tunnel and Mercer Island Tunnel in Seattle.
As a firm, HNTB also has delivered many ventilation, fire safety, structural fire durability, pollutant dispersion and related integrated systems design projects, including Sound Transit’s University Link in Seattle and California Department of Transportation’s Tom Lantos Tunnels at Devil’s Slide in San Mateo County, California.
About HNTB’s tunnel practice
HNTB has more than 45 years of experience in the design, construction and restoration of tunnels and underground structures, including soft ground, rock and underwater crossing tunnels. The firm has in-depth experience providing innovative solutions and managing risks on tunneling and underground projects in the highway, transit, rail, aviation and water resources markets. The firm provides full services in tunnel design including geotechnical, structural, ventilation and fire-life safety, tunnel systems design, and construction engineering. Projects range from small-diameter excavations to the largest machine-bored tunnel in the world. Some of America’s most complex underground projects have benefited from the firm’s award-winning planning, design and support services.
About HNTB
HNTB Corporation is an employee-owned infrastructure firm serving public and private owners and contractors. Celebrating a century of service, HNTB understands the life cycle of infrastructure and addresses clients’ most complex technical, financial and operational challenges. Professionals nationwide deliver a full range of infrastructure-related services, including award-winning planning, design, program delivery and construction management. For more information, visit http://www.hntb.com.
Andrew Hoskins, HNTB Corporation, http://news.hntb.com, +1 8165272122, [email protected]
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