RII Track-4: Partnership Between the University of Wyoming and the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory in Multi-Scale Wildland Fire Research

野外火灾建模需要对着火、蔓延、排放和其他火灾特性进行预测。准确的预测建模可以带来更好的土地管理决策、气候建模和公共卫生管理。然而，由于燃料成分、燃料几何形状以及风速和湿度等环境条件的变化，这种建模是一项具有挑战性的工作。利用基于实地和实验室的实验测量来开发子模型，例如火灾产生的排放量和类型的模型，以及综合模型的验证。这项NSF RII Track-4奖学金将使怀俄明大学（UW） PI和她的研究生能够在未来两年内访问位于MT米苏拉的米苏拉火灾科学实验室（MFL），以便与MFL研究人员进行多尺度野火相关的实验和建模。具体来说，西澳大学的研究人员将与MFL的研究人员合作，评估和改进西澳大学研究人员迄今为止在小型实验室规模上开发和测试的野火排放模型。该模型允许预测排放量作为诸如火灾燃料成分和环境条件（包括环境氧气水平和湿度）等因素的函数。该奖学金将允许UW的研究人员与MFL的研究人员合作，在更大规模，更复杂，但具有良好特征的火灾条件下测试该模型。RII Track-4奖学金将为UW团队提供世界一流的设施和合作者，以扩大他们的研究规模，并测试关于不同规模的野火排放的研究假设。假设气溶胶排放的形成可以通过在微观尺度上对排放形成的关键影响因素的量化和在全尺度火灾中对相关变量的准确预测来预测。生物质组成和火灾环境对气溶胶排放的影响已经在西澳大学的微观尺度上得到了证明，研究结果将在更大的尺度上进行测试，那里的条件控制不像微观尺度实验那样严格。在更大的尺度上，诸如热量和质量传输限制以及环境气体进入燃烧产物的复杂携带等附加因素可能会混淆此类影响的测量，因此在定义良好且控制良好的平台上进行实验对于阐明这些因素至关重要。MFL不仅有设施使华盛顿大学的研究人员能够进行这些大规模的实验，而且还有火灾科学专家，他们的合作将是非常宝贵的，以确保这项工作最大程度地与当前和未来的野火建模工作相关。UW团队将与具有火灾实验专业知识的MFL研究工程师合作，使用包括燃烧箱平台和风洞平台在内的平台，其中燃烧环境可以很好地控制和表征。此外，西澳大学团队与MFL研究工程师在火灾和烟雾建模方面的专业知识合作，以确保西澳大学团队的工作与排放建模工作的相关性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Wildland fire modeling entails prediction of ignition, spread, emissions, and other fire characteristics. Accurate predictive modeling can lead to better land management decisions, climate modeling, and public health management. Such modeling is a challenging endeavor, however, due to myriad complexities including variability in fuel composition, fuel geometry, and environmental conditions such as wind speed and humidity. Field- and laboratory-based experimental measurements are utilized to develop sub-models, such as models of quantities and types of emissions produced from fires, and validation of integrated models. This NSF RII Track-4 Fellowship will enable the University of Wyoming (UW) PI and her graduate student to visit the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory (MFL) in Missoula, MT, over the next two years in order to engage with MFL researchers in multi-scale wildland fire-related experiments and modeling. Specifically, the UW researchers will work with MFL researchers to evaluate and improve a model for wildland fire emissions that the UW researchers have developed and tested at a small, laboratory scale to-date. This model allows for the prediction of emissions as a function of factors such as fire fuel composition and environmental conditions, including ambient oxygen level and humidity. This Fellowship will allow the UW researchers to work with MFL researchers to test this model under larger-scale and more complex, but well-characterized, fire conditions.The RII Track-4 Fellowship will offer the UW team access to world-class facilities and collaborators to scale their research and test a research hypothesis regarding wildland fire emissions over different scales. The hypothesis is that aerosol emissions formation can be predicted by coupling quantification of key influential effects on emissions formation at micro-scales and accurate prediction of relevant variables in full-scale fires. Effects of biomass composition and fire environment on aerosol emissions have been demonstrated at the micro-scale at UW, and findings will be tested at larger scales where conditions are less tightly controlled than in micro-scale experiments. At larger scales, additional factors such as heat and mass transport limitations and complex entrainment of ambient gases into combustion products may confound the measurement of such effects, making experimentation on well-defined and well-controlled platforms critical to elucidation of these factors. The MFL has not only the facilities to enable the UW researchers to perform these scaled-up experiments, but also fire science experts with whom collaboration will be invaluable to ensuring maximal relevance of this work to current and future wildland fire modeling efforts. The UW team will work with MFL research engineers with expertise in fire experimentation using platforms including a burn box platform and a wind tunnel platform in which the combustion environment can be well-controlled and well-characterized. Additionally, the UW team with work with MFL research engineers with expertise in fire and smoke modeling to ensure the relevance of the UW team’s work to emissions modeling efforts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.