Fire Science Show
Fire Science Show
Wojciech Wegrzynski
255 - Timber load bearing capacity in fire from nano- to megascale with Felix Wiesner
1 hour Posted Jun 10, 2026 at 7:00 am.
Why This Award Matters
Sponsor Message From OFR
Felix’s Focus On Raw Timber
What We Know Before Fire
Fire Resistance Tests And Their Limits
Calculating Fire Resistance Without Furnaces
Why Timber Can Fail In Decay
Linking Temperature To Strength Loss
Transient Testing Versus Steady Heating
Moisture Migration Changes Everything
Cellulose And Failure At Micro Scale
The Next Research Questions
Paper Link, Conference Notes, Farewell
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Show notes
A timber column can survive the heating phase of a fire resistance test and still collapse later, after the flames are gone. We know there is so much more to structures in fires than the test demonstrates, but how much exactly do we know about timber nowadays? In this episode we try to dive deeper and discuss mass timber fire safety, structural fire engineering, and what a fire resistance rating does and does not tell us. I’m joined by Dr. Felix Wiesner from the University of British C...