A thermoanalytical, X-ray diffraction and petrographic approach to the forensic assessment of fire affected concrete in the United Arab Emirates Alqassim, M. A.; Jones, Martyn; Berlouis, L. E. A.; Nic Daeid, Niamh General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in Discovery Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from Discovery Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain.• You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. KeywordsForensic investigation; Concrete; Fire; Thermal Analysis; X-ray Diffraction; Colour Change. Highlights• This work studies the application of thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction and petrography as tools for revealing the thermal history on concrete structures.• • Other reactions can be reversible, particularly the dehydroxylation of Portlandite.The thermal history can still be determined though by comparing the onset temperature of reformed components with Portlandite in non-previously heated samples.

a b s t r a c tFire incidents in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, reported to the Forensic and Mechanical Engineering section of the Dubai Police Forensic Laboratory during 2006-2013 were reviewed. A detailed examination of more than 5000 incidents, representing a wide range of fire types is presented. Statistical comparisons on the type of incident and the cause and origin of the fire have been evaluated. City areas covered by each police station are also identified. The outcomes of the study indicate that more than one third of the total number of incidents involved motor vehicles and these accounted for more than half of all deliberately set fires in Dubai. A further one third of the incidents reviewed were in residential units. Electrical failures were shown to pose the highest risk of accidental fire and the Bur Dubai Police Station was the busiest in terms of fire investigation caseload. IntroductionFire safety has always been a critical issue and concerns are growing in the Middle East in relation to building damage. Dubai is home to hundreds of high-rise buildings, constructed using a variety of flammable materials generating concern in relation to fire safety. Recent national codes have begun to address fire safety in particular risk to life and protection of property, however many existing buildings may not comply with these codes. The selection of suitably flame-retardant building materials is also important in structural design.Typical fire development occurs over four consecutive stages: Incipient, Growth, Fully Developed and Decay [1]. It is important not to underestimate the behaviour of fire and the different characteristics of each stage. Despite the provision of new active control technologies, such as sprinkler systems and smoke detectors, full fire prevention can still not be achieved. These preventive measures may only be effective in the pre-flashover stages of a developing fire [1] and become ineffective as the fire develops to flashover and steady burning, where the involvement of fire fighters becomes critical.The Forensic and Mechanical Engineering section of the Dubai Police Forensic Laboratory (DPFL) is the principal source for fire statistics in the emirate. The data shown in this study only corresponds to incidents which were attended by DPFL. DPFL provides reports describing the origin and possible causes of each fire.The Dubai Municipality assesses the effects of fire on existing building materials and the reports from agencies can be presented as evidence in the courts. The current work presents an evaluation of fire trends in Dubai as reported by the DPFL across the period 2006-2013.http://dx.

The purpose of this case report was to demonstrate a fatal motor vehicle accident in which a 33-year-old man died at the scene immediately after his car collided with the roadside curbstone at a normal speed. The autopsy of the deceased body revealed a penetrating injury on the neck as he was struck by the deployed airbag. Pathological examination showed the offending material to be a fractured cylinder-shaped metal piece, which had settled within the fourth cervical vertebral body. Further forensic engineering investigation of the airbag unit found that the metal fragment originated from a defective airbag gas generator, which had exploded upon deployment. These findings reflect on the increasing popularity of airbag-associated trauma across the globe in recent years. We suggest an effective management plan for the evaluation and mitigation of the complications associated with airbag-related incidents.

This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/57303/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the Strathprints administrator: strathprints@strath.ac.ukThe Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output. ABSTRACT:Concrete is by far the world's most common construction material. Modern concrete is a mixture of industrial pozzolanic cement formulations and aggregate fillers. The former acts as the glue or binder in the final inorganic composite, however, when exposed to a fire the degree of concrete damage is often difficult to evaluate non-destructively. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy through techniques such as transmission, attenuated total reflectance (ATR) and diffuse reflectance (DR) have been rarely used to evaluate thermally damaged concrete. In this paper, we report on a study assessing the thermal damage of concrete via the use of a nondestructive hand-held FTIR with a diffuse reflectance sample interface. In situ measurements can be made on actual damaged areas, without the need for sample preparation. Separate multivariate models were developed to determine the equivalent maximal temperature endured for three common industrial concrete formulations. The concrete mixtures were successfully modeled displaying high predictive power as well as good specificity. This has potential uses in forensic investigation and remediation services particularly for fires in buildings.

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