Nominees invited for safety award 31 Jan 2019

Each year students, young professionals and researchers are invited to participate in the Safety Award presented by COSUF - the Committee on Operational Safety of Underground Facilities of the ITA - International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association.

Lei Jiang (left) presented with the 2018 Award

Participants must be less than 35 years old and have completed a research work in theory and/or practice within the last two years in the area of operational safety or security of underground facilities. Nominations for this 2019 10^th year of the Award are to be submitted by the 31 May deadline. Participation is open to all young professionals and they need not be ITA COSUF members. The winner is presented with the Award at the ITA COSUF annual general meeting in the last quarter of 2019.

Last year, the winner of the prestigious Award for 2018 was Lei Jiang for his outstanding contribution to the safety of underground facilities and his work on the dynamics of densimetric plumes and fire plumes in ventilated tunnels.

Each year the winner is awarded a certificate, travel and accommodation costs to attend the Award ceremony and a €1,000 prize. They also present their work at the ITA COSUF general meeting conference.

“During the last ten years, the presentation of the Award is one of the highlights of the general meeting and conference,” said Ben van den Horn, General Secretary of ITA COSUF. “Many of the previous winners have taken career positions in organisations working on operational safety of underground facilities, which is even more reason to continue the tradition of the Award."

Wilson Ulises Rojas Alva (right) receives the 2016 prize from Dr Roland Leucker of ITA COSUF

Previous winners have included:

• 2016 - Wilson Ulises Rojas Alva for work on scaled experiments using the helium technique to study the vehicular blockage effect on longitudinal ventilation control in tunnels;
• 2015 - Karl Fridolf for examination of evacuation procedures in rail tunnels;
• 2014 - Francesco Colella for his study on the modelling of tunnel ventilation systems with a multi-scale model;
• 2013 - Enrico Ronchi for his contribution in the area of evacuation modelling in road tunnel fires;
• 2012 - Ying Zhen of SP Technical Research Institute Sweden for his work on fire dynamics in tunnels;
• 2010 - Stefan Kratzmeir from Germany for his tunnel safety research and contributions to European projects with a focus on the development of fire fighting and the acceptance of fixed fire fighting systems; and
• 2009 - Ben Nieman for his masters thesis at the University of Delft, the Netherlands, entitled Cracking on the unheated side during a fire in an immersed tube tunnel;

The COSUF Committee of the ITA was established in May 2005 following a joint initiative of eight European research projects that all aimed at improving tunnel safety. In the last eight years, COSUF gathered among its members some of the most recognized experts, scientists and operators in the field of tunnel safety from all continents. Through COSUF, ITA aims at improving and promoting safety and security of underground facilities through networking activities and dissemination of technical culture and new knowledge.