At the invitation of the internationally renowned journal Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Prof. Longhua Hu and Associate Prof. Jun Fang from the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science recently published a long review paper titled Pool fire dynamics: Principles, models and recent advances. This review combines the research outcomes of these two researchers on pool fires over the past fifteen years, as well as some important international research breakthroughs in the two decades. Basic theoretical models and new progresses of pool fire dynamics were comprehensively summarized, including the scale effect, the wind effect, pressure and gravity effects, and multi-pool fire dynamics. As the fundamentals of pool fires, the theoretical progress made with regard to burning rates, air entrainment, flame pulsation, the morphological characteristics of flames, radiation, and the dimensional modelling are reviewed first, followed by new insights into the fluid mechanics involved, radiative heat transfer and combustion modelling. Furthermore, new challenges and future prospects for pool fire research were proposed. 

In the past fifteen years, Prof. Hu and Associate Prof. Fang’s research teams have dedicated to the researches of fundamental behaviours of pool fire dynamics. Over thirty related papers have been published in Combustion and Flame, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, and Fire Safety Journal. Prof. Hu was also invited to deliver plenary lecture at the 12th International Symposium on the Fire Safety Science (2017, IAFSS) and the 8th International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards (2016, ISFEH).