Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Demonstration of sprinklers set for Friday

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Two mockup residence-hall rooms will be set ablaze simultaneously Friday (Oct. 25) on the University of Illinois campus during a demonstration of the potential of sprinklers to limit fire damage.

The demonstration will begin at 12:45 p.m. at the south end of the grounds at the Fire Service Institute, 11 Gerty Drive, Champaign.

Two furnished rooms, about 8 feet by 10 feet each (the average size of a room in a residence hall), will be ignited at the same time by a thermocouple connected to each room, said Steve Mitchell, fire prevention officer for the Urbana Fire Rescue Service Department. One room will be equipped with a ceiling sprinkler.

The point of the demonstration, Mitchell said, is to show the potential of fire sprinklers to limit damage. It’s expected that firefighters will have to extinguish the blaze in the room without a sprinkler, and that the sprinkler will suppress the blaze in the other room.

“Sprinklers have been shown to suppress fires effectively and contain damage,” said event coordinator Janet Maupin, fire inspector for the Champaign Fire Department. “What we hope the demonstration shows is how sprinklers can be used effectively in fraternities, sororities, residence halls and other buildings at Illinois.”

The Homecoming Fire Sprinkler Expo demonstration is sponsored by the Champaign Fire Department, the Urbana Fire Rescue Service Department, the Fire Service Institute, the National Fire Sprinkler Association Inc., and two Champaign companies that are building the mock-up rooms, McDaniels Fire Systems and Fire Suppression Systems Inc.

The demonstration will be preceded at 12:15 p.m by welcoming remarks and a presentation on the effectiveness of sprinkler systems.

Read Next

Announcements Marcelo Garcia, professor of civil and environmental engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering.

Illinois faculty member elected to National Academy of Engineering

Champaign, Ill. — Marcelo Garcia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Social sciences Male and female student embracing on the quad with flowering redbud tree and the ACES library in the background. Photo by Michelle Hassel

Dating is not broken, but the trajectories of relationships have changed

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to some popular culture writers and online posts by discouraged singles lamenting their inability to find romantic partners, dating is “broken,” fractured by the social isolation created by technology, pandemic lockdowns and potential partners’ unrealistic expectations. Yet two studies of college students conducted a decade apart found that their ideas about […]

Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Nishant Garg, center, is joined by fellow researchers, from left: Yujia Min, Hossein Kabir, Nishant Garg, center, Chirayu Kothari and M. Farjad Iqbal, front right. In front are examples of clay samples dissolved at different concentrations in a NaOH solution. The team invented a new test that can predict the performance of cementitious materials in mere 5 minutes. This is in contrast to the standard ASTM tests, which take up to 28 days. This new advance enables real-time quality control at production plants of emerging, sustainable materials. Photo taken at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Photo by Fred Zwicky / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Researchers develop a five-minute quality test for sustainable cement industry materials

A new test developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign can predict the performance of a new type of cementitious construction material in five minutes — a significant improvement over the current industry standard method, which takes seven or more days to complete. This development is poised to advance the use of next-generation resources called supplementary cementitious materials — or SCMs — by speeding up the quality-check process before leaving the production floor.

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010