Sam Bennett BEng (Hons), C.BuildE, MCABE, IEng, MIFireE
Director / Founder
Sam is a Chartered Building Engineer, specialising in fire engineering, with over 15 years’ experience. He specialises in fire safety engineering for building design and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Modelling. Sam has considerable experience of leading the fire engineering design on a large number of varied projects both internationally and across the UK. These include residential buildings, large scale hotels, transport infrastructure, warehouses and healthcare facilities.
In previous appointments, Sam has been an influential figure involved in the advancement of CFD modelling and bespoke fire engineering design capabilities. He has also acted as an expert witness in relation to CFD modelling of smoke using Fire Dynamics Simulator. His passion lies in applying his detailed technical knowledge of CFD modelling and other fire engineering calculation techniques to develop unique and bespoke fire strategy solutions.
Sam is also regularly appointed to undertake peer reviews of fire strategies on behalf of Building Control bodies who do not have this capability in-house.
As an expert witness, Sam has been subject to cross examination by a QC in a formal adjudication setting.
Previous Employment - Astute Fire (Founder), WSP, Hoare Lea, Promat
Selected Career Episodes
Goldman Sachs - 70 Farringdon Road
Lead fire engineer from planning to completion on a new global headquarters for Goldman Sachs. The client had high aesthetic standards and specific operational requirements. This required the development of a bespoke fire strategy to meet these high ambitions including several CFD modelling studies and computational evacuation modelling studies.
New Build Amazon Warehouses
During his tenure at Astute Fire, Sam was instrumental in making Astute Fire one of Amazons “fire engineers of choice”, developing fire strategies for over ten large new build facilities. These facilities required a bespoke approach due to their large size, specific operational requirements, high-tech sortation systems and fast paced construction programs. Sam maintained close working relationships with the relevant client representatives, design teams and approving authorities his strategies were quickly designed and delays were avoided.
Passive Fire Protection Dispute, Hospital, England
Sam was instructed on behalf of a project company in an adjudication in relation to a multi-million pound dispute relating to fire stopping and fire compartmentation at a recently constructed hospital. Sam was required to provide comment on CFD modelling evidence used in the case as well as to undertake multiple CFD modelling studies as part of a comparative “monte carlo assessment” of safety levels. As part of this dispute, Sam was required to prepare various expert reports, attend joint expert meetings and provide expert evidence at a hearing before the adjudicator and to be cross-examined by the Queen’s Counsel for the counterparty.
Other Notable Experience
Residential – Merchant Square Development, Paddington. Spire, Canary Wharf. Battersea Reach Development, London.
Hotels – Bodmin Jail Hotel. Caprice Gold Hotel, Istanbul
Transport – Crossrail (Paddington and Tottenham Court Road Stations). Waterloo Station. Perry Barr Station.
Warehousing and Manufacturing - Jaguar Landrover Manufacturing Facility, Halewood. Ocado Sortation Centres (Numerous), Marks and Spencer Sortation Centre, East Midlands Parkway. Boots Storage Facilities.