The China National Symposium, Combustion 2020, was held at Xiamen from 2020-11-12 to 2020-11-15. At the opening ceremony, Prof. Fan weicheng, an alumnus of University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), received the 2020 Outstanding Contribution Award in Combustion Science from the Chinese Society of Engineering Thermophysics for his long-term contributions globally in the fields of fire science and public safety.
Prof. Fan graduated from the Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering of USTC in 1965 and then took the teaching post here. From1979 to 1982, he was also a visiting scholar at Imperial College London. After that, he was promoted to professor in 1987. From 1993 to 1996, Prof. Fan served as the director of the Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering.
Prof. Fan is the founder of fire science research initiative in China and would be known as great leader to develop this field.His proposal of establishing the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS) to improve the research on fire science was approved in 1987. Since 1980s, he has been committed to explore the dynamic evolution law of fire incubation, occurrence and development, as well as the research and engineering application of key technologies for fire prevention. He has served as the first chief scientist of the Fire Safety Project in the National Key Basic Research and Development Program (973 Program) of the Ministry of Science and Technology. He has established undergraduate, master, and doctoral programs to perform research work on fire mechanism and technology for fire prevention in the Department of Safety Science and Engineering at USTC. The classic textbooks and works such as Computational Combustion, Concise Course of Fire Science and Introduction to Public Safety Science edited by him have significantly contributed to the development of higher education in China. Prof. Fan was also a pioneer for the Asia-Oceania Association for Fire Safety Science and Technology (AOAFST). In 1991, Prof. Fan initiated the establishment process of AOAFST together with Japanese and Russian scholars and then he successively served as the vice-chairman, chairman and honorary chairman of AOAFST. Besides, Prof. Fan was rewarded the first-lifetime contribution Award of AOAFST and won the Sjölin Award of The International FORUM of Fire Research Directors. He also won the China National Award for Science and Technology Progress three times (once for the First Prize and twice for the Second Prize). In 2001, Prof. Fan was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Nearly 80 USTC alumni, teachers and students took a group photo with
Prof. Fan during the Symposium.