When she first joined Fire Research Station, Paula Beever took on an investigative role in the field of thermal ignition theory as applied to practical fire problems in powder handling. This work was widely published. Paula Beever was invited to contribute a chapter on Self - Heating and Spontaneous Combustion for the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering published in 1988, which was revised and updated for the 2nd edition in 1995.
Paula Beever undertook the development of a test method that would allow contaminated land to be identified as combustible prior to redevelopment. This work was registered for a PhD in the Department of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leeds in 1983. A paper on the work on ignitibility of landfill materials was presented to an international conference. This formed the basis of her PhD thesis which was submitted to the University in June 1986. The degree was awarded in September of that year. Aspects of this work have been published.
It is recognised that computer fire models provide potentially very powerful tools for the Fire Safety Engineer for performing complex calculations rapidly. She devised and set up research programmes to look at the sensitivity of some of these models and to compare how the predictions are borne out in practice. The main thrust of the work was in the modelling of sprinkler response. As part of this project she was seconded in November 1986 to the Center for Fire Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in the USA, to work for eight months on a collaborative exercise concerned with the factors affecting the actuation of sprinklers.
On return to the UK she was appointed leader of a new long - term project on the modelling of active fire protection systems for another government client. A summary of some of the work was presented as an invited paper at an international conference. She provided technical advice to the British delegation to the ISO committee currently considering aspects of sprinkler sensitivity and contributed to the international debate on the topic.
