Faculty Directory
Contact Information
Office:
Higgins Laboratories, 106
Phone: +1-508-831-5971
Fax: +1-508-831-5862
ndembsey@wpi.edu
Nicholas A. Dembsey
- Professor, Fire Protection Engineering
- Affiliated with:
In today’s cost-conscious world, ensuring greater life safety and property protection has never been more challenging. To this end, my research focuses on the building performance applications of fire dynamics, fire characteristics of materials, and fire models. With the able assistance of a Fire Protection Engineering doctoral student, we are developing new techniques and a guidance document for practicing engineers to measure fire properties of materials. This work will enable practicing engineers to more accurately predict fire behavior. In addition, I am working with several other graduate students in the areas of fire model flame spread validation, and improvement of building fire safety design by developing a more effective interface between architects and fire protection engineers. Our goal is to provide knowledge that enables fire protection engineers to develop more effective and efficient designs in the built environment and serve as a basis for improvement of regulatory policy.
Research Interests
- Fire properties of materials via bench-top scale experimentation
- Compartment fire dynamics via residential scale experimentation
- Evaluation, development and validation of compartment fire models
- Performance fire codes
- Engineering design tools
- Engineering forensic tools
Education
- BS, University of Michigan
- MS, University of California at Berkeley
- PhD, University of California at Berkeley
Featured Publications
- Park, H.J., Rangwala, A.S., and Dembsey, N.A., “A Means to Estimate Thermal and Kinetic Parameters of Coal Dust Layer from Hot Surface Ignition Tests”, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 168:1 (2009) 145-155. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2009.02.010]
- Beaulieu, P.A., and Dembsey, N.A., “Flammability Characteristics at Applied Heat Flux Levels up to 200 kW/m2”, Fire and Materials, 32:2 (2008) 61-86. [DOI 10.1002/fam.948]
- Beaulieu, P.A., and Dembsey, N.A., “Effect of Oxygen on Flame Heat Flux in Horizontal and Vertical Orientations”, Fire Safety Journal, 43:6 (2008) 410-428. [DOI 10.1016/j.firesaf.2007.11.008]
- Lautenberger, C.W., Kim, M.H., Dembsey, N.A., Fernandez-Pello, C., “The Role of Decomposition Kinetics in Pyrolysis Modeling: Application to a Fire Retardant Polyester Composite”, in Fire Safety Science - Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium, International Association for Fire Safety Science, London, UK (2008) 1201-1212. [DOI:10.3801/IAFSS.FSS.9-1201] Honorable Mention for Best Paper.
- Avila, M.B., Dembsey, N.A., and Dore, C.H., “Effect of Resin Type and Glass Content on the Reaction to Fire Characteristics of Typical FRP Composites”, Composites: Part A, 39:9 (2008) 1503-1511. [DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesa.2008.05.012]
