Dr. Birk has been a professional engineer since 1980 and has extensive experience in thermal/fluids engineering. He is a tenured Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Queen's University in Canada. His primary specialty is fire effects on pressure vessels containing pressure liquefied gases such as LPG or propane. He is recognized as a leading international expert on boiling liquid expanding vapour explosions (BLEVE). He has been conducting research in this area since the early 1980's including both full scale fire testing of LPG tanks and computer modelling of tank failure and BLEVE hazards.
client listing
email ambirk-ambirk.com (replace - with @)
Dr. Birk has been a consultant to industry and government in a number of areas
including:
- boiling liquid expanding vapour explosions (BLEVE) -- causes, hazards, prevention.
- fire protection of pressure vessels.
- thermal modelling of vessels in fires.
- full scale fire testing of pressure vessels (both engulfing pool fires and jet fires).
- fire testing of pressure relief systems.
- thermographic inspection of thermal protection systems for pressure vessels.
- heat transfer in industrial processes.
- computer modelling of industrial heat transfer processes.
- analysis of hazards associated with compressed and liquefied gases.
Dr. Birk has been an expert witness on a number of cases involving compressed
gas explosions and BLEVEs.
Dr. Birk is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at:
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
McLaughlin Hall
Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
K7L 3N6
phone 613 533 2570
fax 613 533 6489
With his position at Queen's, Dr. Birk has access to a wide variety of experts in all disciplines of engineering including experienced specialists in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), finite element analysis (FEA) and other advanced analysis and modelling areas. He also has access to a wide range of testing facilities including sites for large scale fire testing and explosion research.
The following are links to Dr. Birk's web pages at Queen's University and at his software company, ThermDyne Technologies Ltd.
If you have a technical problem and wish to discuss it with Dr. Birk, please do not hesitate to contact him by email or phone at his University address.
Revised by A.M.Birk , Aug 2011