Nicholas Traina Email & Phone Number

Dr. Traina specializes in performing safety evaluations of consumer products, investigating and analyzing fires, evaluating the fire performance of materials and products, performing building and fire code assessments, and providing technical consulting services for natural gas facilities and pipelines.Dr. Traina has evaluated the safety of consumer products in regards to mechanical, electrical, thermal and fire safety performance. Some of the evaluated products include electric and fuel-based indoor fireplaces, refrigeration equipment, clothing and apparel, heating appliances, cleaning appliances, and cooking appliances. Dr. Traina also performs origin and cause investigation of fires and explosions and has performed these investigations in residential, industrial, and commercial structures. He also has experience with vehicle fire investigations including consumer vehicles, agricultural equipment, and other heavy equipment. While at Exponent, he also provides technical consulting services for natural gas facilities and pipelines. Some examples of his experience include risk analyses of unintentional and intentional releases of flammable gases and root cause analyses of incidents involving natural gas pipelines, which have involved overpressure incidents, equipment failure incidents, and accidental ignition incidents during intentional releases of flammable gas. He also has been involved in numerous investigations of residential structure explosions from flammable gas leaks.Dr. Traina’s background is in mechanical engineering with a focus on fluid mechanics, heat transfer, laser diagnostics, combustion, and fire dynamics. He has extensive experience with fire dynamics in residential environments and has studied the effectiveness of different fire-service tactics, including ventilation and water application, on controlling fires containing modern fuel loads. He has also examined the threat of radiant and convective heat, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen cyanide to potentially trapped occupants and quantified the typical timelines available for occupants to escape residential structures for kitchen, living room, and bedroom fires in one-story and two-story structures.

Listed skills include Research, Matlab, Microsoft Excel, Data Analysis, and 2 others.