| Curriculum vitae |
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| Education |
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| Dr. Vytenis (Vyto) Babrauskas has his Bachelor's degree (1968) from
Swarthmore College in Physics. His two graduate degrees are from the University
of California, Berkeley: an M.S. degree in Structural Engineering (1972) and a
Ph.D. degree in Fire Protection Engineering (1976). He was the first person ever
to be awarded a Ph.D. degree in Fire Protection Engineering. |
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| Experience |
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| His early professional experience has included working as a civil engineer
designing roads and bridges and as a laboratory instructor in physics. Most of
his career has been devoted to fire protection engineering research. For over 16
years Dr. Babrauskas conducted research in this area at the National Institute
of Standards and Technology, formerly known as National Bureau of Standards.
During his years at NIST he has managed research groups in the areas of
flammability test development, upholstered furniture flammability, and fire
toxicity. In 1993 he formed Fire Science and Technology Inc., a firm
specializing in fire safety R&D and in consultancy on various aspects of
fires and fire tests.
Dr. Babrauskas is a ranking international authority on the measurement of heat release from fires. In 1982 he developed the Furniture Calorimeter, which has become the medium-scale test method specified in NORDTEST and Underwriters Laboratories standards. More recently, he has been the developer of the primary method currently being used on a world-wide basis for bench-scale measurement of heat release rates. For the development of this instrument, the Cone Calorimeter he was awarded the Department of Commerce Bronze medal in 1986. His invention was also recognized in his receiving the R&D 100 Award in 1988. The Cone Calorimeter is today considered the most important bench-scale tool for determining 'how fast things burn.' It is used in over 200 laboratories in over 30 countries. In other test method development work, Dr. Babrauskas headed the team which completed the development of a new test method for toxic potency, the first such to be based on effective full- scale validation with room fires. The dominant role of carbon monoxide in fire gas toxicity can now be more easily studied with another of Dr. Babrauskas' instruments, the phi-meter. During 1993-94, Dr. Babrauskas acted as technical consultant to the largest-ever European furniture flammability research program, conducted under the auspices of the European Commission. Since his founding of FSTI, Dr. Babrauskas has been a technical consultant to
three major, multi-national fire safety research projects organized by the
European Commission: CBUF, TOXFIRE, and FIPEC. CBUF (Combustion Behaviour of
Upholstered Furniture) focused on characterizing furniture fire hazards and
developing fire models and fire test methods for this category of product.
TOXFIRE focused on developing firefighting guidance for fires in chemical and
pesticide warehouses, with an emphasis on toxic products of combustion and
pollution of air and water. FIPEC (Fire Performance of Electric Cables) was
organized to develop fire testing and fire modeling techniques for proper
assessment of electric cable flammability. In addition, under the auspices of
his own firm, Dr. Babrauskas organized a series of full-scale and bench-scale
fire tests on diverse construction products, where the focus was assessing
various strategies for describing the fire toxicity aspects of products. |
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| Specialty areas |
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Dr. Babrauskas has experience in numerous aspects of fire safety science and
fire protection engineering. These include:
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| Teaching |
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| Dr. Babrauskas has given hundreds of lectures and presentations. He has taught graduate-level engineering courses at the University of British Columbia
and at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. In recent years, he has been regularly teaching classes to fire investigators on fire science principles, as applied to
origin-and-cause investigation of fires. He developed the unique "Electrical Fires 102" course, which is the only advanced course on investigation of electrical fires focusing on the fundamental underlying principles. |
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| Publications |
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| Dr. Babrauskas has published over 250 papers and reports in the field of fire
protection engineering. His textbook Heat Release in Fires is the first and only
book on this important subject. He authored the first monograph devoted to the
topic of upholstered furniture flammability while at NIST; in 1995 he was a
primary technical consultant for the CBUF monograph on the same topic. He also
authored the first comprehensive state-of-the-art review of flammability test
methods for wires and cables. His Ph.D. dissertation of Fire Endurance in
Buildings is still considered as one of the pivotal references in its field. Dr.
Babrauskas has contributed chapters to both the NFPA and the SFPE
Handbooks. In 2003 he published a massive Ignition
Handbook, which is the first handbook ever published on this topic. He is also the editor of Fire Science Applications to Fire Investigations; this CD-ROM book (first edition 2003, second edition 2007)
is the only current, extensive compilation of research papers on fire investigation and forensic aspects of fire science. In 2008, he was editor for the reference book on the Hazards of Combustion Products. |
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| Editorial |
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| Dr. Babrauskas served for 20 years as the North American editor of the Fire
Safety Journal and he serves on the editorial boards of Fire
and Materials, Journal of Fire Sciences and Journal of Civil Engineering and Management. . |
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| Fire modeling |
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| Dr. Babrauskas was the first U.S. scientist to publish a computer fire model
(COMPF, issued in 1975). Since then, he evolved it into the COMPF2 computer
program for the prediction of post-flashover room fires. This program was the
first to include a realistic representation of the burning of liquid pool fires
in rooms. He also contributed material to the major NIST fire model HAZARD I.
During 1993-1994, he was technical consultant for the major European research
program on upholstered furniture flammability, CBUF. There, he played a pivotal
role in developing the three different furniture fire models which were
produced. He was the main author of the consortium developing the FDMS
specification for the standardized exchange of fire test data. This work was
carried on by NIST, who are now evolving version 2.0 of FDMS. |
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| Societies and standards bodies |
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| Dr. Babrauskas was one of the founding organizers of the International Heat
Release Association, and serves on its Council. He has worked on standardization
issues for ASTM since 1973 and served for 6 years as Chairman of Subcommittee E-5.21 on Smoke and
Combustion Products. He holds the grade of Fellow in the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
In the international standards area, he is a U.S. Assigned Expert to the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO). He is a member of the
Society of Fire Protection Engineers, the Combustion Institute, International
Association of Arson Investigators, National Fire Protection Association,
International Code Council, and
the International Association for Fire Safety Science. The Cone Calorimeter
standards issued by ASTM, NFPA, and ISO have been based on his works. |
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| Professional awards |
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Dr. Babrauskas has been recognized for his professional work by the following
awards:
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| Download a PDF copy of Dr. Babrauskas' curriculum vitae. |
