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Leveraging over ten years of chemical engineering expertise, Dr. Reding provides technical scientific consulting services to manufacturers, owners, and insurers across a variety of industries including consumer products, steelmaking, agricultural and food processing, chemical manufacturing, mineral and coal mining, and oil & gas. In this time, he has evaluated a diversity of products, equipment, and processes to support clients' pursuit of code compliance, detailed process or equipment failure investigation, fire and explosion investigation, root cause analysis, and evaluation and mitigation of risks.

Investigation of Fires, Explosions, and Hazardous Releases

A Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator (CFEI) through the National Association of Fire Investigators (NAFI), Dr. Reding has considerable experience in reactive litigation through detailed analyses of numerous industrial process safety incidents. His investigations have concentrated around identification of likely ignition sources (including arc mapping), fire and smoke pattern interpretation, fuel characterization, spontaneous combustion, and cause & origin determination within an array of unique settings ranging from residential structure or vehicle losses involving consumer products to fires, explosions, mechanical failures, and hazardous material releases within industrial chemical processing plants. His work focuses on consistent application of scientific method principles from NFPA 921, repurposing fundamental physics, chemistry, and core engineering concepts to simplify otherwise complicated energetic incidents.  

Prior to joining Ä¢¹½tv's Thermal Sciences practice, Dr. Reding worked for six years as an Explosion Protection Scientist at Fike Corporation where he managed guidelines for relief venting and explosion protection design, facilitated research for application extension and new product development, and provided consultation for hundreds of nonstandard hazards (dust, gas, hybrid) and unique processing applications. During this time, Dr. Reding served as chief scientific advisor for all nonstandard fire and explosion protection designs sold to end users within the Asia-Pacific region, from which he developed into an effective communicator of risk and hazards to project stakeholders and authorities having jurisdiction.

Through his academic achievements and project experiences as a Professional Engineer, Dr. Reding showcases an ability to assess subjects relevant to the release of hazardous materials — topics such as dust cloud explosibility, gas mixture flammability, overpressure relief (API 521) and deflagration vent sizing (NFPA 68), equipment failure or degradation, and material incompatibilities. Dr. Reding has developed expertise in his use of risk assessment tools (PHAST, licensed by DNV-GL) and computational modeling (FLACS, licensed by GEXCON) for evaluating risk and hazard consequences (associated with release of hazardous materials (flammable vapor dispersion, toxic exposure, vapor cloud explosion overpressure, thermal radiation) and for the evaluation of performance-based process safety solutions. He has applied this knowledge in settings concerning regulatory support for LNG import/export terminal owners, facility and building siting studies compliant with API 752 and API RP 753, and utility gas transmission pipeline development initiatives. Dr. Reding also holds his HAZWOPER certification for inspection and emergency response involving hazardous substances or related site risks.

Workplace Safety, Process Safety, and Risk Analysis

With respect to proactive work for risk management, Dr. Reding has led audits on code compliance, reviews of preventive maintenance programs and safe equipment operability (chemical loading and unloading, Lock-out/Tag-out, hot work permitting, confined space entry, safety interlocks, process controls), dust hazard analyses, and complex process hazard analysis (PHA) techniques (HAZOP, What-If, LOPA, Fault Tree Analysis, Quantitative Risk Analysis, FMEA, SIL) for the identification of gaps and appropriate corrective actions to promote reliable CCPS Risk Based Process Safety principles and OSHA Process Safety Management best practices.

A comprehensive list of Dr. Reding's peer-reviewed journal publications and invited conference presentations are provided at the end of this curriculum vitae. Dr. Reding is dedicated to educating industry professionals and expanding industry know-how on concepts of combustible dust hazard management and learnings from critical process safety incidents. Dr. Reding is active in the process safety community through standards involvement and technical committee participation, where he has served both as a principal member on the Technical Committees for NFPA 484 on Combustible Metals & Metal Dusts and NFPA 67, 68, and 69 on Explosion Protection Systems and as an alternate member on the Technical Committees for NFPA 652 on Fundamentals of Combustible Dust and NFPA 660 on Combustible Dusts and Particulate Solids.

Process Design and Equipment Performance

Dr. Reding has analyzed process plants across a variety of industries — over his career, he has developed expertise in the evaluation of process equipment and design, as well as associated fire safety systems and maintenance requirements, to appraise reliability and performance against facility requirements, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) specifications, and Recommended and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practice (RAGAGEP).

In application of this expertise, Dr. Reding has inspected and evaluated both modern and legacy process technologies and methodologies in multiple subject matter areas including bulk solids handling and storage systems such as conveyors (belt, drag, screw), bucket elevators, pneumatic cyclones, dust collectors, spray dryers, silos, bins, and mills; safe management of industrial gas discharge to regenerative and catalytic thermal oxidizers; key mechanical components of flow systems including piping and hoses, compressors, pumps, valves and actuators, monitoring equipment, mixers, reservoirs, heat exchangers, atmospheric tanks, and pressure vessels; and process operations decision-making and responsibility handover. Dr. Reding directly applies this knowledge through frequent involvement in facility evaluations and in international arbitrations for Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) disputes concerning the evaluation of plant design, process and equipment commissioning efforts, and contractual facility completion milestones.