Dr. Myers applies chemical engineering principles to analyze industrial processes and to investigate and prevent incidents involving chemical releases, fires, and explosions. His investigations include incidents involving chemical, agricultural and industrial facilities, the warehousing and transport of hazardous chemicals, commercial and residential structures, vehicles, energy storage systems, consumer products, and burn injuries. Dr. Myers has investigated incidents involving a wide range of combustion equipment including candles, torches, heaters, ovens, furnaces, and boilers. His work in these investigations has included determining origin and cause, experimentally measuring properties of materials, numerical modeling, and evaluation of products and facilities with current and historical regulations, codes, and guidelines.
Dr. Myers has conducted engineering analysis and experimental testing involving chemical reactions, heat and mass transfer, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, fires, and dust and gas explosions. He has testified as an expert witness in state and federal courts.
Dr. Myers has investigated several catastrophic dust explosions. He audits new and existing facilities for dust explosion hazards, and assists clients in developing mitigation methods. Dr. Myers is a member of several NFPA technical committees responsible for standards related to the prevention and mitigation of fires and explosions. He evaluates the design and efficacy of explosion protection systems including inerting, venting, suppression, isolation, and flame arrestors. He is a member of the ASTM committee responsible for the development of standards to determine the ignition and flammability properties of gases, vapors, and dusts clouds and oversees testing in Exponent's Combustible Dust Testing Laboratory.
Dr. Myers has a particular interest in the stability of chemicals and chemical mixtures and their reactivity hazards. He has investigated incidents involving self-heating or thermal runaway of chemicals, the unintentional reactions of incompatible chemicals. Dr. Myers has developed test methods for assessing self-heating and the hazards of reactive chemicals. He has analyzed the effects of specific chemicals on the integrity of materials including plastics, composites, and metals.
Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Myers was a Graduate Student Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has also worked in process engineering and process control in the pulp and paper industry.
