Dr. Chad V. Mashuga is an assistant professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at Texas A&M University and is a Faculty Fellow of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at the Texas Engineering Experiment Station. The mission of the Center is to improve safety in the chemical process industry by conducting programs and research activities that promote safety as second nature for all plant personnel in their day-to-day activities.
Before joining Texas A&M University, Dr. Mashuga spent 15 years in the chemical process industries, 7.5 years with BASF and 7.5 years with The Dow Chemical Company. During these appointments he was the director of experimental process safety research and the global director for flammability and explosions research respectively. With both organizations he has considerable research experience identifying the real world hazards and designing laboratory experiments to understand and mitigate them. His area of expertise includes flammability and explosions of dust, liquids and gases. He also has extensive experience with instrument design, fabrication and development.
Dr. Mashuga’s primary research focus at Texas A&M is on dust and aerosol hazard recognition and mitigation. Dr. Mashuga’s research focuses on the advancement of process safety through fundamental research. Areas of focus include dust explosions and mitigation, nanoparticle safety, energetic materials, and calorimetry.
Current research activities in Mashuga’s group include: (i) ignition energy prediction through molecular modeling, (ii) dust explosion mitigation through partial inerting, (iii) effect of polydispersity on dust combustion (iv) dust dispersion mechanics (v) safety of nanoparticle production, (vi) flammability and explosion characteristics of industrial aerosols (vii) thermal hazard analysis of nitro aromatics, (viii) energetic material explosion modeling.
Dr. Mashuga is a registered professional engineer in the state of Michigan.