Nic Linley is an electrical engineer with over ten years of experience investigating and reconstructing accidents and fires in electrical components that occurred in air or oxygen-enriched atmospheres, including hyperbaric and hypobaric conditions. He has developed expertise with electrical forensic analysis of both low-voltage and high-voltage consumer electronics. Through years of service with WHA, Nic has developed skills useful in the identification of arc-tracking development and fire propagation in printed circuit boards, cables/wiring, switches, connectors, AC outlets, and other electrically energized components.

Nic has specialized in the propagation of fires in Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) heating products such as electric blankets, heating pads, and mattress pads; fire development in oxygen-handling equipment such as ventilators, concentrators, and Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices; and Electrostatic-Discharge (ESD) ignition. He is an experienced forensic engineer specializing in many types of electrical fire ignition sources, product safety and reliability, fault-tree analysis, failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), and statistical analysis of fires.

Mr. Linley has worked as an independent electrical failure analysis expert for many manufacturers of consumer products and has expertise in reconstructing, studying, and reproducing failure modes and sources of ignition in laboratory testing. Nic specializes in computerized control systems, telemetry, data analysis, mathematical modeling, simulation, and programming. He is responsible for designing the data acquisition and electrical controls of test systems for the WHA Test Facility, which conducts high-pressure oxygen, hydrogen, hazardous fluids, and reactive gas testing for clients worldwide and oversees the electrical maintenance and calibration activities that include all WHA test instrumentation and gas monitoring equipment.

Nic has researched and developed testing that examines the propensity for the ignition of materials in oxygen-enriched environments due to a human body model electrostatic discharge (ESD). This research has assisted the Undersea Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in the development of standards for the safe operation of hyperbaric chambers. He has also developed statistical analysis methods for ASTM Standard G124, Standard Test Method for Determining the Combustion Behavior of Metallic Materials in Oxygen-Enriched Atmospheres, test results that have been utilized by the Compressed Gas Association (CGA) in the development of oxygen pipeline safety standards. Nic also developed an adiabatic compression temperature profile measurement system that was used to help qualify laboratory systems worldwide for compliance with ASTM Standard G74 on Gaseous Fluid Impact.

In addition to Nic’s work at WHA, he is currently an Executive Member of ASTM E11 on Quality and Statistics and is the sub-chair of the E11.40 subcommittee on Reliability.