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FPE Faculty

James A. Milke Professor and Associate Chair, P.E., Ph.D. Office: Rm. 3104F - J.M. Patterson Building Department of Fire Protection Engineering University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Phone: 301-405-3995    Email: milke@umd.edu

A member of the faculty and staff since 1977, Dr. Milke is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department. His principal areas of expertise involve smoke management, fire detection and analyzing the response of materials exposed to fire conditions. He is the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department and is Co-Director of the Distance option for the Master of Engineering Program.

In 1991, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in Aerospace Engineering. He received a Master of Science degree from the University of Maryland in Mechanical Engineering and is a 1976 graduate of the Fire Protection Engineering program. Dr. Milke also has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Ursinus College.

Recent Research Activities

• formulation of calculation methods to estimate the fire resistance of structural member
• analysis of smoke management systems
• assessment of the performance of video detection systems
• development of a prototype of a smart fire detector

Dr. Milke has served as a Research Fire Prevention Engineer at the Center for Fire Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, as the Fire Protection Engineer for Fairfax County, Virginia, as a Research Assistant for the University of Maryland and as a consultant to several organizations.

Dr. Milke is a Fellow and Vice President of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.  He is a member of several professional societies, including the National Fire Protection Association, International Association for Fire Safety Science, American Society of Civil Engineers and American Society for Testing and Materials. He is a member of the Fire Council of Underwriters Laboratories.

He is an Associate Editor of Fire Technology.  He is the past-chair of the NFPA Technical Committee on Smoke Management Systems and is the Chair of the ASCE/SFPE committee, "Structural Design for Fire Conditions." He was a member of the Core Group of the FEMA Building Performance Assessment Team for the World Trade Center incident on September 11, 2001.

Recent Publications

Smoke Management:

· Klote, J.H. and Milke J.A., Principles of Smoke Management, 2002, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Atlanta.

· Milke J.A., “Smoke Management in Covered Malls and Atria,” SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, 3rd edition, P.J. DiNenno, 2002, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA.

· Milke, J.A., and Klote, J.H., Smoke Movement in Buildings,” Fire Protection Handbook, 19th edition, A. Cote, Ed., 2003, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA

· Milke, J.A., “Effectiveness of High-Capacity Smoke Exhaust in Large Spaces,” J. of Fire Protection Engineering, 13, 3, 111-128, 2002.

· Kerber, S. and Milke, J.A., Using FDS to Simulate Smoke Layer Interface Height in a Simple Atrium,” Fire Technology, 43, 1, March 2007, 45-75

Structural Fire Protection:

· Milke, J.A., “An Overview of Analytical Methods to Evaluate the Fire Resistance of Structural Members,” J. of Structural Engineering, 125 (10), October 1999, 1179-1187

· Ryder, N.L., Wolin, S. D., and Milke, J.A.*, “An Investigation of the Reduction in Fire Resistance of Steel Columns Caused by Loss of Spray-Applied Fire Protection,” J. of Fire Protection Engineering, 12 (1), 2002, 31-44.

· Milke J.A., “Analytical Methods for Determining Fire Resistance of Steel Members,” SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, 3rd edition, P.J. DiNenno, 2002, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA

Detection:

· Milke, J.A., "Monitoring Multiple Aspects of Fire Signatures for Discriminating Fire Detection," Fire Technology, 35 (3), 3rd Quarter 1999, 195-209.

· Custer, R.L.P., and Milke, J.A., “Fundamentals of Fire Detection,” Fire Protection Handbook, 19th edition, A. Cote, Ed., 2003, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA

· S.D. Wolin, N.L. Ryder, F. Leprince, J.A. Milke, F.W. Mowrer and J.L. Torero, “Measurements of Smoke Characteristics in HVAC Ducts,” Fire Technology, 37, (4), 4th Quarter, October 2001, 363-395.

· Milke, J.A., Hulcher, M.E., Worrell, C.L., Gottuk, D.T., Williams, F.W., “Investigation of Multi-Sensor Algorithms for Fire Detection,” Fire Technology, 39, (4), 4th Quarter, October 2003, 363-382.

· Cestari, L.A., Worrell, C., and Milke, J.A., “Advanced Fire Detection Algorithms Using Data from the Home Smoke Detector Project,” Fire Safety J., 40, 2005, 1-28.

· Geiman, J.A., Gottuk, D.T., and Milke, J.A., “Evaluation of Smoke Detector Response Estimation Methods: Optical Density, Temperature Rise and Velocity at Alarm,” J. of Fire Protection Engineering, 16, 4, 2006.

Other:

· Rockett, J.A. and Milke J.A., “Conduction of Heat in Solids,” SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering, 3rd edition, P.J. DiNenno, 2002, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA.

· Milke, J.A., Sunderland, P.B., Levy, K.M., Ontiveros, V.L., and Carey, A.C.. “Fire Safety of the Traveling Public and Firefighters Today’s and Tomorrow’s Vehicle Fleet,” Fire Protection Research Foundation, Quincy, MA, April 2007

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