Michael George Zabetakis
Encyclopedia
Michael George Zabetakis (born 1924) is a fire safety engineering specialist. He received his PhD in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh
in 1956. In 1965 he published data for flammability limits, autoignition, and burning-rate data for more than 200 combustible gases and vapors in air and other oxidants, as well as of empirical rules and graphs that can be used to predict similar data for thousands of other combustibles under a variety of environmental conditions. The work remains one of the most widely cited sources of flammability data. Despite its age it was still in 1999 considered the standard reference. Zabetakis often uses flammability diagram
s to show flammable properties of fuel-air-nitrogen mixtures.
Zabetakis was the first superintendent of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy.
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
in 1956. In 1965 he published data for flammability limits, autoignition, and burning-rate data for more than 200 combustible gases and vapors in air and other oxidants, as well as of empirical rules and graphs that can be used to predict similar data for thousands of other combustibles under a variety of environmental conditions. The work remains one of the most widely cited sources of flammability data. Despite its age it was still in 1999 considered the standard reference. Zabetakis often uses flammability diagram
Flammability diagram
Flammability diagrams show the regimes of flammability in mixtures of fuel, oxygen and an inert gas, typically nitrogen. Mixtures of the three gasses are usually depicted in a triangular diagram, also known as a Ternary plot. Such diagrams are available in the speciality literature...
s to show flammable properties of fuel-air-nitrogen mixtures.
Zabetakis was the first superintendent of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy.