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Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1991
  • M.S., Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1988
  • B.Tech., Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, 1984
Licenses & Certifications
  • Professional Engineer Chemical, California, #6087
  • Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE)
  • 40-Hour Hazardous Waste Operation and Emergency Response Certification (HAZWOPER)
  • ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE)
Professional Honors
  • Outstanding Achievement Award, PLG, Inc.
  • UC Regents Scholarship
  • Tata Endowment Scholarship
  • Aryabhatta Science Talent Award
  • Ramanujam Math Talent Award
  • Best Paper Award, Society of Plastics Engineers, Inc.
Professional Affiliations
  • American Institute of Chemical Engineers (member)
  • Southern California Society for Risk Analysis (Councilor)
  • Computational Project, NSF Supercomputer, San Diego, California (Principal Investigator)
  • Graduate Student Association, UCSB (Administrative Vice President)
  • Chemical Engineering Society, IIT, New Delhi, India (President)

Dr. Medhekar is a Chemical/Process Engineer with 30+ years of industry experience. Dr. Medhekar applies his experience and expertise to address process issues during the design, construction, commissioning, and operation of industrial facilities. Dr. Medhekar's experience includes oil, gas and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facilities, chemical and petrochemical manufacturing, and process equipment. He also works on addressing risk, reliability, and system integration issues within the Automotive, Consumer Products, Utility/Power, and Nuclear industry sectors. Dr. Medhekar has been called to address process aspects and construction/commissioning delays and opine on the general standard of care for engineering operations, especially with respect to process safety and risk management.

International Arbitration, Litigation, and EPC Projects

Over the last few years, Dr. Medhekar's practice has increasingly focused on International Arbitration and Litigation projects. For 30+ years previously, his practice involved direct on-site, boots-on-the-ground project work with clients during the design, construction and commissioning phases of large Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) projects. Dr. Medhekar has evaluated designs and processes for over 100 International Projects with sites in Korea, Japan, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the UK, Germany, Russia, Poland, Egypt, Mexico, Canada, and the USA. These reviews have involved various project stages, including Front-End Engineering Design (FEED), Detailed Design, Construction, and Commissioning. Dr. Medhekar's clients have included Owners/Operators, EPC contractors, and Project Management Consultants (PMCs).  

Having lived and worked on-site — sometimes for months at a time — with project engineers/designers, project managers, commissioning managers, construction operators, and various equipment vendors, Dr. Medhekar has witnessed hundreds of on-site project disputes (and resolutions) and possesses direct and practical engineering project insights. Dr. Medhekar now testifies as an expert witness in International Arbitration cases and litigation matters.

Project Delays During Construction and Commissioning

Dr. Medhekar has worked on several projects to address process-related issues that lead to project startup/commissioning delays, resulting in project cost overruns. Dr. Medhekar has also performed probabilistic analysis and Monte Carlo simulations to identify critical paths (Critical Path Method (CPM)) within project schedules (Primavera) to identify likely paths that may lead to project delays and cost overruns. Dr. Medhekar has worked with independent Quantum experts to identify and quantify process-related aspects that have led to delays during the startup and commissioning of large EPC projects.

 

Review of Engineering Practices, Unit Operations, and Process Equipment Designs

Dr. Medhekar has analyzed a variety of process plants, unit operations, and associated scheduled/preventative maintenance activities to evaluate plant performance against Recommended And Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices (RAGAGEP), owner requirements, and vendor specifications. Dr. Medhekar's projects have involved a wide range of equipment, including chemical reactors and separation systems; pressure vessels, piping, pumps, and compressors; furnaces and heat exchangers; railcars and tanker trucks; and pressure relief valves and emergency relief systems.

Root Cause Investigations

Dr. Medhekar also utilizes his expertise as a chemical engineer in the investigation of accidents, with particular emphasis on safety and risk. He provides consulting services to the chemical and petrochemical process industries (LNG/Natural Gas (NG) and Refinery sectors), specializing in the safety/risk-based evaluation/investigation of process failures — such as process upsets/explosion/fire incidents — at chemical processing and petroleum refining facilities.

Process Safety and Risk Assessments

Dr. Medhekar has led 200+ process design reviews and hazard/risk assessments using industry-accepted Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) methods, including Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) studies, What-If studies, and Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) studies, combined with analytical techniques such as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Event Tree Analysis (ETA), Human Reliability Analysis (HRA), Root Cause Analysis (RCA), Consequence Analysis, Transportation Risk Analysis, Safety Integrity Level (SIL) reviews, Alarm management studies, and Quantitative Risk Assessments (QRA). Dr. Medhekar reviews detailed process designs, including process drawings such as Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID), Process Flow Diagrams (PFD), Material and Energy Balance (MEB) sheets, 3D Plant model layouts, control-building locations, Instrumentation and Control drawings, etc. Dr. Medhekar has also performed over 20 Site Audits/Project Health, Safety and Environment Reviews (PHSER) during the construction/commissioning stages of various international projects. In this context, he visits project sites, conducts field site walk-downs with Construction and Commissioning personnel, reviews Punch List items, discusses pending project action items, and performs Project Audits via PHSER reviews.

System Reliability and Availability and Maintainability

Using complex Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) models, Dr. Medhekar has developed Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) estimates for complex engineering systems and identified failure modes for various consumer products and industrial equipment.  

Dr. Medhekar's  project work and experience includes:

  • LNG Liquefication, LNG Gasification, and NGL Plants. Dr. Medhekar has worked on several large and mid-scale international LNG Liquefication plants, multiple domestic LNG Gasification Plants, and a large number of Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) plants. Dr. Medhekar's work includes performance-of-design reviews and risk assessment studies, assessment of potential large losses for insurance coverage, and International Arbitration/Litigation support.
  • Oil & Gas/Refinery and Refinery Expansion Projects. Dr. Medhekar has worked 25+ Oil and Gas, Refinery, and Refinery Expansion projects in Kuwait, the UAE, Oman, South Korea, Egypt, Japan, Thailand, Qatar, Taiwan, and the USA. Dr. Medhekar's involvement entailed direct on-site project work with EPC clients during the design, construction, and commissioning phases. His involvement also included design review as well as various Risk Assessment studies, including HAZOP, LOPA, QRA, RAM, and SIL studies.
  • Crude Oil Production, Pipeline Projects, Tank Farm Projects, and OSBL Projects. Dr. Medhekar has worked on several wellhead projects, offshore platform projects, Crude and Gas storage facilities, and large tank farm and pipeline projects, as well as OSBL (Outside Battery Limits) projects and vendor packages for Surge Separators, Chemical Dosing Packages, Water Knockout Tanks/stock tanks, Desalter Heaters, Transfer Pumps, Brackish Water Tanks and Pumps, Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) on Crude and Gas Lines, Pressurized Drains Vessels, and Sampling Cooler and Purge Gas Connections to Flare Headers.
  • Water Treatment and Waste Heat Recovery Projects. Dr. Medhekar has worked on several water and water treatment projects, including waste water treatment, water reclamation, Ultrafiltration, Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems, Produced Water Treatment Packages Chemical Injection, Ultra filtration Vendor Packages, Water Filtration Grit/Sludge/Backwash, Corrugated Plate Interceptor (CPI) separators, chemical injection vendor packages, Oily Water Sludge (OWS) treatment and lift stations, Effluent Water Treatment, Sanitary Waste water treatment, Utilities and Offsite (U&O) units, Sour Water Systems (SWS), Heat Recovery Unit (HRU) Projects, Incinerators/Waste Heat recovery projects, and Heat Recovery Unit (HRU) Projects.
  • RMP/PSM Projects.  Dr. Medhekar has worked with City/County Fire Departments and Local Emergency Response Providers to perform various Risk Management and Prevention programs (Hazard Assessment, Dispersion analysis) for several Chemical/Petrochemical Manufacturing facilities. He has provided lead technical contributions to more than 20 Risk Management Programs (RMP) and Process Safety Management (PSM) programs for major oil refineries and chemical plants.   
  • Dispersion Analysis of Hazardous Gas Releases. Dr. Medhekar has performed vapor cloud dispersion analysis for various chemicals, including Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), Chlorine (Cl2), Ammonia (NH3), Sulfur dioxide (SO2), Hydrogen Fluoride (HF), LNG, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), etc. He has performed dispersion analysis for source terms from process facilities, various modes of transportation (including rail and truck), and storage facilities. Dr. Medhekar is familiar with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved dispersion codes and commercial proprietary codes such as PHAST, ALOHA, CAMEO, AERMOD, and DEGADIS. Dr. Medhekar's work includes: characterizing the source term (vapor/liquid/aerosol release) and calculating the release rate (vapor, pool boiling, etc.); identifying the appropriate dispersion model (Neutrally buoyant or Dense Gas) and identifying the Levels of Concern (Exposure-Response Probability (ERPG)-1, ERPG-2 or ERPG-3); utilizing Local Meteorological conditions and data (wind speed and stability class); plotting Isopleths for concentrations of concern on site maps (as a function of time, using appropriate time averaging); plotting Hazard Footprints for given release scenarios and plotting Risk Contours for the release scenario/facility; and identifying the local demographics at risk for potential releases and communicating the vapor release and dispersion risk to regulators, plant managers, and legal counsel.  
  • Automotive Projects. Dr. Medhekar has performed numerous assessments and reviews for Automotive Systems, including Drive Units, Fuel Systems, Airbag Systems, Safety Restraint Systems (SRS), Electric Vehicle Battery Systems, Hydrogen (H2)-based Fuel Cells, and Autonomous Vehicle Drive Systems.
  • Utility and Power Plant Projects. Dr. Medhekar has performed various reliability studies, safety studies, risk assessments, and design reviews for various utilities and Power Plants in California and New York. Dr. Medhekar has also performed root cause investigations for start-up related Gas Turbine failures and design reviews of Waste Heat Recovery Units (WHRU).
  • Consumer Products & Biomedical Devices. Dr. Medhekar has performed numerous Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and reliability/risk assessments for various consumer products and biomedical devices for the proactive mitigation of potential product failures.
  • Nuclear Projects. During his prior tenure at PLG, Inc., Dr. Medhekar was involved in the performance of Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRA) for five Nuclear Plants in the USA which included Loss of coolant accidents (Level 1), Containment source term quantification (Level 2), and Dispersion modeling of radioactive materials in the air (Level 3).

Prior to joining Ä¢¹½tv, Dr. Medhekar held a variety of consulting and engineering positions with companies including PLG, Inc. in Newport Beach, California; the Center for Risk Studies and Safety in Santa Barbara, California; Indian Oil Refinery in Baroda, India; and Union Carbide in Thane, India.