Noureddine Bénichou

Roles and responsibilities

A Principal Research Officer within the Fire Safety Group. My research includes modeling and experimentation of fire resistance of structures, fire safety in buildings, fire risk analysis, and impact of wildfires on the wildland-urban interface.

Current research and/or projects

Research and expertise in:

  • Evaluating the fire resistance performance of structures
  • Developing fire risk assessment models for evaluating fire safety in the built environment
  • Advancing the understanding of fire conditions and impacts, and providing solutions that mitigate human and economic losses due to fires, accelerate product commercialization and increase market share
  • Providing solutions to mitigate the impact of wildfires on communities with the wildland-urban interface area
  • Developing and applying performance-based design tools
  • Using research outcomes as the basis for developing fire safety standards, regulations, and guidelines

Research and/or project statements

  • As part of a research and development initiative with Infrastructure Canada to study climate-resilience of buildings and core public infrastructure, leading a large project to evaluate resilience of communities and structures from the threat of wildfires and develop a National Guide for Wildland-Urban Interface fires
  • Principal investigator for an international project to develop an Extreme Index to evaluate the effects of wildfires and flooding.
  • Technical lead in the evaluation of using mass timber in mid-rise and tall wood buildings
  • Contributor to the development of a Virtual Reality (VR) lab and VR training tools for various groups
  • Contributor the development of a National data centre for fire statistics
  • Technical lead to evaluate and quantify risks of fires on occupants and properties

Education

  • Ph.D., Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, 1994
  • M.A.Sc., Civil Engineering, University of Ottawa, 1988
  • B.A.Sc., Civil Engineering, University of Technology of Oran, Algeria, 1985

Professional activities/interests

  • Convenor of the international committee ISO/TC92/SC4/WG7 “Verfication and Validation of Models”
  • Expert on the Panel of Standard Council Canada (SCC), overseeing many ULC Committees for standard development on test methods for building materials, and performing lab accreditation assessments for SCC.
  • Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carleton University
  • Expert on the CSCE committee on Innovation and IT in Civil Engineering
  • Past Chair of the international committee ISO/TC92/SC4 “Fire safety engineering”
  • Past Convenor of the international committee ISO/TC92/SC4/WG12 “Structures in fire”

Affiliations

  • Canadian Society of Civil Engineers 
  • Canadian Standards Association
  • Society of Fire Protection Engineers
  • Underwriters Laboratories Canada
  • Standard Council of Canada

Awards

  • NRC CRC Best Colleague Award in 2017
  • NRC CRC Team Work Award in 2012
  • NRC CRC Lorne Gold Award in 2010 and 2011
  • NRC CRC Outstanding Research Award in 2009 and 2010
  • NRC Outstanding Partnership Award in 2009
  • NRC CRC George Seadan Award for innovative solutions in research in 2000

Key publications

  • H. Hajiloo, M. F. Green, M. Noël, N. Bénichou, and M. Sultan, “GFRP-reinforced concrete slabs: fire resistance and design efficiency,” J. Compos. Constr., vol. 23, no. 2, p. 04019009, Apr. 2019, doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)CC.1943-5614.0000937.
  • P. Intini, E. Ronchi, S. M. V. Gwynne, and N. Bénichou, “A review of design guidance on wildland urban interface fires,” LUTVDG/TVBB, no. 3213, 2017.
  • S. Gwynne, E. Ronchi, N. Benichou, M. Kinateder, E. Kuligowski, I. Gomaa, M. Adelzadeh, “Modeling and mapping dynamic vulnerability to better assess WUI evacuation performance,” Fire Mater., May 2019, doi: 10.1002/fam.2708.
  • G. Proulx and N. Bénichou, “Photoluminescent stairway installation for evacuation in office buildings,” Fire Technol., vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 1–25, Aug. 2009, doi: 10.1007/s10694-009-0102-z.
  • N. Bénichou, H. Mostafaei, M. F. Green, and K. Hollingshead, “The impact of fire on seismic resistance of fibre reinforced polymer strengthened concrete structural systems,” Can. J. Civ. Eng., vol. 40, no. 11, pp. 1044–1049, 2013, doi: 10.1139/cjce-2012-0521.

Noureddine Bénichou

Principal Research Officer
Construction
1200 Montreal Road
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R6
Preferred language: English
Other(s): Arabic
Telephone: 343-990-8788

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Expertise

Environment