Diego Benitez

It is my responsibility to supervise and approve according to the standards and the contract, all designs, specifications of materials, equipment, accessories and devices for fire protection systems and human safety for the railway project “Light rail of the AVE 80, in Medellin, Colombia. I am also responsible for the coordination with the client, the installation contractors, maintenance personnel and the fire department, for the execution of on-site tests, acceptance tests and commissioning of the systems, including emergency ventilation systems, evacuation, extinguishing, equipment and facilities of the train yard workshop such as: the paint shop, welding, compressed air, forging, installation of machine tools: vertical and horizontal lathe, presses, grinding machine, bridge cranes.

Throughout almost 17 years with this company; among other aspects, I ended up performing technical audits at fire pump factories in Aurora, Chicago, coordination of watertightness testing for fire doors, and special enclosures, in Bilbao, Spain for a 23 road tunnel project (Túnel de la Línea, 8.7 km). I performed design and construction supervision and approval, coordinated fire department inspection activities, conducted acceptance testing of water-based fire suppression systems, clean agents, passive protection, detection and fire alarms for projects such as: government buildings, trains, train yards, industrial plants, hydroelectric power plants, thermoelectric power plants, airports, storage warehouses, road and urban tunnels, mines, drinking water and wastewater treatment plants. I developed the designs, calculations and drawings for all process and utility piping for two paper mills of Kimberly Clark, I was coordinator and group leader for several projects mentioned above, with technical attention to private clients and state entities, and in public-private projects.

I also served the internal client, through permanent coordination with the disciplines of architecture, electrical, electronics, structural, civil, environmental, energy, roads, and hydrology, and the areas of budgets, accounting, costs and human resources. I was responsible for the development of fire risk analysis for road tunnel projects, and for these: coordination of commissioning and advice during operations for the adjustment of electromechanical emergency systems, coordination and drafting of emergency, operation and maintenance plans for fire protection, ventilation and evacuation systems. I became a specialist in fire protection for the development of this type of projects during 15 continuous and progressive years, with the qualification of Expert by the University of Cantabria, in the use of CFD computational simulation tools for fire and evacuation. For the hydroelectric power plants I was in charge of the development of the basic and detailed engineering of the auxiliary mechanical systems such as: compressed air, machine tools, firewall enclosures, elevators, cable shaft inspection funiculars, treatment plants, and pumping.