When engineers think of fasteners, they usually think along traditional lines: screws, nuts, bolts, cotter pins and washers, rivets, etc. But if these same engineers are tasked with reducing costs, they look outside of their comfort zone for a fastener that will do the job and meet their reduction targets.
Design Analysis
Once commissioned tanks, pipes and pressure vessels begin to corrode. Periodic inspections identify degraded regions. Engineers then assess the reduced safety margins and determine if repairs are necessary. This process is known as a Fitness for Service (FFS) Assessment. Finite Element Analysis can be used to aid in FFS assessments by predicting stresses in complex geometry with large areas of wall thinning.
When I volunteered to judge the Finger lakes FIRST Robotics competition, I had no idea how much I was about to learn about business, and about how strongly teamwork correlates to success.
It's a battle as old as Finite Element Analysis. How do you achieve accurate results while balancing size and solve time of a FEA model? Simple models may solve quickly, but are the results accurate? And, complex models may provide very accurate results, but solve time could be hours or even days. In this blog we'll discuss Convergence & Mesh Independence and see how it relates to this age-old battle.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a powerful tool for evaluating complex structural problems. Like all analytical software, bad results stem from bad input. We call it the "Garbage in, Garbage Out" principle of FEA. Sometimes, with perfect inputs, you can still get the wrong answer using FEA. There are a lot of ways that your finite element analysis can take a wrong turn. So how do you know if your results are correct? The answer is validation and verification (V&V). This week we'll apply V&V to a simple beam bending problem.
We were able to help our client save over $40,000 on the design and construction of an articulating solar array.
Design is where science meets art. Many people think of engineering design as math and science, but really, the design is where the solution takes shape. Math and science are merely used to back up the design. The problem is that too many people blow right through the design to work on math and science part.
A nuclear plant found that they needed to protect pipes from wind driven missiles. We designed a barrier system for them using 3D modeling and FEA.
Using FEA and hand calculations, we were able to help a nuclear utility evaluate RCP Seal Leakoff pipes and components for high temperature and pressure.
We worked with a local utility to help design a foundation for a transformer. The design included the spill basin for transformer oil.