Structural Analysis

• Full structural analysis support, including dynamic analysis, steady state, random and time dependent modes.
• Experienced with all finite element codes – NASTRAN, STARDYNE, IMAGES-3D, STAAD, ANSYS, and others.
• Have analyzed many items, ranging from:
  • Computer workstations.
  • Cryogenic vessels and piping.
  • Optics in space environments.
  • Space chamber panels.
  • Non-woven calender rolls.
  • Pressure Vessels.
  • 150’ Cold boxes

Structural Design

• Full structural design & engineering support.
• Selected hardware and developed structural designs to achieve structural design goals.
• Fully familiar with all design codes, including AISC, ASME, and Mil Handbook 5.
• Have designed many items, ranging from:
  • Cryogenic thermal isolators.
  • Boiler Supports.
  • Optics Supports.
  • Blood Filters.
  • Refinery Piping/Vessels.
  • Self Supporting Towers.
  • Equipment/Piping Foundations.

Experienced Professional Engineers registered in CA, CT, MA, NY, and other states, capable of checking all computer results by hand.

Will take on total project responsibility from design through successful operation.

THERMAL/FLUID ENGINEERING SUPPORT

Topsfield Engineering Service provides full thermal design engineering support for your projects under development. Thermal design is a process that involves:

Establishment of specific design thermal limits for temperature, fluid flow, and heat flow.

Development of a thermal design strategy to achieve a design consistent with those limits and the requirements of the other disciplines.

Thermal and Flow modeling, using network or finite element methods, to develop the design.

 Experimentation and testing to prove the design.

Documentation of the design requirements, strategy, analysis/experimentation work, and design verification test results. For equipment development, where heat flow is a factor, our clients are discovering that thermal design and accurate thermal analysis, early in the design cycle, are essential to successful (on time and within budget) product development.

We stand ready to support you in executing any or all of the steps in the thermal design process.

THERMAL/FLUID NETWORK MODELING

Network modeling is, in fact, a computerized hand calculation in that it uses classical heat transfer/fluid flow correlations and equations. The thermal engineer defines the nodal & fluid lump connections and boundary conditions and the computer then solves the network with ease. Network modeling allows the thermal engineer to focus on the design requirements and not get bogged down in error-prone hand computations or over-simplify the problem and thus miss or ignore significant thermal paths.

Many space-based systems rely on round or space-based systems may also include a fluid (or fluids) to transport heat to or from the equipment under design.

Steady-state thermal model output includes node temperatures, node heat flow details, and temperature profiles. If the model is executed using a time-dependent mode, results include node temperatures and heat stored at selected time steps, end time node heat flow and storage details, and heat up/cooldown plots for selected nodes.

Network models are usually developed using C&R Thermal Desktop®, a graphical user interface (GUI) for C&R SINDA/FLUINT, the network analyzer, Over the years, C & R Technologies has made significant improvements in the capability of SINDA/FLUINT and it is still possible to add logic to control boundary conditions or include proprietary techniques for heat transfer or fluid flow calculation.

TES engineers will also work with any other proprietary network modeling codes or finite element codes, as required by our clients.

With sound modeling, designs are built with a high degree of assurance that they will function, thermally, as expected. The results are:

• Designs with lower development costs.
• Reduced design cycle time.
• No thermal surprises when the equipment is put into service.

Engineering design is a purposeful activity directed toward the goal of fulfilling human needs, particularly those which can be met by the technological factors of our culture. It is brought to bear, when necessary, when the appropriate technology is complex and its application not obvious and when prediction and optimization of the outcome requires analytical procedures.

Its philosophy consists of three major parts, namely, a set of consistent principles and their logical derivatives, an operational discipline which leads to action, and finally a critical feedback system which measures the advantages, detects the shortcomings, and illuminates the directions of improvement.

Generally, engineering design is product oriented and these products enter and must be compatible with the four processes in the production-consumption cycle, namely; production, distribution, consumption, and recovery or disposal. The designer is obliged to take account, in proper measure, of these differing viewpoints and to synthesize their separate objectives into a coherent design.

The design project can generally be broken down into three phases:

• Feasibility study

• Preliminary design

• Detailed design

A feasibility study is undertaken to achieve a set of useful solutions. It consists of such work as follows:

1. Determine the validity of need.
1. Identify design parameters, constraints, and major design criteria.
1. Develop a list of plausible solutions.
1. Sort plausible solutions for useful solutions based on physical realizability, economic worthwhileness, and financial feasibility.

A substantial amount of interaction with the permanent staff is essential here, since a great deal of creative thought has usually occurred prior to engaging engineering design services from Topsfield Engineering Service.

With a set of useful solutions, preliminary design is undertaken to establish the best design concept. Typically this effort contains the following:

1. Compare alternatives against major design criteria and constraints until a superior design surfaces.
1. Analyze the superior design for sensitivity, compatibility, stability, life behavior, and obsolescence.
1. Build and evaluate an experimental design.
1. Simplify the design.

The final phase, detailed design, begins with the concept evolved in the preliminary design. Its purpose is to furnish the engineering description of a tested and producable design.

This is decision time. With a series of alternatives looked at and one solution looked at rather carefully, it is time to decide to move forward with a particular design or to abandon the design as infeasible.

With a decision to proceed, an overall, but provisional, synthesis is accomplished. It is developed as a master layout. With this as a basis, the detailed design or specification of components is carried forward. From time to time, exigencies in the detailed work at the component level may dictate changes in the master layout; therefore it has provisional status. As the paper design progresses, experimental design is appropriately initiated. Experimental models are constructed to checkout untried ideas which are not suitable to final disposition by analysis. Components, partial prototypes, and finally complete prototypes are tested as the need for information arises. This information accruing from the testing programs, provides a basis for redesign and refinement until an engineering description of a proven design is accomplished.

In summary, the design process describes the gathering, handling, and creative organizing of information relevant to the problem situation; it prescribes the derivation of decisions which are optimized, communicated, and tested or otherwise evaluated; it has an iterative character, for often in the doing, new information becomes available or new insights are gained which require the repetition of earlier operations. It resembles the general process of problem-solving in the main features, but it uses sharper, and for the most part, more analytical tools, which have been specially shaped and sharpened for the problems of engineering design. It carries the process through analysis, synthesis, and evaluation & decision, and extends it into the realms of optimization, revision, and implementation.