What we love to do is invent; it is how we started. We saw a need for increased protection of our troops and thought of ways to apply the engineering knowledge from automobile open wheel racing to vehicles used by the military. Both types of vehicles experience tremendous forces applied on them just in very different circumstances. In racing, drivers experience high impact crashes and often walk away even though the vehicle is destroyed. Unfortunately, in Afghanistan and Iraq too many of our soldiers are not walking away from IED attacks.
Our approach was to improve upon the principles of frangibility, material selection, and general mechanical design found in racing in the design of a military vehicle to see whether we could provide increased protection to the soldiers. We also looked for alternative approaches to vent the blast energy away from the vehicle. What we came up with is multiple “chimneys” and it is dramatically improving the protection of these vehicles.
As engineers who invent, we take the same approach with our clients’ projects as we have to our own. We look for an efficient and simple design approach to create solutions that meet our clients’ needs. Our engineers combine their in-depth understanding of mechanics, kinematics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, material science and energy management with their experience to design smart solutions. It does not matter if the project is large or small, our focus is the same: how can we make products that perform better?
We believe that both internal and external collaboration is the key to our success. Our engineers cross over multi-disciplines and employ the principles of finite element analysis and dynamics to help drive great design. When we do not have the answers, we partner early with the experts. This helps us to understand the latest manufacturing techniques, new state-of-the-art materials, and any other factors that will impact how we design the solution. Good design cannot be performed in a vacuum; it requires multiple inputs and several iterations to be successful.