Hill Engineering Blog

Hill Engineering Now Admitted to Forging Industry Association

by Adrian DeWald

Hill Engineering was recently admitted to the Forging Industry Association (FIA). For more than 100 years, the FIA has been helping forging companies in North America to increase their global competitiveness. FIA’s producer member companies manufacture approximately 75% of the custom forgings volume produced in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Its supplier members manufacture materials and provide services used by the forging industry. Together, FIA’s 200 members comprise the only trade association dedicated to promoting and serving the forging industry in North America.

Hill Engineering awarded patent for innovative DART system

by Adrian DeWald

Hill Engineering was recently awarded US Patent 10,900,768 for residual stress measurement technology. Granted on January 26, 2021, the title of the patent is “Systems and Methods for Analysis of Material Properties of Components and Structures Using Machining Processes to Enable Stress Relief in the Material Under Test..” The patent abstract is available below. There is a link at the end to download and read it in full.

Case Study: Contour Method Uncertainty

by Robert Pires

The contour method is a residual stress measurement technique that provides a two-dimensional map of residual stress on a plane. Hill Engineering’s most recent case study explores how we determine the uncertainty in these measurements.

Rapid Forge Design brochure

by Robert Pires

Hill Engineering’s Rapid Forge Design is an automated tool for the fast and reliable design of 2-piece, closed-die impression forgings. The brochure below provides a rundown of the highlights from this powerful software, which can drastically reduce the time needed to design a forging to industry-accepted standards.

Continue reading Rapid Forge Design brochure

HE Hobby Spotlight: Robby – Fiction Author

by Camille Fowler

Over the past few months, we’ve highlighted a handful of employees and the hobbies they’ve either had for a while or ones they’ve picked up recently – when they aren’t solving all of the world’s residual stress related challenges. Our latest spotlight shines on Hill Engineering’s resident author, RD Pires (or Robby, as he’s come to be known by in the office), and his almost life-long passion of writing. I got the chance to interview Robby virtually where we talked about his latest novel, A Vast, Untethered Ocean, his inspiration, and his experience with self-publishing.

ASIP conference 2020

by Adrian DeWald

Hill Engineering recently participated in the virtual 2020 United States Air Force Structural Integrity Program Conference (ASIP). The ASIP Conference is specifically designed to bring together the world leaders in the area of aircraft structural integrity and to disseminate information on state-of-the-art technologies for aircraft structures in both the military and civilian fleets. Hill Engineering’s presentation included a summary of recent work related to developing a digital quality assurance record for typical aircraft maintenance processes like hold hole expansion. The abstract text is presented below along with a copy of the presentation slides.

New Publication about Hole-Drilling Precision and Uncertainty Estimation

by Adrian DeWald

Hill Engineering recently published new research detailing our efforts to quantify uncertainty for hole drilling residual stress measurements. This new approach provides a more accurate estimate of the measurement uncertainty associated with hole drilling. The paper is titled Precision of Hole-Drilling Residual Stress Depth Profile Measurements and an Updated Uncertainty Estimator and appears in Experimental Mechanics. The abstract text is available here along with a link to the publication.

Rapid Forge Design vlog demonstration

by Robert Pires

In our latest vlog, Camille sits down with John Watton to discuss our new Rapid Forge Design^TM software, as well as give a demonstration of its powerful capabilities. Watch the vlog above and be sure to take a look at the case study for more information.

HE Hobby Spotlight: Caleb

by Robert Pires

Caleb has taken up cycling during the pandemic.

What do IT bands and bandwagons have in common?

Not much, unless you’re HE team member Caleb. For him, these were both catalysts in kickstarting his newfound hobbies of 2020.

Case Study: Aluminum forging cold-work stress relief

by John Watton

As we discuss in a related case study, aluminum alloy heat treatment is a three-step process designed to achieve the desired properties. The process involves: 1) solution heat treatment (SHT) at an elevated temperature below the melting point, 2) quenching in a tank of fluid (e.g., 140-180°F water), and 3) age hardening. While providing good properties, the heat treatment has the negative side effect of creating bulk residual stress and distortion. One approach to mitigate this problem is the application of a post-heat treatment mechanical stress relief process.