Category: General Interest

ASIP Conference 2019

by Adrian DeWald

Hill Engineering is presenting about residual stress aerospace forgings at the upcoming 2019 United States Air Force Structural Integrity Program Conference (ASIP) in San Antonio, TX. The 2019 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 will include a summary of recent work to quantify the residual stress variability in aerospace forgings. The abstract text is presented below. Continue reading ASIP Conference 2019

Welcome Dallen Andrew

by Adrian DeWald

We would like to welcome Dallen Andrew to Hill Engineering. Dallen has 10 years of experience as a mechanical engineer supporting aircraft structural integrity programs. He received a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Utah State University in 2009, and a MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah in 2011.

During his career, Dallen has gained experience in many aspects of aircraft structural integrity, with specialization in the fatigue and fracture of metals. He has worked on many projects requiring him to utilize his capabilities in  fatigue crack growth analysis, fracture mechanics, durability and damage tolerance analysis (DADTA), fatigue testing, continuing damage, residual stress, finite element analysis (FEA), and non-destructive inspection.

Dallen is an organizer of the Engineered Residual Stress Implementation (ERSI) working group developing the analytical framework to allow the benefits from deep engineered residual stresses to be applied to aircraft inspection intervals for the United States Air Force. Dallen has significant experience supporting the A-10 and T-38 aircraft fleets. He also has significant expertise in the use of AFGROW and NASGRO fracture mechanics and damage tolerance software packages.

Please contact us today for additional information about Hill Engineering and the services we offer.

Engineered Residual Stress Implementation workshop

by Adrian DeWald

Hill Engineering is proud to support the USAF and their objective to advance damage tolerance analysis methods through the Engineered Residual Stress Implementation (ERSI) workshop. At this year’s ERSI meeting (September 12-13), Hill Engineering will meet with other stakeholders in the USAF aircraft community to review progress over the past year towards implementation of engineered residual stress in the USAF fleet. Continue reading Engineered Residual Stress Implementation workshop

Welcome John Watton

by Adrian DeWald

We would like to welcome John Watton to Hill Engineering. John comes with more than 30 years of experience, most recently from Arconic where he worked at the Arconic Technical Center. John obtained an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering jointly with Acadia University and the Technical University of Nova Scotia, and earned graduate degrees in mechanical engineering at Stanford University (masters, applied mechanics) and Carnegie Mellon University (Ph.D., design and expert systems).

Continue reading Welcome John Watton

2019 SEM Annual Conference and Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics

by Adrian DeWald

Hill Engineering will be presenting at the upcoming SEM Annual Conference and Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics in Reno, NV from June 3rd through June 6th. We invite you to come see us. This conference focuses on all areas of research and applications pertaining to experimental mechanics, and has evolved to encompass the latest technologies supporting:

  • optical methods
  • additive & advanced manufacturing
  • dynamic behavior of materials
  • biological systems
  • micro-and nano mechanics
  • fatigue and fracture
  • composite and multifunctional materials
  • residual stress
  • inverse problem methodologies
  • thermomechanics
  • time dependent materials.

Hill Engineering’s presentation will include a summary of recent work related to regularization uncertainty in slitting residual stress measurement. The abstract text is presented below.

This presentation describes the development of an uncertainty estimate for slitting residual stress measurement. The uncertainty estimate includes a newly developed uncertainty estimate related to the smoothing used in the stress calculation procedure called the regularization uncertainty. This work describes the approach to define the regularization uncertainty, shows the usefulness of the uncertainty estimate in a numerical experiment and a repeatability study. The uncertainty estimate is shown to meet an acceptance criterion that compares the calculated (measured) stress ± its uncertainty estimate to the true value for the numerical experiment or the mean stress from the repeatability study. This works shows the regularization uncertainty estimate to be a necessary contributor to the uncertainty in slitting and additionally the uncertainty estimate developed here reasonably predicts the uncertainty present in slitting method residual stress measurements.

If you are planning to attend the conference please stop by to discuss Hill Engineering’s capabilities in fatigue analysis and design and residual stress measurement . Please contact us for more information.

Meet our new 3D scanner

by Robert Pires
We at Hill Engineering are always looking for ways to improve the accuracy and efficiency of our laboratory. That’s why we recently acquired a 3D scanner for our laboratory, which will aid in many aspects of our residual stress measurement processes, as well as enable us to provide further services to our customers. In the newest video on our YouTube channel , we discuss some of the highlights of this tool. Continue reading Meet our new 3D scanner

Residual Stress 101

by Adrian DeWald

The upcoming SEM Annual Conference and Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics will include a Pre-conference Course titled: Residual Stress 101. Scheduled for Sunday, June 2, 2019 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m, the residual stress short-course aims to cover a broad, practical introduction to residual stresses for interested students, researchers and industrialists. Michael Prime, Michael Hill, Adrian DeWald, Antonio Baldi, and Cev Noyan will teach the course. Registration is currently open through the SEM website. Continue reading Residual Stress 101

Propulsion Safety & Sustainment Conference 2019

by Adrian DeWald
Hill Engineering is presenting at the upcoming Propulsion Safety & Sustainment Conference (PS&S) in Washington, D.C. from April 23rd through April 25th. We invite you to come see us. The mission of this conference is to proactively address or prevent problems with safety, readiness, reliability, and sustainment within the tri-service turbine engine fleet. This is to be accomplished through the transition of existing and emerging technologies. Hill Engineering’s presentation will include a summary of recent work related to residual stress measurement in support of production quality control. The abstract text is presented below. <!–more–>  

Aircraft engine and structural components are being produced from forgings with increasingly complex geometries in a wide range of aerospace alloys. The forging process involves a number of steps required to attain favorable material properties (e.g., heat treatment, rapid quench, cold work stress relieving, and artificial aging). These processing steps, however, also result in the introduction of residual stress. Excessive bulk residual stresses can have negative consequences including: part distortion during machining and/or during service, reduced crack initiation life, increased crack growth rates, and an overall reduction in part life. This presentation will describe an approach for quality management of residual stresses in aerospace forgings. The quality management system relies upon computational process modeling, residual stress measurement, and the integration of these concepts within the framework of a standard production quality system.  

If you are planning to attend the conference, please stop by to discuss Hill Engineering’s capabilities in fatigue analysis and design and residual stress measurement. Please contact us for more information.  



Illustration of residual stress in an aluminum forging before and after cold work residual stress relief