Machinery design and FEA for industrial equipment
Frames, lifting structures, mechanisms and material handling equipment designed for the way they are loaded and built, with weld fatigue and resonance worked out before steel is cut.
Industrial machines are often built in small numbers, sized from experience and proven in the field. That works until a new model is larger, faster or lighter than the last one. Then a weld that never gave trouble starts cracking, or a frame resonates at a running speed nobody planned for.
More about machinery and industrial equipment
A new machine is best specified properly first: its duty and loads, the production volume and what the fabricator needs to build it well. Concepts are compared against that before detail design starts. FEA then shows stress and deflection in welded fabrications and machined parts under working, lifting and overload cases, including the fatigue life of weld details under repeated duty. Modal studies show whether frames and guards are excited by motors or gear meshes. Where bulk material passes through the machine, DEM shows how it flows and what load it puts on chutes and hoppers.
Our work on bulk and construction material handling systems, sold worldwide, shows the whole route. Sealed vertical chutes and modular containment, crane-compatible rolling platforms and high-power inverter drives with remote control were developed with FEA and DEM and issued as full drawing packages and bills of materials for fabrication. Material handling throughput in high-rise construction rose by over 50%, and the chute system is dust-free and damage-free. The product line also scales.
Typical equipment: material handling systems, chutes and hoppers, cranes and lifting equipment, agricultural and forestry machines, conveyors and processing plant, gearboxes, presses and test rigs.
Machinery problems we help with
Where will the welded frame crack?
Stress at weld toes and roots under the duty cycle you supply, with fatigue life for each critical detail and the changes that would extend it.
Is the boom or lifting structure strong and stiff enough?
Stress and deflection in booms, jibs and lifting beams through their working range, including overload and the proof load you specify.
Is the vibration coming from a resonance?
Natural frequencies and mode shapes of frames, guards and mounts compared with motor speeds, gear mesh frequencies and impact rates.
How will bulk material behave in the chute or hopper?
DEM shows flow, blockage risk and the loads that moving material puts on liners and walls, so chutes, hoppers and transfer points are shaped before they are built.
Can the fabrication be made cheaper to build?
Fewer parts, standard plate thicknesses and sections, welds the fabricator can reach and profiles nested to cut waste, with the effect on strength shown.
Will the test rig stay stiff enough to measure accurately?
Stiffness and natural frequencies of rig frames and fixtures, so the rig measures the product and its own flexibility stays out of the results.
Stages and studies most used in machinery and industrial equipment
Concept design
Alternative layouts for a frame, mechanism or handling system, sketched and backed by calculations, compared on duty and on cost to build.
Stress analysis
Fabrications, castings, pins and bolted connections under working and lifting loads, with contact at pins and bearing faces.
Fatigue analysis
Life of welded joints and machined parts under repeated working loads, assessed against the code or standard you specify.
Vibration and modal analysis
Natural frequencies and harmonic response of frames, mounts and the supports of rotating equipment.
DEM for bulk materials
Discrete element modelling of granular material through chutes, hoppers and transfer points, with the loads it puts on the structure.
Engineering Pack
Fabrication drawings with weld details and a full bill of materials, ready for your own shop or your fabricator to quote and build from.
Production
Machined parts and sheet metal fabrication from short runs upwards, with support when a change is needed once the machine is in service.
Before you start
What to send us
- CAD or fabrication drawings (STEP or native), or paper drawings to convert
- Working loads, duty cycle and any overload or proof load cases
- Materials and weld details
- Motor speeds, gear ratios or other sources of excitation
- Bulk material type, particle size and flow rate, for handling equipment
- Photographs and locations of any cracks seen in the field
Can you work from a part that has cracked in service?
Yes. Photographs, crack locations and the duty the machine sees let us reproduce the stress pattern, show why the crack started where it did and design a repair or a revised part.
How are welds represented?
At the level of detail the fatigue assessment needs, often with the weld geometry and toe modelled so that stresses near the toe can be read against the code or standard you specify.
Can one design cover a range of machine sizes?
Often, yes. Where sizes share a common layout, a parametric model and studies of the largest, smallest and key sizes between them show how stress scales and which sizes need local changes.
What does DEM add to a structural study?
It gives the loads that moving bulk material puts on chutes, hoppers and liners, which are difficult to estimate any other way, and those loads can then be applied to the FEA model.
Tell us about the machine and its duty
