Customer Case Studies

Damping Technologies  (FEA)

Noise and vibration control through innovation - For more than 15 years, Damping Technologies Inc. (DTI) has been solving noise and vibration problems, primarily for makers of automobiles and aircraft but its products can also be found in yachts, skis and computer hard drives. DTI’s advantage is a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic properties of materials including metals, elastomers, plastics, polymers, glass enamels and composites. Using this knowledge, engineers and scientists create application-specific solutions that in most cases are lightweight, add-on countermeasures, such that the design of the customer’s part does not need to be changed.  Because the goal of DTI’s products is to suppress noise, vibrations and/or high cycle fatigue damage due to resonance response, much of the company’s R&D work involves dynamic finite element analysis (FEA). These analyses can take a long time to solve. “The type of analysis we do requires a lot of iteration and a lot of resolution in the model in terms of degrees of freedom,” explains Kristopher Notestine, manager of R&D at DTI. “A typical analysis on a very small structure can take four to eight days to run.”   read more

Summit Tool Design  (CAD)
Trickle-down time pressure - Founded in 1991, Summit Tool Design creates designs for sheet metal stamping dies. The company’s customer base consists of tool and die shops serving a broad range of industries, including automotive, agriculture/outdoor power equipment, hardware, furniture, electrical, electronics and power tools.  Summit has always been under pressure to turn these jobs around quickly, and this is a trend that doesn’t seem to be letting up. “Every day, customers are pushing me to work faster,” says Scott Christensen, founder and president of the company. “The push comes from the OEMs down to my customers, and then from my customers to me. We’re all under pressure to deliver faster with fewer errors and oversights.”  read more