Recent Engineering Consulting

415 foot diameter, 1.5 million pound, GEODESIC DOME built by Temcor, Inc.

This dome housed the Howard Hughes Spruce Goose airplane next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. Temcor, Inc. is the biggest dome manufacturer/installer in the world. They have made domes twice as big as their nearest competitor and have never had one fail.

My friend (and a co-patentee on the Robosaurus), Phil Emmons, owner of PWS Motion Control is a hydraulics expert. He was involved with Temcor on one development project involving huge 13 foot stroke hydraulic cylinders that were used to erect a 300 foot tall tower piece-by-piece from underneath (growing it like a beanstalk!). Afterwards they asked him if he knew any creative structural engineer types who could help them out with fresh ideas. Phil suggested me. The current method of erecting the big domes on-site worked, but could they automate parts of it? Might there be some simpler, faster and cheaper way to do it all? Temcor had some ideas of their own, but just weren't totally happy with them and didn't have enough free manpower to focus on the task. Time for Dougie to the rescue - maybe!

How do you build a geodesic dome that is 400 foot in diameter, 130 foot tall and weighs 1.5 million pounds? AND after you build it, how do you lift it up 60 feet and permanently secure it's base to a 60 foot tall cylindrical concrete retaining wall?  What happens if a 40 mile per hour wind comes up?  The amount of aerodynamic lift created by a 40 MPH wind flowing over the dome's curved surfaces exceeds 1.5 million pounds.  Meaning it wants to fly - it is after all nothing but a rather big umbrella.
Interesting set of problems to be solved!  Unfortunately, the answers are now the proprietary property of Temcor, Inc. so I can't disclose any of it here.  At one summary meeting their VP of engineering said "Excellent work, Doug" three times in two hours!  That certainly is a nice reward and the money is nice, too.

So what do I really do as an "Engineering Consultant"?
When I consult for larger companies, it's primarily as a brainstormer for new ideas/approaches.  Sometimes all I really do is help VP’s and their staffs look at the problems they are trying to solve from new and original perspectives. They listen and ponder some of the bizarre alternatives I have fun throwing at them and sometimes, not always, can define a new track for a more cost effective solution.

In the beginning with any new company, I have to spend time asking a lot of questions in order to better understand the actual project objectives myself.  I am not necessarily any kind of expert in the companies specific field, nor do I claim to be.  They are the specialists, I usually know zip relative to them!  Not surprisingly, my nonending questions as to why are they thinking about doing this or that, this way or that way ends up helping them to better define just what they are really trying to do.

Technical Choices - Essential VS desirable VS wonderful.
Typically, it can take me a couple of weeks working with the company just to help them clearly define what are they really trying to accomplish and all the boundaries.   I will then take all the data I accumulated in the first couple of weeks and make a team specification in the form of a matrix of all the items.  I break it down into what is absolutely essential, what is really desirable and what would they really love for each and every single item.   Then, we are at a point where we can finally get to work!

You should have seen the long spec list I created for new improved fire out of the Batmobile tail fins.  The producers and special effects company were tired of the Bic lighter-like, wimpy, colored fire coming out of the tips.  They wanted an F-18 afterburning jet-like exhaust with shock diamonds - without the hazards and noise of a big jet engine on the set.  That was a tough one - no easy solution and it cost too much to digitize it in.  So nothing happened.   Maybe next time for Batman 5?

What are the most important factors in any engineering job?
Always, always it is all about accomplishing a quality job for the lowest possible cost and in the fastest possible time frame.  New projects happen or don’t happen (get canceled) because of costs/available budgets.  A lot of my work goes into detailed cost breakdowns that try to answer what the total costs of one approach versus another might be.  When you break it all into these small pieces, usually one or two parts of a new design concept standout as the $ killers.  This is fine - because it immediately tells you what to attack, what you have rethink/redesign/solve more cleverly in order to cut costs.

During this preliminary process there is also a lot of interaction, though not 8 hours per day, 5 days a week.  There is also pondering, which is best done alone.  I am not a magic pontificating Guru who tells them the answer, but more of a person who helps the company engineers think of new and different possibilities for solutions.

How do you get good at this?
I read a lot. I think a lot.  I try out tons of ideas.  I learn from all my failed ideas.  I waste zero time following any organized sports - baseball, football, basketball, etc.  Instead of passively watching professional athletes, I'd rather go for a run, a bike ride or a walk and do something I enjoy that directly benefits my body.  Some of my friends are rabid fans of this or that team and think I'm "different".  It's not just the time, it's about choices.  I am not a "time" fanatic - I easily rationalize the passive time I spend watching Voyager, Highlander, Babylon 5, Herc AND hunky Xena.

It seems I have an unusual knack to easily grasp where new technologies can go.  I think Science Fiction writers are terrific at that.  I'm in between ordinary people and the Sci-Fi writers.  I just want to actually apply the good stuff to the world now - build cool new stuff in the present.  Fortunately, I have acquired a good math, mechanical, and structural background, so I can do reality checks with analysis.  I never am just guessing.

A lot of company people are so busy with their day to day duties, they don’t end up doing all the mental exploring I do, nor spend the time pondering the possibilities and what ifs, let alone trying to keep up with all the new developments in many unrelated technical fields.  I enjoy it.  It's my entertainment!  It also seems to almost be in my genes to be especially concerned with always striving for the lowest cost, simplest solutions. Maybe that $ concern is what I have become best at?  I think that my frugality in engineering may simply be the result of my childhood - growing up on the south side of Chicago, Illinois six feet from the railroad tracks. Not poor, but definitely not rich!

or back to SECTION 4 LIST
or go back to