It turns out that kind of work is in demand, especially when it comes with his brand of experience.
Nearly two years into the founding of MCB Engineering Consulting, Dail has learned that along with serving some of the larger companies that rely on his particular expertise in aluminum extrusion built up over decades with the industry leader, there is also demand for his skills from small to mid-sized companies that need a pair of educated eyes only on occasion.
"A lot of small and medium-sized companies have a need for engineering support from time to time, but not enough to bring their own full time engineering staff on board," he explains.
For example, an executive in the heavy truck industry sought out Dail's services because the client had an idea for a unique way to solve a common problem in that industry – an idea that has since earned the company a patent. Before putting it to use, however, his customers wanted to see the results from a finite element stress analysis.
"He didn't even know what that was. I filled the gap for him," says Dail. "When you have the fundamentals in mechanical engineering, you understand what the problem involves and how stress analysis will help the customer. You can connect the problem to the tools using the right basis of experience and training."
Not that it's all as easy as it may sound. Dail stresses that the tools are just the start of any analysis. "I'm not just a guy that runs analysis programs. I can apply 35 years of experience to the program and understand what the results are trying to tell me without getting lost in all of the data. The results are an idealization of what's going to happen in the field. You can explore the results and know how to turn them into something that will be useful."
While he finds the software impressive, he believes the software requires consistent use for effectiveness. "I don't think any FEA package is anything you'd want to use only occasionally."
He uses SpaceClaim for model creation and pre-processing for analysis. "Combining SpaceClaim with NEi Nastran is a really neat fit in my view." He didn't want anything that required a history tree, "I can take a model from almost any other CAD package and begin manipulating it without worrying about the directory tree used to create it. It makes it my job a whole lot more efficient."
"I'm not just the design engineer. If I've got a stress concern about it, I can drop anything into NEi and determine if the direction I'm taking makes any sense. Then I can create the necessary drawings in SpaceClaim if that's what the customer is asking me to do, and document the changes in whatever format they need."
It's the free reign and know-how to solve problems that makes an independent consultancy like MCB Engineering valuable to his clients.
About MCB Engineering Consulting
MCB Engineering Consulting, LLC offers custom mechanical engineering solutions to challenging problems. The tools applied in support of this effort include design and development engineering, advanced stress analysis and failure analysis.