MACHINE AND TOOL DESIGN:
Causey Engineering has experience in a number of heavy industries, and knows where commonality can apply. This is also apparent when researching patents.
There are only six basic machine elements that are available to design even the most complicated mechanical machinery. Examples are pictured below: lever, wheel and axel, pulley, screw, wedge or inclined plane, and spring. This was made so clear when I inspected a model of the Mars Rover. This machine used the best and brightest, it took long to develop, money was no object, and yet the Rover’s mechanical parts have no new machine elements. And apparently it will always be so. The point is that some aspects of machinery and tooling are not as unique as some would claim.
Machine and tool design for mass produced products, like a car, wrench, ladder or wrist watch, where a dollar saved adds up, is different from a drilling rig spider or paper machine for example. A Cadillac VP of Engineering told me that if there is one thing Detroit engineers can do is design costs out of a product. And they test and retest everything so it performs a planned length of time. Paper machines last well over 50 years, and the rolls turn a distance of over 100,000 miles every three months. Those comparisons illustrate a difference between cars and paper machines. Industrial equipment in general are examples of “built to last” type design. They have little incentive to use mass production techniques. Accordingly, an Experts design experience shapes their paradigm on analyzing a case.
Obviously knowledge of the mechanical aspects of machinery and tools involves much more than the basic machine elements. Forces, stress and strains, materials, energy & transmission, motion, friction, measurements, stability, safety and a host of other aspects are part and parcel of the subject on machinery and tools.
Causey has a unique service we can provide to litigation related to machinery and tooling.