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Quartus

Quartus Engineering is a consulting practice that, at least when I was there, specialized in Mechanical Engineering analysis, predominantly for the aerospace industry (please see their website for current info).  They are currently have offices in San Diego, CA and Herndon, VA.

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They had established a design group in San Diego which was (and I presume still is) doing some cutting edge work, and I was brought in to head up and build a design team in the Los Angeles office.  At the time, an analysis group was already established so I was to round out the capabilities of the LA office.

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The group was phenomenal to work for, and very conciensious about meeting deliverables on-schedule.  i would not hesitate to recommend them to any firm who could use their expertise.

 

Not casting aspersions, and keeping in mind this was a long time ago, they brought on a GM (just prior to my joining) who was very smart and very slick.  Unfortunately, his interest did not align with growing a business, and as a result of his management activities the LA office lost key people and accounts, and ultimately had to be shut down.

One of the coolest things that I can remember working with this group actually came from a synergy between my team (design) and the analysis group.

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We had won a contract to build a roller coaster track for a theme park in Asia.  We were given the "heart line" which is the path that the rider is on, and the strongback & rails were given to us as part of the input package.  Our job was to optimise the design of the support struture.  As part of that exercise, the analysis team put together this short video showing the train as it proceeds around the track, and the subsequent loading on the track support strucure elements.

Notice the colors that the structure changes to/from as the train passes by.  This feedback to the design team allowed us to selectively address the thickness and cross-member design to minimize the total amount of steel in the structure

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From this we were able to optimize the location and thickness of the frame members.

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