Sofronas, A.
Tony Sofronas, D. Eng, was the worldwide lead mechanical engineer for ExxonMobil Chemicals before retiring. He now owns Engineered Products, which provides consulting and engineering seminars on machinery and pressure vessels. Dr. Sofronas has authored two engineering books and numerous technical articles on analytical methods.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 115: A method for analyzing catastrophic type failures
A portion of my consulting career involved investigating catastrophic type failures on machines, pressure vessels and structures in the industry.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 114: A local flooding event at a plant site
During a heavy rainstorm, flooding occurred at a plant location that had never before flooded.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 113: The benefits of an engineering education and advanced degrees
It has been a long time since I graduated with my engineering degrees, but I feel qualified to discuss them after many years in industry.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 112: Remote failure analysis consulting
An article on “Remote training of personnel”1 is interesting and appropriate at this time of COVID-19. It outlines the difficulties in presenting remote training courses and suggests methods that can help.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 111: Predict the cause of cracks in gear teeth and time to failure
In the practice of engineering, we sometimes wish for better hindsight or foresight.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 110: A checklist for vibration analysis
Periodically, I receive questions from engineers around the world on why a piece of critical machinery is vibrating excessively.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 109: Catastrophic failures and the human factor
A catastrophic failure is defined (for this article) as a failure where lives have been lost and human causes have been a factor.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 108—Failure analysis computations differ from design
When equipment fails, it indicates weak points and usually exposes the cause(s) of the failure.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 107: Weld failures in vibrating equipment
Vibrating equipment can be machines, such as vibrating screens, conveyor pans or a combination of both, that are designed to transport, sort or dry materials.
Engineering Case Histories: Case 106: Delayed fireball type explosions
When a vessel containing a flammable liquid under pressure (such as those in an LNG road tanker truck) ruptures and ignites, a vapor fireball explosion can occur.
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