Case Studies

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL: DYSON (April 2011)

You know the feeling when an everyday product lets you down? “I could have designed this better myself,” you think. But how many of us turn our thoughts into actions? James Dyson does. He is a man who likes to make things work better, and with his research team, he has developed products that have achieved sales worth over $6 billion in more than 45 countries.

Dyson Technology manufactures and sells a wide range of best-in-class home appliances, including vacuum cleaners, fans, heaters, hair dryers, and lighting. The company has expanded its product range over the years, including bladeless fans, air purifiers and humidifiers. Of course, there are actually blades in the bladeless products, but they are hidden within the casing on a rotating compressor impeller.

The Holmes Group of Milford, MA, is a leading manufacturer of fans and other small appliances featuring con­temporary design and superior function. The Holmes® brand of consumer/commercial fans is typically sold through major home improvement centers and includes a high-velocity floor fan designed for cooling large areas. One of their models, a 20-inch diameter, multiple-speed fan, needed improvement in performance, along with quieter operation and a more fashionable appearance — the three formed-metal paddle blades were noisy and made the product look dated.

Development of the manufacturing campus in Wujiang, China was the largest one-time investment in Ingersoll Rand history. The site produces Thermo KingTM climate control products, including marine refrigeration units that protect seafood and power generators.   HVAC units for bus and truck transportation are also manufactured at this site, along with the Centac centrifugal compressor.

Founded in 1891, Swedish company Scania AG is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of heavy commercial vehicles, buses, coaches, and engines for both marine and industrial applications. Scania is known for its focus on safety, efficiency, and sustainability. Because overall engine efficiency is directly related to turbocharger efficiency, the company has invested heavily in tools and capabilities for tailor-made turbocharger development. In order to enable rapid generation of new hardware, Scania takes a modular approach to turbocharger development. By making the various components “plug-and-play,” engineers can generate valuable trade-off curves cost-effectively (see Figure 1). Note that the turbine inlet is generally twin-scroll for dual exhaust system application.

For over two decades, Technical Directions Inc. (TDI) of Ortonville, Michigan, has been developing low-cost, expendable turbojet propulsion systems for mini-cruise missiles and other military applications. The success of TDI’s unique miniature engines – as small as 4.5 inches in diameter – can be directly attributed to the engineering breakthroughs achieved in the development of their base engine technology, much of which was funded by the U.S. Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program.

Teleflex Aerospace Manufacturing Group (formerly Sermatech Manufacturing Group) of Cincinnati, Ohio, provides a diverse range of manufacturing and engineering services for producing both prototypes and production quantities of aerospace components. To manufacture blisk components, Teleflex uses a combination of electrochemical machining (ECM) and five-axis milling. Their typical approach is to form the blades with ECM and then mill the hub surface.