EXPLODE: The EXPerimental Laboratory Of Destructive Evaluation
Who we are:
Dr. Jeffrey Badger is a Mechanical Engineer (B.S. University of Texas at Austin, M.S. Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D. Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland) with an expertise in industrial grinding. He is known as “The Grinding Doc” from his question/answer column in the leading trade magazine Cutting Tool Engineering. Since 2004, Badger has worked as an independent expert helping companies around the world improve their grinding operations.
Dr. Eric Constans is a Mechanical Engineer (B.S. University of Washington at Seattle, M.S. and Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University) with an expertise in mechanical design. He is a tenured professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
What we do:
We investigate the causes of failure of grinding wheels. This includes purposely causing grinding wheels to fail during operation via:
- Running a wheel at too high an RPM (example: run at 10,000 RPM instead of its maximum rated speed of 4,000 RPM) until it explodes (usually due to “hoop stresses”).
- Abusing a wheel beforehand (dropping, banging, exposure to heat, etc.) and running it until it explodes.
- Abusing a wheel during operation (banging against workpiece, excessive pressure, side-forces, etc.) until it explodes.
- Produce video illustrations showing a) the dangers of loose clothing and exposed limbs around grinding wheels, b) the direction of shrapnel in bursting wheels, and c) the utility of guards.
Why we do it:
A recent expert-witness case:
Purposely inducing failure in a hand-held angle grinder
Most of our work involves expert-witness cases where a person was injured by a grinding wheel.
Our facilities:
Contact:
We investigate the causes of failure of grinding wheels. This includes purposely causing grinding wheels to fail during operation via:
- Variable-RPM spindle to run grinding wheels at increasing speeds until they burst.
- Special protective clothing and customized guards that allow us to purposely abuse hand-held grinders until they fail.
- High-speed video to document wheel bursting.
- Power and force-measuring equipment to document force required to induce failure.