Research

24-08-2022 | Posted by Joaquín Martí

A consultant must remain ahead of his customer’s needs so that, when those arise, he can provide a useful answer. Since those needs are evolving all the time, this requires a permanent learning attitude, with active involvement in technical forums and, particularly, with the participation in research-oriented projects. Because, as we quote from Edward Teller in the front of our webpage, “the science of today is the technology of tomorrow”.

That is not to say that we only learn in projects that are specifically labelled as research, we learn in practically every project because our clients seldom commission us to study run-of-the-mill problems; indeed, the scope of most of our projects includes a research component.

But, undoubtedly, those that are specifically research oriented, as those carried out for the European Commission, the European Space Agency, and other funding institutions, play a very significant role in our development. Also of great interest are the international benchmarks on subjects of our competence, an area in which we are very active as well.

While computational mechanics underlies most of our work, the industrial sectors where we conduct research activities are extremely varied. We have participated in about ten research projects for the aerospace industry, studying bird impacts on aircraft, impacts from hail and debris, survivability in crash landings, superplastic metal forming, effects of store release in fighters, automatic generation of global and detailed aircraft models, thermal and mechanical databases for satellites, etc.

The nuclear industry has also motivated many of our research projects. We have studied concrete constitutive behaviour, containment response in severe accidents, methodologies for analysing impacts and jet impingement inside the containment, effects of fires and missile impacts on concrete structures, cooling water systems, etc. And we have participated in international benchmarks dealing with the seismic behaviour of shear walls, fires, impacts on reinforced concrete, and severe accidents.

In relation with transportation and other infrastructure development, we have done research projects on integral bridges, containment barriers for stray vehicles, three research projects on chemical expansion of concrete in dams, and developed a program for studying pressure changes in tunnels upon the passage of high-speed trains. We have also participated in two international benchmarks on concrete expansion.

And there are many other areas. In defence, we have studied the interaction between high-velocity projectiles and various types of sophisticated armour. In the seismic area, we have developed methodologies for seismic isolation of petrochemical facilities and participated in an international benchmark dealing with the earthquake response of long piles in clay. And we have done several research projects dealing with renewable energies: solar (thermal and photovoltaic), onshore and offshore wind, waves, and pumped storage. And, of course, we have also collaborated in the committees that rank the projects to be funded.

What all this means is that we are well prepared for your next difficult problem. It is the research that we have done and continue doing that will allow us to deal with it better than anyone.