Eric S. Winkel

Eric S. Winkel, Ph.D., P.E., CFEI, CVFI

Senior Managing Consultant

Dr. Eric Winkel has 17 years of experience as a forensic consultant specializing in maritime matters. He has particular expertise in marine accident investigation and reconstruction, vessel and component design analysis, intellectual property matters, and has worked with a variety of other automotive and recreational products. Dr. Winkel has performed hundreds of accident investigations and accident reconstructions involving watercraft ranging from personal watercraft to large commercial vessels. He has extensive experience designing and executing experimental research to evaluate full-vehicle/vessel, system-level, and component-level performance on everything from watercraft to motorcycles to passenger vehicles.

Dr. Winkel also has expertise and experience in fluid mechanics, acoustics, dynamics and vibrations, structural analysis, and fracture mechanics along with other mechanical and marine engineering disciplines.  He is a NAFI-certified fire investigator and has conducted numerous investigations of fire and explosion events.  

Publications

  • Water Intrusion Injuries: Occupant Kinematics and Pressure Exposure during Rearward Falls from a Personal Watercraft, Society of Automotive Engineers, Journal of Transportation Safety, 2022 , January 2022
  • Focus Headform Testing Used to Evaluate Head Injury Risk for Ejected Riders of Personal Watercraft, Proceedings of the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, IMECE 2017-72676, November 2022
  • Evaluation of Air Bag Electronic Sensing System Collision Performance through Laboratory Simulation, Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress & Exhibition Occupant Protection: Safety Test Methodology, January 2015
  • Assessment of Compressive Thoracolumbar Injury Potential and Influence of Seat Cushions on Vertical Impact Loading of a Seated Occupant, Society of Automotive Engineers International Journal of Passenger Cars – Mechanical Systems, January 2015
  • High-Reynolds-number Turbulent-Boundary-Layer Wall Pressure Fluctuations with Dilute Polymer Solutions, Physics of Fluids, January 2010
  • Vehicle Chassis, Body, and Seat Buckle Acceleration Responses in the Vehicle Crash Environment, Society of Automotive Engineers International Journal of Passenger Cars – Mechanical Systems, 2(1): 1151-1170, January 2009
  • Bubble-Induced Skin-Friction Drag Reduction and the Abrupt Transition to Air-Layer Drag Reduction, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, January 2008
  • On Using Cross-correlations of Turbulent Flow-induced Ambient Vibrations to Estimate the Structural Impulse Response: Applications to Structural Health Monitoring, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, January 2007
  • Turbulent Boundary Layer Pressure Fluctuations at Large Scales and High Reynolds Number, Acoustical Society of America, June 2022

ESi's expertise spans dozens of industries and specializations organized across several practice groups, each staffed by dozens of in-house experts with the technical knowledge, hands-on expertise, and courtroom experience required to execute projects for and with our clients from start to finish.

Contact Us