Illinois

The Aurora, Illinois operation of ESi is located just outside of Chicago and is the founding office for the company.  The Aurora office offers expertise in nearly every ESi discipline and specialty area, including:

• Aeronautical
• Agricultural
• Automotive
• Biomechanical
• Boiler, Machinery, and Process
• Chemical
• Civil
• Electrical/Electronic
• Fire and Explosion
• Industry
• Intellectual Property
• Manufacturing
• Materials
• Mechanical
• Metallurgical
• Oil and Gas
• Railroad and Transit
• Safety
• Structural

The professional staff is very experienced, most with over two decades in their field, with the vast majority having advanced degrees and specialized certifications in their area of expertise. This group of industry-recognized experts has published over 700 articles and technical/industry organization presentations. The staff is active in technical organizations and standards development committees, with many being active leaders, chairs, or co-chairs.

Our 46,000+ square foot Illinois facility is the largest in the ESi system and one of the most up-to-date multidisciplinary testing, laboratory, and inspection facilities in our industry - ideally suited for hosting individual and multi-party inspections of all sizes. This facility includes a spacious 11,000 square foot high-bay space with 24-foot ceiling heights, and two dedicated inspection rooms totaling 2000 square feet. It also includes dedicated photographic, animation, graphic arts, and trial exhibit studios, run by full-time ESi technical staff, and an extensive engineering and technical library run by a full-time professional research librarian.

Our conference rooms and inspection areas feed into our large, well-equipped, metallurgical, optical, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mechanical, and electrical laboratories. These labs, considered by many to be second to none, offer many different testing, inspection, measurement, and computational analysis capabilities, including the following, which are run by ESi engineers and technicians:

Testing:

• Instron tension tester (1125 lb. capacity)
• Metallurgical testing, including:
  • Hardness testing (Brinell, Rockwell, Vickers-micro, Riehle, Webster)
  • Metallography
  • Replication
  • Corrosion and weight loss determination
• Fume containment room
• Machine shop and welding equipment for fabrication of custom fixtures, etc.

Inspection:

• High-speed video camera
• HD video cameras
• Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
  • Secondary and Backscatter Detection
  • Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (Elemental Analysis)
  • Low Vacuum Detector capable of imaging non-conductive materials such as plastics, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)
  • Transmission, Reflectance, Micro-ATR
• Extrusion plastometer

Measurement:

• Sophisticated data acquisition system that interfaces with the following transducers
• Strain gauges
• Force and pressure
• Flow meters (gasses and fluids)
• Vibration/acceleration
• Temperature
• Multiple six-axis force plates
  
  • Surveying equipment (Total Station)
  • “Trackmate” vehicle performance/tracking system
  • Various instruments and tools for metrology (gage blocks, gage pins, etc.)
• FARO laser scanning

Computational Analysis:

• Finite element analysis (ABAQUS/Standard)
  • Static analysis
  • Linear dynamic analysis
  • Non-linear transient dynamic analysis
  • Heat transfer analysis
  • Buckling analysis
  • Limit load and post-buckling analysis (RIKS procedure)
  • Non-linear effects
  • Kinematic analysis
  • Analysis of mechanisms using elastic elements
• Crack growth analysis (NASGRO, AFGROW, FEA Crack)
• Fire modeling (FDS)
• Dispersion modeling (Aloha)
• Solid modeling (SolidWorks)