Engineering

Rees NDT Inspection Services has a complete mechanical engineering services team to meet your needs.

With a Permit to Practice and a P.Eng. (BC, AB, SK and MB) on staff:

  • We can produce stamped and signed engineering documents to meet your needs
  • We can design new equipment to meet your requirements and supply drawings, specifications, capacities and operating instructions.
  • We can certify equipment built to our designs and supervise validation and load testing.
  • We specialize in overhead lifting and oilfield-related equipment, but we aren’t limited to those specialties.
  • We supply inspection certification and specifications to help you comply with Alberta OH&S Code Part 3 or similar legislation.
  • We use Solidworks CAD software to create 2-D and 3-D drawings for our clients
  • We use COSMOS FEA software to vailidate our designs.
  • We can measure, document, draft and analyze as-built equipment to supply capacities and specifications for existing items.
  • We have trained specialists in Fall Protection on staff.

Whatever your mechanical engineering needs, we have the team to meet your challenges.
New Designs

Sometimes what the job calls for just can’t be purchased–but it can be designed, fabricated and certified.

There are times when what you need is just not commercially available–but you still need it. And while you may have the materials and fabricators in-house to build what you require, that leaves you without some of the important details you require when you turn your employees loose with what has been built. Without documentation of capacity and safe operating procedures created by a recognized professional, if there’s an incident with your in-house design and build, some unhappy consequences follow.

Whether it’s a spreader bar, a lifting device, a tool rack, a manbasket, or a jib crane, sometimes the job calls for a custom design. Our team can help define your needs and then create and validate a design to fulfill them. We can produce drawings from which to build the design to specifications and to code, load test, inspect and certify the resulting equipment. We can produce the required documentation on capacity, safe use and maintenance that you will need to use the new design properly. These are all things that are not only important to have, but they are also legally required by OHS Code section 3 in many cases.

Whether your custom design sees use in the field, on a third-party site, or only on your own location, having verified capacity ratings, operating and maintenance instructions and a validated design are a necessity. They go a long way towards ensuring that the items that you took the pains to concieve, build, test and use will have a long, safe and productive working life. You’ve worked hard to achieve a COR, and good results in ISNetworld, PICS and Complyworks. A culture of safety has safe, documented, and maintained equipment at its heart.

When the job calls for custom designed equipment, we have the team to complete the job!

Existing Items

You own it, you use it–but you have no documentation–and that’s a problem.

It happens more often than you think. Lost documents, obliterated manufacturer’s marks, bought at auction, fabricated by Joe’s Welding the way he’s done a hundred of them, got it when we bought out XYZ Corp–all sorts of reasons. But you have been using it, safely, sometimes for years. Then the day comes when some questions come up:

  • How do we repair it?
  • How do we maintain it?
  • What is its maximum safe working load?
    What jobs is it useful for?
  • What jobs should it NEVER be used for?

These are questions that an employer is legally responsible for answering under Alberta OH&S Code Part 3 Section 12 & 13 or similar legislation

When you don’t have the answers you need to use your equipment safely and legally–we can provide them!

CAD Services

All good things comes from great plans–and with Solidworks CAD software, we can make great plans.

Whether you want to document an existing item or create drawings as part of the design of something new, getting great drawings produced is essential. Our team has the expertise and the tools to do great work. Solidworks allows us to create 2-D and 3-D drawings from any desired point-of-view and generate bills of materials automatically. Drawings can be exported to PDF for emailing and electronic archiving and Solidworks provides a free reader program which allows you to open a drawing. You can then turn, spin and zoom in on any aspect of a drawing. You can actually see what something will look like before it is built–very powerful stuff–no imagination and no draftsman training required.

The first step from idea to reality is a detailed plan–and we can create some of the best plans you have ever seen!

Validation

You have an idea for a piece of equipment, and you get it drawn up–but will it do the job you designed it for?

Answering that question is called design validation. There are a number of methods for doing design validation. One is load testing. The design is built and subjected to a load greater than the foreseen rated capacity by a large safety factor. If the build survives the load, the design is validated. Another is destructive testing. The design is built and subjected to ever-increasing load until it fails. If the failure occurs after the design was subjected to its maximum load + safety factor, the design is validated. A third method is rules-of-thumb. Some designs are too large or too complex to be subjected to load tests or destructive testing. The engineering establishment has developed, over the years, rules on design and materials that, if followed rigorously, will produce results whose behavior can be reliably predicted. A design can be validated in some instances by demonstrating that the rules-of-thumb have been rigorously followed.

The newest method of validation is through software simulation. Finite Element Analysis, or FEA as it is known, takes a bill of materials, a 3-D model and the rules of physics and engineering and allows simulations to be run. Loads can be simulated and the results are presented visually and graphically. Stress areas immediately become visible. Failure points and the manner of failure also become visible. A design can then be simulated to its rated capacity + safety factor and examined to see if it is strong enough. Unusual, but plausible, loading scenarios can be run to determine how a design will stand up to misuse and abuse. Simulations can be run that will determine where failure will begin. Problem areas can then be noted in inspection and maintenance instructions to ensure that preventative maintenance is as effective as it can be.

This is a very powerful and useful capability. The COSMOS FEA package comes integrated with the Solidworks drawing software we use. That allows us to take a preliminary design, attempt to validate it, and if it will not meet requirements, change the design immediately until the design requirements are met. That powerful capability ensures that we can get the desired results from a design BEFORE fabrication begins–which can result in huge cost savings.

No wasted materials, no downgraded capacities, no useless builds, just the right design to meet the desired capabilities signed, sealed and delivered the first time.

Fall Protection

One area of OH&S regulation that has tightened in recent years is fall protection requirements.

Fall protection anchor points, unless they are installed by their manufacturer, have to be designed and installed subject to the approval of a professional engineer. That is nothing new. What is new, is additional areas where fall protection is now mandated. Any area where a worker is required to be on a regular basis, doing tasks that last longer than 15 minutes, and that is 1.2 m or more above an area on to which a worker could fall is now designated a permanent work area. Permanent work areas MUST have fall hazard mitigation procedures in place. These include such things as guard rails and travel restraint systems. Where such things are not practical, full blown fall arrest systems must be put in place. Even residential roofing operations are now required to put fall hazard mitigation procedures into place! If you have fall arrest questions, we have trained professionals to help answer your questions.

We have the team to help you create a fall protection system to meet your needs.