Engineering Consulting

Gear design consists of a myriad of details generated from potentially thousands of complex and coupled equations, making it both rewarding and devilishly frustrating at the same time. We pride ourselves at being masters of gear design science as well as practitioners and teachers of the art.

Gear design is inherently complex. Imagine coupling the critical design requirements of those gears to the adverse effect of gearbox deflection and often you have a multi-variant problem that boggles the mind. Then consider how to cool the system and protect it from external loads and dirt. While designing a gearbox can be a daunting task, this is where we get excited and do our best work.

Given how rapidly automotive gearbox concepts and powertrain layouts have evolved, it is nearly a full-time job just staying apprised of the various options and possibilities. For us to stay current, we spend a significant portion of our work-day studying the designs of others as well as developing, integrating, and finessing our own concepts into reality.

Electric vehicles and their powertrain architectures can seem simple considering they’re essentially a simple transaxle with typically a single speed-ratio. However, unlike traditional automotive powertrains, EV transaxles do not have an internal combustion engine producing noise levels that typically mask geartrain noise. Addressing and solving EV transaxle NVH issues is our specialty and we pride ourselves on the many successful powertrain designs we have completed.

The old adage “There’s no replacement for displacement” is a long outmoded engine design approach. The modern mantra is engine downsizing, both displacement and package, to generate more power and use less fuel. Then with hybridization wherein the ICE is relegated to base power generation, there’s no doubt that the science of fuel management and power generation is flourishing. We have positioned KBE⁺ to be one of the top tier “Go To” engine-engineering groups in the world.

Current and future design and system development can no longer be ‘good enough’. The requirements placed on all these systems require exacting results only available through extensive mathematical principles and computational intensive efforts. We maintain proficiency in these practices and computational tools through both application to projects and training.

Understanding what leads to a failure is just as important as the final fault. We have found that a thorough investigation of the equipment, its life history, its original design, and the current condition of the remaining system will shed light on many issues. Left unchecked, these issues will cause similar failures and downtime in the future. We excel at identifying and fully understanding the details of what happened, when, and how.

Legal support for us is best defined as filling in the gap between a thorough understanding of the law, the attorneys responsibility, and being able to explain complex systems or component interactions in simple comprehendible terms — That’s our job and where we excel.

No matter how well developed or computationally sound the practice, analytic validation is never enough. The real world will surprise the unsuspecting at the most inopportune moment. Because we don’t like these kind of surprises, we test, we test our tests, and we question our results, all in an effort to make sure that our client is never surprised.

Creating prototypes is a big challenge for many companies. Corporate purchasing systems are designed to procure hundreds or even thousands of the same part, each one having its own verified design and vetted supplier base. Trying to acquire a few sample or prototype parts, quickly and often without defined designs or completed drawings, can be overwhelming. We have an established network of firms that excel in small orders and prototyping including on-site 3D printing services.