Tom Irvine

Tough day for Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Blue Origin was performing a static fire (hotfire) test ahead of an anticipated fourth launch — the rocket was likely fully fueled, contributing to what is described as one of the largest rocket explosions in U.S. history. Blue Origin,… Read more

Slide Link Static fire tests are among the most critical — and most dangerous — milestones in a launch vehicle’s life. The vehicle is fully fueled, the engines are lit, and everything that can go wrong is present in one place at one time. This… Read more

This September 2026 course series provides practical training in shock, vibration, fatigue, structural dynamics, FEA, machinery vibration, acoustics, and rotor dynamics for engineers working with test data, qualification requirements, failure analysis, and mechanical system reliability. Each one-hour class is organized in a semester-style format, with… Read more

ModalMass_revK.pdf Effective modal mass and modal participation factors provide a quantitative basis for identifying dynamically significant vibration modes and for guiding modal truncation in structural dynamic analyses. This paper presents a unified formulation for both base-excited systems and grounded systems subjected to externally applied forces.… Read more