Fluid Mechanics / Dynamics Consultants: 4

Complete General Contractors, Inc., is a licensed General Contracting Construction Firm working throughout the Southeast for insurance companies, property owners, property managers, attorneys, and municipalities. They specialize in the cost estimation and causation of large loss complex property claims.

Services Include:

• Appraisal and Mediation Services - Fire, wind, flood, storm, hail, and water losses to residential, commercial, or industrial properties
• General Contracting Services - Restoration or general construction, commercial construction, or industrial construction projects all over the United States. Manage vendors and trades, handle project documents, and serve as an authority for project information to all parties throughout the construction process

John G. Minor, President of Complete General Contractors, is a third-generation Contractor and licensed instructor certified by the North Carolina Department of Insurance. He is a recognized expert on the costs and applications necessary to repair buildings damaged by manufacturer, builder liability, water damage or intrusion, mold, or asbestos.

Mr. Minor has provided for the successful restoration of millions of dollars in insurance restoration, building failures, and difficult repairs originating from defective construction practices and materials such as fire, wind, water, mold and mildew. His services were in demand for restoration on custom buildings on Bald Head Island. In addition to managing the business of Complete, Inc., John Minor teaches classes on mold and mildew remediation and prevention through proper building practices to a variety of clients thru Lorman Educational Services and other professional trainers.

View John Minor's Expert Witness Profile.

• Structures, Buildings, Houses, Dwellings
• Foundations, Footings, Elevators, Retaining Walls, Dams
• Development Plan & Plats for Sites, Properties, and Residences
• Underground & Subsurface Chamber / Chambers
• Scaffold, Scaffolds, Scaffolding
• Site Plans & Subdivisions: Industrial, Commercial, Residential
• Roads, Roadways, Ramps, Walks, & Man Hole Cover / Covers
• Sidewalks, Walkways, Paths & Pathways
• Lighting: Lamps, Lights, Lamp Poles, Light Levels
• Luminaries & Illumination (Specifications)
• Rock Cuts & Blasting (Topography, Specification)
• Soil Slopes / Samples / Mechanics / Geotechnical Engineers
• Sanitary Facilities, Septic Systems (Board of Health Septics Approval)
• BOHA / DEP Approvals
• Water, Drains, Drainage, Sewer & Sewage Lines & Mains
• Culvert / Culverts, Manholes (Man Holes) & Catchbasins / Catch Basins
• Inspection, Supervision, and Certification of Construction
• House Inspector & Inspections
• Road, Roadway, Walk & Sidewalk Premises Liability (e.g., Steep Slope)
• Walkway, Path, Ramp & Pathway Premise Liability (e.g., Steep Grade)
• Coefficient of Friction / Slip & Fall (Snowy & Icy Conditions)
• Vertical Discontinuity / Discontinuities / Trip & Falls
• Small Ports / Port, Marinas / Marina, Marine Dredging
• Levees, Jetties, Dolphins, Piers, Sea & Flood Walls
• Wharves, Breakwaters, Bulkheads, Weirs, & Revetments
• Groins, Dikes and Waterfront Structures
• Drainage Basin Analysis, Rainfall, Floods & Flood Plain / Plains
• Flooding Controls & Control Devices
• Storm Water Runoff (10, 25, 50 & 100 Year Storms)
• Pressure & Pressures: Wind, Wave / Waves, Ice, Snow
• Rain Fall Run Off & Storm Water Pollution Treatment
• Excavation, Grading, Fills & Filling Operations (Swales, Berms, Silt Fence)
• Erosion Control, Sediment Barriers, Sedimentation / Catch Basins (Hay Bales)
• Pumps and Pump System Line & Main
• Slope, Dam, Levee, Jetty, Dolphin, Pier, Wharf & Breakwater Collapse
• Bulkhead, Weir, Revetment, Groin, Dike, Footing & Foundation Failures
• Failure of Fire Containment Wall, Elevator or Water Front Structure
• Tenement House Façade Collapses
• Code History of Existing Multiple / Multi-Family Dwelling / Building
• Application of Municipal Building, Fire & Property Maintenance Codes
• City, Town & Village Zoning, Planning, Steep Slopes & Grades, Wetland & Wetlands Ordinances
• Testimony at Board Meetings as a Design Forensics Engineer

Finity Engineering, LLC comprises highly-accomplished engineers and industrial practitioners that work alongside leading researchers to provide design, analysis, consulting, and litigation support services. Associates are subject-matter experts in the areas of Automation, Mechatronics, Robotics, and Consumer Products.

Finity Engineering professionals have served scores of industry-leading companies and research institutes, and have developed and provided technical oversight for the implementation of hundreds of robotic, automation, and controls systems deployed within the facilities of high-profile end users. Collectively, Finity Engineering professionals are named inventors on over 60 patents and have founded dozens of successful entrepreneurial ventures, demonstrating pragmatic and marketable engineering innovation.

Clients Include: Alcoa, Apple, BMW, Boeing, Cargill, Caterpillar, Chernobyl, Cummins, Ford Motors, Fukushima, General Motors, Gestamp, Google, Honda, Hundai, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Johnson Controls, Kia Motors, Lockheed Martin, and many more.

Design, Analysis & Business Consulting Specialties:

 Founder, Khalid Sorensen, PhD, is a highly accomplished technology leader in Automation, Mechatronics, Motion Control, Manufacturing, Machine Vision, and Human-Machine Interaction. He has over 20 years of experience developing and deploying world class, mechatronic, motion control, and automation solutions.

Dr. Sorensen has directed the development and implementation of 100s of complex, multi-disciplinary mechatronic systems for high-profile industry leaders including Toyota, Ford, Alcoa, Caterpillar, Boeing, NuScale, and many others, and high-profile facilities including Fukushima and Chernobyl.

Previously, Dr. Sorensen Founded a technology company where he invented and was the Chief Architect of Expertoperator^TM, Safemove^TM, Automove^TM, and Cranevision^TM – technology known within the primary metals, automotive, and heavy-equipment sectors for enhancing crane safety, productivity, and ease-of-use; Developed state-of-the-art, on-line, time-optimal trajectory synthesis software for Cartesian machines - key drivers in the acquisition of his company 5 years after inception by a global leader in automation.

View Dr. Khalid Sorensen's Expert Witness Profile.

Mechanical Solutions, Inc. (MSI) provides new equipment design, computer-aided analysis, installed equipment field testing and problem solutions. MSI staff performs these tasks for all types of Pumps, Compressors, Fans, Turbines, and Motors. For pumps and compressors, expertise includes both centrifugal and positive displacement (e.g. reciprocating or screw) configurations.  Turbine knowledge and experience include hydraulic turbine generators (“hydroturbines”) as well as aircraft gas turbine engines and land-based gas or steam turbine power generation systems. Applications include green energy, power, process, petrochemical, paper, and water resource industries.

MSI uses advanced finite element analysis (FEA), rotordynamics, and torsional analysis tools, and uses computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to analyze 3-D steady or unsteady fluid flows and heat transfer, enabled by its 230 high speed processor supercomputer. MSI also uses top-of-the-line testing equipment, including multichannel FFT analyzers (up to 200 simultaneous channels) to accurately read the outputs of various vibration, stress/strain, and pressure sensors, as a function of both time and frequency. As a unique additional test capability, MSI uses motion magnification video cameras to amplify and display scene vibration by 1000x. MSI uses calibrated exciters while equipment remains running, to locate structural, rotor, and acoustic natural frequency resonances as they exist at any particular operating point, without interfering with machinery operation.  In addition, MSI performs stress, acoustic, dynamic pressure pulsation, electric current spectrum, and aero/hydraulic performance testing. 

MSI also has been project team leader in the development of advanced rocket turbopumps, as well as turbopump diagnostics, for the U.S. Air Force and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. MSI is funded for several large projects with the U.S. Navy and Air Force involving vision-based systems that automatically evaluate and display/amplify machinery or system dynamic events.  As a result of these projects, MSI has developed its VibVue® vibration motion magnification system, which can magnify vibration 1000x in the full field-of-view of the equipment.  This system is available as a service, or for purchase.

Mechanical Solutions has a staff of approximately 30 technical professionals, many of whom are well known internationally in the area of pumps, compressors, and turbines.  For example, MSI’s Dr. Edward Bennett won the ASME Gopalakrishnan award for best pump fluids technologist, and was later awarded another ASME medal for CFD.    MSI’s Paul Boyadjis has won the Hydraulic Institute 2021 Standards Partner of the Year award. Since its founding in 1996, MSI has strived to provide best-in-class service throughout the world.

William D. Marscher has over 50 years of experience in the field of Fluid Systems and their rotating and reciprocating machinery, particularly large turbines, generators, compressors, and pumps.  His typical work responsibilities include design, analysis, and testing of all types of plant machinery, as well as other types of fluid and mechanical systems.   

Mr. Marscher received a B.S.M.E. from Cornell University in 1970, and a Master Eng. (Mech. Des.) in 1972, when he was a NASA Fellow and the lead graduate student for the original Mars Rover Design project.  In 1976, he received an M.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a registered and licensed Professional Engineer, State of New Jersey Lic. No. 40626.

For 25 years, Mr. Marscher has been one of the U.S. voting representatives on the ISO (International Standards Organization) TC108 committee, and has been the US Coordinator concerning, among other issues, machinery dynamics of centrifugal pumps and hydraulic turbine generators. He is past president of the Society of Tribologists & Lubrication Engineers (STLE), the primary technical society worldwide for the study and design of bearings, seals, wear, and erosion issues in machinery.  For the past 45 years he has been a voting member of the ASTM Fatigue Standards Committee E9, as well as the ASTM Wear & Erosion Standards Committee G2.  He is also the past Board of Directors Chairman for the Machinery Failure Prevention Technology Society (MFPT), and has been active in the Vibration Institute.   Mr. Marscher is a 23-year member of the Texas A&M Turbine-Pump Users Symposium Advisory Committee (essentially the Board of Directors for the Symposium).   For ASME, Mr. Marscher was Chair of the Predictive Maintenance committee, and was Organizing and Presiding Chair of the 1993 RoCon Rotating Machinery Conference and the 1995 Tribology Conference.

Mr. Marscher has written thirteen handbook chapters for various major engineering handbooks, which have focused on turbomachinery mechanical issues, including dynamics, and bearing and seal design   In previous employ, he was a senior engineer Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Engines, and Director of Mechanical Engineering for Worthington HQ (pumps, compressors, and turbines), and for Dresser Worthington Division after their acquisition of Worthington.   Later, he was VP of Concepts NREC, from which 30 years ago he spun off Mechanical Solutions, Inc. as an independent turbomachinery technology company.  He has since become a charter Standards Partner for the Hydraulic Institute (HI), the trade association for the pump industry, became Vice Chair of the vibration technical committee for HI, and was HI Standards Partner of the Year for 2018.   He also won the 2019 Vibration Institute MFPT Frarey Award for Diagnostics Excellence.

View MSI's Expert Witness Profile.