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The Nickel Tour of Our Engineering & Research Center

Mixing it up: Beth Clagg, Chemist and Sam Burgess, Director of Material Technology

Mixing it up: Beth Clagg, Chemist and
Sam Burgess, Director of Material
Technology

by JIM MORGAN

Here's the story: It's a breezy morning in March. A car pulls into the parking lot of a brand-new two-story building. A man gets out of the car. He looks like a doctor. He goes into the building. I follow him.

By the time I catch up with him, Sam Burgess is already in his office on the ground floor of RL Hudson's new Engineering & Research Center. I clear my throat in the doorway. He looks up from a stack of technical-looking papers.

Backstory: Sam is Director of Material Technology at RL Hudson. He has three decades of experience in chemistry and compounding. He knows lots of complicated formulas. His desk always features technical-looking papers.

"Have time for that tour you promised?" I prompt with a smile. I am offering a proud father an open invitation to sing his child's praises. I need not ask twice.

PHYSICAL FITNESS Some numbers: The 71,000-square-foot Engineering & Research Center is contiguous with RL Hudson's 35,000-square-foot Corporate Headquarters in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Of the 71,000 square feet in the new building, offices and labs take up 17,000 square feet. The remainder is warehouse space to supplement that in the HQ.

More numbers, mostly threes: The new building houses three major aspects of Hudson operations: material technology, engineering, and quality assurance. Sam is responsible for the first of the three. (More on the others later.) Sam's domain consists primarily of three separate but adjoining labs. Each lab is accessible only by entering a numeric code on a keypad. I do not know the code, but Sam does. He leads me into the first lab.

"This area is devoted to physical testing of compounds," Sam says as I slowly walk the perimeter. "Densometer for density testing. FTIR - Fourier Transform InfraRed - spectrometer to analyze material samples. Durometer for hardness testing. Tensometer for both tensile and compression testing. Thermogravimetric Analyzer - TGA - for use in analyzing material samples. DSC - Differential Scanning Calorimeter - to help us verify the proper state of cure for a given part, as well as the glass transition temperature for materials or compounds."

I nod when it seems right. I'm impressed by the complexity of it all. I'm also a bit glassy-eyed from the long words Sam is throwing at me. One thing sticks: This analytic lab is where technician Beth Clagg spends much of her time. Beth recently graduated from the University of Tulsa with a chemical engineering degree. She's been Sam's protégé for about a year now.

PRESS PASS I peer through a set of swinging double doors and into the second lab. I spy lots of big shiny ovens in there. And a heavy-looking press.

"This is our curing and aging lab," explains Sam as we go through the doors. "The press over there allows us to test-mold compounds into slabs. We then take samples from those slabs and conduct high- and low-temperature testing. That's why we have all the ovens."

Sam has ovens enough to make Betty Crocker envious. Heat aging tests run in five Blue M® ovens. Note: These are not blue, but silver. There is also one Thermotron® for low temperature tests. The Thermotron is aqua. Three are currently in use and sport block letter "do not open" signs. Facing the ovens from across the room are a rheometer and viscometer. To my untrained eye, they are hard to tell apart. One facilitates rheometric tests, the other viscosity tests. I'm sure Sam knows the difference.

The centerpiece of this room is the press, a deep-green hulk with lots of dials and an imposing
central cavity. Sam mentions that it exerts 65 tons of clamping force. I decide not to put my hand
in there. I turn to find Sam has gone through more doors and into the third lab.

CHEW ON THIS "And this is where it all starts," he proclaims.

"The inner sanctum?" I ask. I improvise a low-pitched moan meant to imply a general atmosphere of spookiness. Sam pretends not to notice.

"This is where we mix and mill our own rubber compounds," he says. "Raw materials go in here," and he points to the Banbury® mixer in the room's center, "to be masticated into a usable rubber compound." I stop him on the word masticated. Turns out it's just a fancy term for "chewing." So, in essence, the mixer chews up ingredients and spits out rubber. This rubber then goes across the room to be flattened into thin sheets on a mill. "Test samples can be taken from the sheets," says Sam, "or we can test-mold the rubber using the press."

Sam is very busy, so I thank him for his tutelage and wander back into the hall. What I learned from him was this: Being able to formulate and test our own compounds will ultimately result in even greater material and product reliability. This should greatly benefit Hudson customers.

ELBOW ROOM I spot Darrel Kunkel, Director of Quality for RL Hudson. His quality assurance department is also in this building. I ask him how he likes his new digs. He mentions extra space. This is what he says:

"I like that we now have more space to store product waiting for inspection. That additional storage really helps the product flow in and out of the inspection lab, which should make us more efficient."

That sounds great, and I'm telling him so when Director of Engineering Frank Horn strides by purposefully. I bid Darrel adieu and chase Frank down to ask if he is equally excited about the new facility. He talks as we walk, and says this:

"Engineering's move to the new building means more space to expand personnel and performance testing. There are more offices available now, so we can consider hiring additional engineering staff. And the performance testing area is much larger than before, so we can expand our testing capabilities and add more shaft seal test machines."

So, to summarize.RL Hudson's new Engineering & Research Center: fully operational. The move-in: complete. Material technology, quality assurance, and engineering departments: poised for future growth.

And that's the story.