Ian Winegardner
Lead Engineer; ABS Group
Mr. Winegardner has more than 12 years of professional experience as a structural engineering consultant in the Extreme Loads and Structural Risk division specializing in the dynamic analysis and design of structures and equipment to resist blast loads from extreme loading events, including high explosives, vapor cloud explosions, and bursting pressure vessels.
Mr. Winegardner works with explosion safety criteria documents and has performed 50+ site surveys to collect data on existing buildings and analyzed the level of building response for blast loads. These studies are conducted for chemical plants and refineries under the PSM requirements defined in OSHA 1910.119. To aid in upgrading buildings identified as inadequate for blasts. Mr. Winegardner has developed upgrade solutions to enhance the capacity of structures to meet protection requirements. He has worked closely with industry and contractors to implement these upgrades through construction. During his professional career, Mr. Winegardner has supported several explosion incident investigations.
In addition to his petrochemical experience, Mr. Winegardner has experience with government manuals for predictions of blast loads and fragment hazard modeling and structural design. He has applied criteria from government facility siting regulations and design guides and is also familiar with test data and information available in literature that can be utilized to evaluate constructions for their levels of safety in blast environments.
Mr. Winegardner has performed advanced non-linear, dynamic, finite element analyses to analyze structures, structural components, facilities, and equipment. His experience includes using finite element programs such as LS-DYNA, FEMAP, ANSYS, SAP2000, and Visual Analysis.
Mr. Winegardner is a principal instructor for the structural component of multiple short courses dedicated to understanding explosion effects and dynamic structural analysis.