Stress Engineering Services

Last month, SES hosted 20 students at our Waller Lab for a Student Showcase—a structured program designed to introduce students to the methodology and infrastructure behind our work.

The visit included a company overview, facility tour, and direct engagement with SES principals through moderated discussions. Students examined real project applications, asked technical questions, and gained insight into the engineering rigor that defines our approach across energy, materials, and testing services.

The program achieved its objective: providing students with a clear understanding of how independent, methodologically driven engineering translates to defensible outcomes

This week, Stress Engineering Services hosted industry professionals as part of the 2026 Valve Forum Conference for a tour of our Houston facilities. These site visits provide valve industry professionals with direct visibility into the proven methodology and laboratory systems behind our testing services and expert witness support.

Attendees saw firsthand the testing infrastructure that supports our work in pressure boundary integrity, material characterization, and failure analysis—capabilities developed and validated over 50 years of continuous operation.

Stress Engineering Services will present twice at the Valve Manufacturers Association 2026 Valve Forum in The Woodlands, TX, on Tuesday, April 14. For more than 50 years, Stress Engineering Services has provided specialized valve testing services across standard test protocols and custom-engineered solutions to address specific project requirements.

Ajay Kadiyala will examine valve seal integrity through observed O-ring failure case studies from service environments. Ajay's presentation covers documented failure modes, including material incompatibility, improper curing, hardness variation, and premature aging, providing a validated framework for understanding seal performance based on service experience rather than theoretical modeling.

Steven Kinyon will follow with an overview of SES's Valve Testing Capabilities, detailing the range of testing, engineering, and forensic support services available to manufacturers and end users. The presentation establishes what is available through SES's testing infrastructure, from routine qualification testing to forensic investigation of field failures.

Our approach is built on the framework provided by ASME V&V 40-2018 and FDA guidance (2023), incorporating risk-informed credibility assessment for every computational model. This isn't theoretical. Multiple successful regulatory submissions to the FDA and the EU MDR validate our methodology.

The advantage for medical device manufacturers: reduced development timelines, comprehensive tolerance analysis that exceeds physical testing limitations, and defensible submissions that meet regulatory scrutiny. Our V&V 40 procedure is embedded in our quality system. Proven. Validated. Regulatory-Compliant.

How do engineers solve problems at the frontier of technical complexity? The answer is methodological, not inspirational. Fifty years of proven approaches, a testing infrastructure that validates, and independence that ensures objectivity when the stakes are highest.

At Stress Engineering Services, problem-solving is systematic: establish what is known, identify what must be validated, and execute testing that produces defensible conclusions. This is how critical uncertainty becomes engineering certainty.