Dear Daniel,
This current conversation was prompted by a chance encounter last week with James T Walsh II, who, after a brief discussion on Kaplan turbine index testing introduced himself as the Chairman of the ASME PTC-18 Power Test Committee. PTC-18 is the only ASME Committee that deals with index, or relative turbine testing (Which is what the ITB does) so this is the best place for this quest to start.
The purpose of this email is to:
1. Reclaim ownership and give Credit for Imagineering the ITB to George Mittendorf, a long-time a member of ASME. George was my boss at Woodward for only a week when he gave me the ITB project to work on for Woodward and then we went our separate ways; he to manage Woodward’s facilities in Slough, England and me to create the ITB from whole cloth.
2. Prove my role in the ITB project by distributing emails with linked copies of Woodward and HDC documents that show my legacy going back to 1984 with this project at Woodward and at Actuation Test Equipment Company (ATECo). HDC engineers did not create (or invent) the ITB, they simply bought the first one from my Company on a Sole Source of Supply Contract and then made false claims that they created (or invented) the ITB that have hampered my opportunities ever since. When BPA offered to buy the first commercial ITB from Woodward and give it to HDC in 1986-06-11 - BPA to Corps (Myers), HDC declined, instead initiating a project to create their own “automatic testing device.” This BPA test data evaluation report by Lee Sheldon was given to me in 2004 by Tom Thorsen, the engineer who created the Automatic index testing device: 1990-03-27 Evaluation of USACE's "automatic index testing device" (Sheldon)
3. Request that the PTC-18 Committee review and validate my ITB’s performance by evaluating the parallel Index Test data from Hatch Inc. and ATECo on the 6MW Vertical Kaplan turbine at Dorena Dam 0n 2017-05-16 (see below).
4. Re-introduce my ITB to the market without any Corps bashing. (All the people that were there in 2005 have retired. There’s nobody left to be mad at…)
5. Is Peter Rodrigue still on your Committee? Please ask him what he thinks about my ITB from our comparative analysis: my ITB and Hybrid Index Testing (HIT) method vs. Hatch’s conventional method index test back in 2018. He’s already seen my ITB and discussed it with me to answer my tailwater analysis questions: 2018-03-18 Peter Rodrigue Conversation about Dorena Analysis.htm
6. To give you the “rest of the story” report from HDC’s Product Coordinator, Andrew Long 2019-03-25 Letter from HDC on GBO Status.pdf.*
*After years of successful results, FOIA requests were getting unreasonable confusing responses so my Senator Duckworth’s office was asked to intercede. Will Owens was the intern that I got shuffled down to in the Senator’s office. Will did precisely what I asked for; he requested a routine status check on an obscure government project through the lowest priority channels. This low level inquiry was the most likely to fetch a candid report. The question remaining today is: “has this project been resurrected since March 2019 or is it still dead in the water?”
1. Reclaiming Ownership
This is easily proven by the FOIA responsive ITB project startup documents from Rod Wittinger (Senior Mechanical Engineer at HDC) that are posted on my website and legacy documents from Woodward Governor Company. In his Sole Source Justification Rod attributed the invention of the ITB to me personally while beseeching USACE higher-ups that they needed a sole-source of supply contract with me (and only me) to get the ITB they saw at PGE-PHP-2 in 1987 because I invented what they wanted to acquire. The first commercially produced and sold ITB from Woodward was purchased by BPA in 1986. The Demonstration at Portland General Electric (PGE) Powerhouse #2 was reported on in 1987 by PGE’s Senior Staff Engineer, Gary Hackett. I asked Lee later on why he didn’t write the concluding report himself - he said he couldn’t get “arm’s length” away from it. DOE wanted a “disinterested 3rd party” on-record assessing the ITB’s level of success from this test to provide plausible deniability if it turned out to be a scam. Not everyone was on board…
In 2003 it was no secret that when Lee Sheldon called me from HDC I was building a product line to sell from my new company while waiting for Woodward’s Patent to expire.
2003-08-07 ATECo Sole Source Justification (Wittinger)
2003-08-29 ITB Scope of Work (Roll, Wittinger)
When I counter-introduced myself to James Walsh as the Woodward Member that invented the ITB in 1984, James recognized my situation and said he was familiar with it because the ITB had been discussed in his committee meetings after being presented by USACE as their own creation. He asked if I was still, “At odds with the Corps?” “Yes,” I replied. I invented the automatic index test box for Kaplan turbines at Woodward Governor Company. After waiting 15 years for Woodward’s Patent to expire, USACE bought my company’s first commercially produced ITB and then immediately claimed that they had invented it (the ITB) themselves. James told me that their story is the exact opposite, that government engineers say that they invented the Index Test Box and I took it from them. (I gathered that he believed them – by the way…)
I’ve had this conversation before and had made preparations...
Over the last 14 years numerous FOIA requests have been gathering information to refute the government’s claim. The FOIA responsive documents have been scanned and posted on a website for handy reference to back up my story at times like this. I gave James the website address, but suggested that it would be faster to just Google (or search) for the phrase: “Index Testing Kaplan Turbines,” every search engine will take you to my website as the first or second listing. (James appreciated the benefit of coming up near the top of search-engine listings.)
On my www.ActuationTestEquipment.com home page, click the button in the middle of the lower blue-bar across the top: All hydro files to open the document list page and then drop down to #96 at the start of the yellow highlighted group.
96. 2003-02-06 ATECo Quote to Lee Sheldon at HDC (Albright)
This is the Quote I sent to Lee Sheldon when he called me on behalf of HDC in 2003 (10-months before the Patent expired). Lee was working there as a Rehired Annuitant to index test 112 large Kaplan turbines by the traditional methods (by hand). Recalling my ITB work for Woodward starting in 1984 Lee called to request a quote on an updated ITB. I wanted to sell individual test instruments but HDC wanted everything to enable them to make ITBs in a different private company that would then become my competitor. I told them that would be unacceptable; that the ITB was to become the primary commercial product of Actuation Test Equipment Company. I had a 3rd generation prototype ready to productionize and was seeking financial backers while waiting for Woodward’s Patent to expire in less than a year. I offered 1, 10, 100 or more with deep volume discounts but would not consider giving up the software Source Code.
Six Months later, Rod Wittinger, Senior Mechanical Engineer at HDC and Technical Lead on the ITB project kicked-off a large government project with an article in Hydro Review about an upcoming Columbia River power system refurbishment program: 2003-08-01 Optimizing the Corps Hydroelectric Generation on the Columbia River (Wittinger)
A week later he wrote to a USACE financial office to advise them a big purchase was coming up: 2003-08-07 ITB Cost Estimate (Wittinger)
Inaccuracies creep into government documents. When they’re significant they will be pointed out - for example, the $68,000 didn’t buy a “prototype,” it bought a finished, commercial-unit ready for mass production – the first one off the assembly line.
A second version of the ITB was designed a few years later by Terry Bauman, my successor on Woodward’s ITB project. Terry was not given sufficient resources (time and money) to get it ready, and as a result was so spectacularly unsuccessful at Wells Dam in 1990 that Lee, BPA and Woodward were embarrassed (or should have been). By that time I was back at my regular job at Woodward working on airplane parts when Lee called to ask me to contact Ken Pflueger, superintendent at Wells to get his concerns and pass them on to whoever in Woodward could deal with big problems. (Lee had moved from BPA to Kleinschmidt by this time.) I wrote-up and passed a phone-note of Lee’s concerns to Mark Leum who had been the Hydro General Manager in 1984 when the ITB project started for Hydro so he was already familiar with it. Mark was President of Woodward Governor Company by this time and at first seemed happy to see me. My “aircraft division” boss suggested that Mark had hand-picked his successor as hydro division general manager and wouldn’t be very tolerant of criticism of his golden boy. Good guess. Mark thanked me for the phone note and said the hydro division would take care of their own business and that it was not my concern - and if I brought it up again I’d be out of a job. When I told Lee the response I got from Mark he said the market was still there for my proven ITB technology should I find a way to make it available again, hinting that if I made another ITB on my own at home and had it ready to sell – people would beat a path to my door to buy it. I took the challenge and started developing a 3rd version of the ITB on the new Gateway PC my first wife bought me for my 43rd birthday. Ten years later Lee was calling me about getting a quote to buy it.
Next Rod W. wrote a Sole Source Justification letter specifically going after my original ITB that was demonstrated at PGE PHP-2 in 1987. This successful test was reported on by Gary Hackett, the Sr. Staff Engineer at Portland General Electric. When I asked Lee why he didn’t write the concluding assessment himself, he explained he’d been a big proponent of the ITB and couldn’t get an “arms-length away” from it to be objective enough. Gary was the “disinterested 3rd party” that BPA wanted for the assessment.
2003-08-07 ATECo Sole Source Justification (Wittinger)
Notes: Paragraph 5 names me as the inventor of the Index Test Box at Woodward Governor Company, but incorrectly says I was a USAF Fire Control Technician; I was USAF Ground Radio but did do a wee bit of signal processing. Paragraph 6 incorrectly states that the Original ITB was developed under a BPA R&D Contract. The original ITB was developed at, by and for Woodward exclusively at Woodward’s expense; BPA only purchased the first commercially produced ITB from Woodward for the above mentioned test at PGE PHP-2.
Next Rod got the #2 administrator at HDC to sign-off on my Sole Source of Supply ITB Scope of Work.
2003-08-29 ITB Scope of Work (Roll, Wittinger)
Note: This document also names me as the inventor of the technology that HDC wants.
Rod specified exactly what was needed more explicitly:
2003-09-01 ITB Project Specification.htm
And then started setting up a Sole Source contract to get me personally to sell them an ITB.
2003-09-06 USACE ITB Solicitation #1 (HDC)
2003-09-12 USACE ITB Solicitation #2 (HDC)
Their Solicitations were both trying to capture the software Source Code so they were rejected outright. It was explained that the “Bill Gates” business model was desired for the ITB. When you buy Bill’s Windows program, you don’t get the source code to make as many copies of Windows as you want – you only get one copy. Volume discounts and site licenses are available, but the Source Code never gets released.
To build a fence around the Intellectual Property that needed protection, a Software Report that explains what the source code is and what it does and the Screen Gallery that shows the display screens that on the computer monitor while the program is running.
2003-10-20 Software Report (ATECo)
2003-10-20 Screen Gallery (ATECo)
The proof of the pudding is the Contract and US Copyright and the Special License Agreement that binds them together. The Contract lists one ITB with 2 demonstrations with an option to buy up to 320 more at a preset fixed price. Some options would still be upsells.
2004-05-26 USACE Contract W9127N-04-D-0009 for Type-1 Optimizer (Ebner)
2004-07-19 TX 6-006-161 ITB Software Copyright (Albright)
2004-05-26 USACE Contract Special License Agreement (Ebner)
Add to these my magazine article about the ITB in Hydro Review: 1987-06-01 Little Black Box for Index Testing (Albright)
Woodward’s homage to George Mittendorf, the ITB and myself in the company’s monthly, the Prime Times: 1987-03-01 Prime Times ITB
And another Article in IWP&DC: 2008-06-01 Testing Time for Kaplans (Albright) to lock it up.
Credit to the Imagineer
The ITB had been imagined by George Mittendorf years before we met in 1978 when I started at Woodward. The technology needed to make it happen didn’t come along until microprocessors for PCs and PLCs came on the scene in the mid-60’s. As my job for Woodward, in 2003 I wrote a 3-D Cam mapping computer program for temperature compensation testing of gas turbine engine fuel controls used in US Navy Destroyers and Frigates. When the Woodward Governor Company hydro division Engineering Manager (George M) saw it mapping hydraulic 3-D Cams in airplane engine fuel controls he imagined how it could work on a Kaplan turbine. George transferred his idea to me in the form of a stack of magazine articles about index testing that he’d been collecting since dirt was new. These articles are all scanned and posted on the website in chronological order. On the top of the pile was Lee Sheldon's 1982 tutorial on Kaplan head-and-gate-to-blade optimization published when he worked in the Idaho Operations Office of US DOE setting up Kaplan turbines in Idaho Falls. George picked up Lee’s article, handed it to me separately and challenged: “Make us something that does this…”
In 1984 I was recruited away from my regular Woodward job working on aircraft gas turbine engine fuel controls by George to work for 1 year on his ITB project for hydro. It was a good career move for me to develop a new product line by creating an automatic Index Test Box for Kaplan turbines that would increase sales of their new digital 3-D Cams and Governors. After my development work was completed and documented I returned to my original job testing aircraft engine fuel controls. (My co-workers had a cassette set to play Dr. Hook’s Medicine Show to welcome me back to work teasing me about this Prime Times issue when it came out.)
This is the same George Mittendorf who was on your PTC-18 committee back in the day who is so highly regarded that he’s listed twice in the credits page of your latest PTC-18-2011. When HDC engineers make these false claims they’re not just stealing my thunder, they’re stealing George’s thunder too.
George was a rising star at Newport News turbine company on the design team for the huge Francis turbines at Grand Coulee Dam when he was recruited by Woodward Hydro General Manager Mark Leum at an IEC meeting to come to work at Woodward. Mark’s purpose was to get George’s fresh new ideas to modernize Woodward’s hydro-turbine governor product line which was willfully, woefully stagnant. George was an idealist who admired the fervor that got the 1949 Index Test Supplement appended to that year’s Test Code and ultimately got relative efficiency testing incorporated into the next revision of the Code. As a very pragmatic engineer George wanted to make a real difference and saw Woodward as an opportunity to improve the situation with Kaplan hydro governing. One of George’s pie in the sky objectives at Woodward was to create a self-optimizing Kaplan governor and 3-D Cam. Towards this end in 1984 he started the 505 H project that was supposed to adapt a 505 XT Steam Turbine Governor to Kaplan turbine governing and the ITB project to complete the plan. Sadly these efforts fizzled-out at Woodward in Rockford and Stevens Point and then Woodward sold the hydro division, but now 20 years later they’ve all come full circle, are ready to recombine and move forward.
Here’s how the ITB and Hybrid Index Testing (HIT) Method were used at Dorena Dam
The SCADA system at Dorena was reconfigured for continuous index test data collection in 2015. This method was named the Hybrid Index Testing (HIT) method by the project’s lead engineer. Ever since then it has continuously recorded 2Hz scans 24/7 365. The HIT method sets up the instrumentation and recorder and then the powerplant folks just let it record continuously because memory in their datalogger is abundant. The water level didn’t get high enough in 2016 so we had to wait until 2017 to run the final index test at 102 feet head.
While we waited, ownership of the generating equipment changed hands. The new owners customarily used Hatch Inc. as their turbine testing consultants. Because Hatch Inc. was setup to run Load Reject tests already they ran the 4th index test that the ITB was scheduled to run. I had been watching Dorena Lake level on the NOAA website for 2 years and saw when it got above 102 feet gross head. When I called the dam a week later to ask when they were going to call me about the index test, they said, “Change of plan, don’t bother. As long as they were here and setup already for the load-reject testing the new owners had Hatch run the index test to get it over and done with.”
When I said that was good news, they were puzzled that I was happy to have lost the work. Everyone else was unhappy. The project engineer didn’t get to charge hours to the index test for driving across the state (he lives 12-hours away in Idaho Falls) and stay in a motel while he ran the index tests (He wasn’t needed for this, he just wanted to be there.) and the locals (Three USACE retirees with experience at index testing who had setup their own service company for Dorena) didn’t get to charge hours to the index test for exercising the turbine (someone was needed to do this, but only one someone) and I wouldn’t be getting paid for the Post-Processor analysis (Not true – I still got paid). The objective of the ITB and HIT method is to make individual index tests so cheap and easy to perform that they actually get done everywhere all the time. The riches will come from increased volume.
The good news was that we gained a parallel commercial index test executed by industry-accepted experts that really know what they’re doing to compare with my Post-Processor analysis of the exact-same data because the powerplant datalogger had captured it all. The Owners sent me the Hatch Inc. test report and 2-Hz streamed stripchart data record from the Dorena datalogger for analysis. The datalogger had recorded all of the data that Hatch’s field measurements were read from, scanned continuously at 2 Hz. A few phone calls brought the actual Excel® spreadsheet that the field engineers used to reduce their data to get the results for their reports. The ITB calculations were adjusted to analyze tailwater the same way Hatch did it and we got exactly the same answers.
Hatch’s field work was very precise and professional, however there was still more scatter in their final steady-state data reduction due to the randomness of human-eyeball data mining. My ITB’s SteadyState algorithm sifts through the data using a statistical analysis algorithm consisting of Least-Squares Fit Linear Regression and Standard Deviation routines that are much more rigorous and precise at gleaning the most steady-state data from the stripchart files. The stripchart data that I have is a recording of the numbers displaying on the instruments when Hatch Inc. took their readings at the dam. Their work could be double-checked precisely because, “Is it real, or is it Memorex…”
Peter Rodrigue was a member of your committee in 2011. Peter co-signed the Hatch Inc test report from their Dorena index test so when I asked questions of the field-test engineers, they were always referred back to Peter. I introduced myself to Peter as a “sparky” and a student of index testing that was trying to understand every facet of it to program my Index Test Box to accommodate every contingency. I didn’t understand how they were analyzing tailwater levels. He chuckled at my optimism and said I’d never get them all because every unit’s different... We agreed to have the conversation by email so I could study and respond to it rigorously.
2018-03-18 Peter Rodrigue Conversation about Dorena Analysis.htm
Peter graciously reviewed this data with me in his professional capacity for Hatch and explained everything so that I could understand how the tailwater measurements had been engineered. Everything made perfect sense. His puppy engineers in the field seemed concerned that I was double-checking their work and seemed uncomfortable talking to me. (I was not so much double-checking their work as I was learning how the big-kids do it…)
If Peter is still available and can recollect his comparison review of my ITB and his team’s index test, perhaps he’d tell you what he thinks of my ITB’s analysis work at Dorena.
Best regards,
Douglas Albright – President
Actuation Test Equipment Company
(815) 335-1143
www.actuationtestequipment.com
