Structural Design and Analysis, Inc.
In business since 1997, Structural Design and Analysis is a team of aerospace design and analysis engineers that help clients design lightweight and load efficient structures.
Contact us at inquiries@structures.aero
Leadership Team
Jim Jeans, President and Founder
Jim and SDA have been developing composite aircraft structures for over thirty years and have been the sole service provider for the structure layout design and detailed analysis on a variety of aircraft over the years. Prior to founding SDA, Jim was involved with numerous composite aircraft programs including the B-2 Stealth Bomber, F-22 Raptor Fighter, and several innovative designs such as the Aurora Perseus and Aurora Excalibur unmanned aircraft.
Jim has also been the program manager of a variety of programs that include design, analysis, and manufacturing. At Aurora he managed the Perseus Wing replacement program, where the team designed and built a longer wing for the Perseus aircraft, and was the program manager for the vertical tail of the Tier II+ (Global Hawk) V-Tail builds for Aurora. While owner of SDA, Jim was the program manager for a space program developing the Small Fine Arm Transport Container for the Japanese Small Fine Arm for the space station. Over the last few years, he has been the program manager for many programs that SDA has performed on, managing our team of engineers to meet the schedule and budget requirements of our customers.
Tim Nuhfer, VP of Design Engineering
Tim has more than twenty years of experience in the design, manufacture, integration, and testing of primary and secondary aircraft structures. His experience with metallic, carbon fiber composites, and 3D additive manufactured structures comes from his involvement in various stages of several aircraft programs. These include Aurora Flight Sciences’ Orion UAS and XV-27A LightningStrike, Boeing’s Solar Eagle, Phantom Eye, F-22, E-8C Joint-STARS, RQ-4A Global Hawk, E-3 AWACS, X-47B UCAS, CH-53K Sea Stallion, S-97 Raider, the Gulfstream G400 and G500, and a Formula 1 Reno Racer.
Tim’s experience encompasses many aspects of air vehicle design, starting with exterior lofting and performance analysis, preliminary and detailed design of structures, sub-system integration and test, and support of deployment and flight test activities. He has hands on experience building and integrating larger aircraft like the Orion UAS and small aircraft like the Formula 1 racer.
Blake Jeans, VP of Analysis
Blake has fifteen years of experience in the design and analysis fields, specializing in analysis of lightweight composite and metallic structures. His experience includes work on the Human Landing System with Blue Origin’s National Team, the launch fairing on Northrop Grumman’s OmegA heavy-lift launch vehicle, the XV-27A LightningStrike for Aurora Flight Sciences, NASA’s Orion Crew Module with Lockheed Martin, and a variety of small, unmanned vehicles.
Blake also has extensive experience in robotics design, including the design of the HDT Robotics Adroit Manipulator Arm and work on the DARPA Revolutionizing Prosthetics program. Both programs were based upon custom actuators developed in-house to meet strict weight and performance parameters. This interest in actuators and robotic design has bled into personal projects, including the design of a custom three axis CNC router.