Thornton Tomasetti, a structural engineering firm that has worked on many of the city’s biggest construction projects, is jumping into the booming tech world.
The company just spun off a new firm called TTWiiN that will seek to monetize technology developed by Thornton Tomasetti and Weidlinger Associates, a firm that Thornton Tomasetti merged with last year.
So far, six products have been rolled into the spinoff company, including an advanced vibration dampening device that could be used to reduce the sway of ultra-tall skyscrapers. The portfolio includes three separate software packages that help with material modeling, the design of ultrasonic devices and the sharing of complex 3-D drawings over the web. It also includes a special shock-absorption device and a fuel injector that could help engines yield 30% better fuel efficiency.
Thornton Tomasetti created the products over the span of several years while developing engineering solutions for projects it had been tapped to work on by clients.
“We recognized that if we wanted to bring these products to market we needed a separate entity from our core business, with new leadership that would know what to do with them,” said Thomas Scarangello, chairman and CEO of Thornton Tomasetti, who along with other executives recently realized that the technologies would have commercial value. “This new company is going to take this technology and figure out its marketplace and potentially bring in outside investors to fund its continued development.