James M. (Jim) Blanding is a Senior Consultant in the Engineering Mechanics Group in the DuPont Company, in Houston, Texas. His consulting primarily involves plunger and plunger/hydraulic diaphragm pumps and compressors in process and metering applications. In these and related process systems, Dr. Blanding specializes in diagnostic measurements, online remote condition monitoring, and performance analysis. To complement this experimental work, he also performs detailed computational modeling of pump and compressor performance, rapid transients in process gas and control systems, and pressure pulsation.

Dr. Blanding received B.S. and M.S. degrees (Mechanical Engineering) from Virginia Tech before joining Union Carbide in 1976 as a Consultant in acoustics. He returned to Virginia Tech in 1978 for a Ph.D., as instructor on the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering teaching Mechanical Vibrations and other undergraduate courses. Dr. Blanding joined DuPont in 1981.