APES Inc., a four person engineering firm in South City, St. Louis, landed a $49,847 Phase I SBIR grant from the Air Force.

The grant is titled “Eddy Current Detection of Grinding Burns under Chrome-Plating on High Strength Steel.”

The Air Force is concerned with safety and ‘asset’ availability due to microstructural burns on chrome-plated, high-strength steel — which poses a serious risk to structural integrity of some machines.

The company name is short for ‘analytical processes – engineered solutions.’ It was founded in July, 1995 and has brought in more than $3.5M from the Air Force through six Phase I and four Phase II SBIR grants. APES president and business contact Craig Brooks declined to comment on this article.