Mechanical Design

The final project for my Junior level Mechanical Engineering lab course was to fabricate a mechanical system as an enterprise, separated into three independent sub-system. Each sub-system was developed by an individual team to be robust and freestanding. Teams of an enterprise were limited by remote communication to simulate the collaborative product development experienced in industry between companies. Each sub-system was designed for a nominal load, and performed optimally for loads up to 2.5x the nominal, at which it must fail.

My enterprise developed a London Bridge inspired bascule drawbridge, comprised of a truss-shaped road, an overarching superstructure, and a motorized gearbox. My sub-team designed the gearbox to reduce our DC motor with a 9:1 gear ratio to withstand a nominal load of 1.4 kg while failing at 3.5 kg. The gears were designed using SolidWorks FEA simulations, and determined to fail at stress concentrations via shear stress on the uppermost gear. 

Continuous communication between teams was necessary to understand the progress and design changes throughout development.  A full project analysis can be found in our final project memo PDF. The gearbox was completed with Quinn Coyle, Fabian Louis, and Sabino Padilla.

As a member of the University of Pennsylvania's Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) Electric Racing Team, I developed a multipurpose quick jack device for the annual competition. The racecar's battery consisted of an array of LiPo batteries that were required to be charged in a designated location. In order to remove the battery pack from the car, we needed to lift the 400+ lb. vehicle approximately 15 inches off of the ground. The long lever arm of the quick jack pivoted around a wheel at the base to ensure that minimal force was required to lift the car to its required height to be lifted any team member. This also allowed for our team to get underneath the car for any mechanical fixes if necessary.

The competition also required the vehicle to be disengaged while traveling between events. Thus, a push bar was necessary to navigate around competition grounds. The quick jack doubled as a push bar, which hooked onto the hoop of the seat and sat horizontally by a kickstand that anchored to the back of the rear suspension. 

The device was designed in SolidWorks and FEA simulated to ensure performance. The steel tubes were cut to length and angle-grinded to weld together. This project was completed with Adnan Jafferjee.

For my Junior level Mechanical Engineering lab, we were challenged with developing a vertical axis wind turbine to generate electrical power. My team fabricated a split-Savonius designed for its reliability and capability of capturing large amounts of wind. We developed a two-layered three-blade design, with the layers offset by 30 degrees to maximize torque.

We created a scale model to test in our university's wind tunnel, analyzing the results to optimize a full-scale design. Both designs were modeled in  SolidWorks, and the final product was fabricated using laser-cut MDF for the foundation and a thin sheet material to create the blades.

We characterized the gear system and resistors  attaching the motor to the turbine to create the optimal electrical output. Our final demonstration resulted in a power output of 1.5 watts, which was considerably less than predicted. Upon further investigation, we were able to recognize our errors and determine that we had, in fact, not chosen the optimal solution. A full analysis of our project was documented in our final report. This project was completed with Ryan Draper and Cody Clouser.