David Levi Email & Phone Number

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

I worked in the Engine Technologies and Repair Development Department while at Delta. This department is responsible for developing new repair strategies based on the scrap rate, cost, and estimated increase in service life of a given type of component.I participated in the development of a tip repair for the stage 2 high-pressure turbine blade of the JT8D-219 engine. In order to accomplish this, I scanned the outside of the turbine blades using a white light scanner in order to create a point map of the periphery and used cross sections of the blade to model the interior bleed air channels of the blade. The two aforementioned processes were used to create a FEA model of the blade to simulate the environment over the component's life. The FEA model generated was then used to come up with an experimental protocol for entering these repaired blades back into service.I also taught myself visual basic in order to create a program within excel to determine the natural frequencies of engine rotors, stators, and fan blades. I also came up with a methodology for determining the weight of an approximately 2 gram leading edge coating on a 2+ kilogram fan blade. Due to the change in weight being a thousandth the gross weight of the object, I came up with the idea to use the highly accurate moment weight scale used to balance the fan blades when being installed to estimate the weight of the leading edge coating based on the change in moment.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

This experience consisted of aiding in the construction and development of an experimental super rapid compression machine. This machine is used to simulate the compression phase of the Otto cycle in order to compare the efficiency of different stroke lengths and speeds for a given fuel. Efficiency was calculated based on the energy released divided by the total energy in the fuel expended. This experience taught me the process focused mindset needed for experimental research. Interacting with the primary benefactor and participating in part design meetings also taught me the skills necessary to justify the economic value of research.

Miami, Florida, United States

Over the course of the summers of 2011 to 2014, I aided in reseach for the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. This research lead to our article "Challenges in Sciatic Nerve Repair: Anatomical Considerations" being published in the Journal of Neurosurgery. My responsibilities included performing spinal surgeries on rodents, staining nerve specimens, measurement of nerve cross sections using ImageJ, and the generation of statistical comparisons between the total area and number of fascicles in the sciatic and sural nerve specimens. The end goal of our research was to determine the length of sural nerve grafts available in any one individual required to replace a given length of damaged sciatic nerve due to differences in availability and the cross-sectional area.