Technology strategy and roadmapping, program leadership, industry and government collaborations

My work at GE is focuses broadening and extending the company’s competency in the field of sealing technologies, with the goal of improving the performance and reliability of machinery. This involves invention, design, development, modeling, testing, and implementation of seals and clearance control technologies for a variety of applications, spanning from aircraft engines, steam and gas turbines, to subsea blowout preventers (BOP) and oil and gas production equipment. Following are some highlights of this work:Led the development and implementation of GE-wide technology roadmap for predictive tools for high pressure high temperature (HPHT) elastomer applications. Led development of elastomer performance and life prediction tools from a Predictive Capability Maturity (PCMM) Level 0 to Level 4. Applied these tools to accelerate design of BOP elastomeric packers and seals. Led design and commissioning of test rigs of various scales and complexities for validating turbomachinery sealing technologies under high-temperature, high-pressure, high-speed and severe rotor transient conditions, retiring technological risks from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 1 through 6.Conceived, designed and experimentally validated advanced seals for turbomachinery applications, including brush seals, plate seals, and film riding seals. This also includes development of computational tools and methodologies for prediction of performance, reliability, dynamics and stability of seals under extreme operational conditions.

I was a doctoral candidate at the Mechatronics Research Laboratory led by Dr. Christopher D. Rahn. My graduate work focused on designing, modeling, building and localizing biologically-inspired soft robots with unique capabilities, such as that of performing delicate tasks in cluttered and/or unstructured environments. More details of my doctoral work is in my publications. Some of the side projects I worked on at Penn State as a research assistant: Underwater Threat Neutralization: Developed a digitized acoustics model for large, irregular acoustic spaces to assess the sensitivity of source/receiver transfer functions to the presence of transient reflective bodies (e.g., ships) in the harbor. The goal of this project was to demonstrate the efficacy of a swimmer deterrent system that focuses high intensity, low frequency sound at a sector of a harbor containing a swimmer.Battery Modeling: A leading cause of damage in lead-acid batteries is sulphation, a degradation of the battery caused by frequent charging and discharging that creates an accumulation of lead sulphate. This project was aimed at developing algorithms to maximize battery life by optimizing charging and discharging of battery systems for electric locomotives. I developed a system identification scheme to extract system parameters for dynamical models of lead acid batteries from charging/discharging data. Supervised honors thesis projects for three undergraduate students.

Instructor for the course Vibration of Mechanical Systems for two semesters● Designed course curriculum, homework assignments, projects and exams.● Designed and Delivered lectures thrice a week and held office hours.● Managed a class of about 50 students with the support of two teaching assistants.

Teaching Assitant for four courses: Instrumentation, Measurements and StatisticsStructural DynamicsFinite Element AnalysisVibration of Mechanical SystemsResponsibilities included holding office hours, grading homework, lab reports and projects and delivering some lectures.

Developed Standard Practice for Topology Optimization of mechanical components. Delivered two elevator component designs with weight savings of 30% over current designs. Developed simulation tools to predict elevator bounce dynamics.

Developed and validated analytical tools and experimental methods to predict dynamic instabilities in parametrically excited systems (Bose's latest audio speaker products.) Developed design rules to mitigate instabilities in audio products.

Undergraduate dissertation: Development of a traffic simulation methodology for non-lanefollowing traffic paradigm. Randomized Kinodynamic Motion Planning is used for traffic simulation. Developed algorithm and implemented using VC++ .

Analyzed structural dynamics of the vertical tail of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using Ansys and validated the results experimentally.Developed software for stress and failure analysis of general multidirectional laminates using C++, and used it to design a lightweight pressure vessel.

Developed a predictive model for North Atlantic Oscillations using Independent Component Analysis and demonstrated its validity by comparisons with the NAO index.