Projects

Every project, with the analysis attached.

11 case studies spanning test hardware and instrumentation, physics-based simulation, structural optimization, propulsion, and mechanical design. Each opens into the full write-up.

Hot-Wire Anemometry Traverse for the “Big Blue” Wind Tunnel

Built & Commissioned

Wind Tunnel Studio, Cornell University

Hot-Wire Traverse

Replaced a wind tunnel's fixed pitot-static probe with a two-axis lead-screw traverse I designed, machined, instrumented, and validated in under a month — giving the tunnel its first repeatable, position-resolved velocity map.

3.11 m/s

Mean velocity across 154 survey points

0.44%

Standard deviation as a fraction of mean

Fusion 360Manual MillLabVIEWArduino

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Built & Tested

MAE 2250 Mechanical Synthesis, Cornell University

Radial Piston Pump

A positive-displacement pump machined entirely by hand from raw stock. It cleared its flow requirement roughly sixfold — and then failed at its hose joints under exactly the pressure its own drivetrain could produce.

5.9 L/min

Delivered at ~60 rpm — 5.9× the requirement

40%

Volumetric efficiency: unsealed pistons, no check valves

SolidWorksManual MillLatheLaser Cutting

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Completed

Toyota Forklift Studio, Cornell University

Engine Test Campaign

Instrumented engine testing on a production inline-six: in-cylinder pressure–volume work, thermal behaviour under load, and the data reduction that turns raw traces into performance numbers.

15Z

Toyota inline-six engine under test

P–V

Indicated work extracted from in-cylinder pressure traces

Engine TestingData AcquisitionThermocouplesPressure Transducers

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Top 5 Finish

MAE 3050 Introduction to Aeronautics, Cornell University

Long-Range Glider

A balsa glider designed from published sailplane performance data, validated in XFLR5, flown in competition, and then dimensionally scaled to fly in a thinner, lower-gravity atmosphere.

Top 5

Of more than 30 competing teams

11.2

Wing aspect ratio, at 37.6 g all-up mass

XFLR5Fusion 360Laser CuttingSimilitude Scaling

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Curtiss OXX-6 V8: Reverse Engineering to Augmented Reality

Deployed at the Curtiss Museum

Glenn Curtiss Engine Studio, Cornell University

Curtiss OXX-6 Reverse Engineering

A 1916 Curtiss OXX-6 — one of the first mass-produced American aircraft engines — taken apart, measured, and rebuilt as a complete animated CAD assembly that now drives a museum AR experience.

1916

Year of manufacture — among the first mass-produced US aircraft engines

Configuration reconstructed part by part

Fusion 360Reverse EngineeringMetrologyCAD Animation

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Completed

MAE 6540 Plasmas for Propulsion, Cornell University

Plasma Jet Simulation

A MATLAB model of plasma formation inside an experimental microwave jet engine — standing-wave electron heating, energy-dependent ionization of N₂ and O₂, and the pressure rise that follows.

0.25 µs

Simulated time to peak electron temperature

N₂ + O₂

Species with separate impact-ionization thresholds

MATLABFinite DifferencePlasma PhysicsCollision Cross Sections

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Wind-Turbine Blade Aerodynamic Load & Flapwise Deflection Model

Completed

Wind Tunnel Studio, Cornell University

Blade Deflection Model

A MATLAB model written from scratch to test whether blade flex explained a 22% power shortfall. It takes airfoil polars and a blade planform and returns the deflected shape under aerodynamic load.

2.83 mm

Max flapwise tip deflection, SG6043 6-inch blade at 3500 rpm

1×10⁻¹⁴

Section routine agreement with the closed-form polygon integral

MATLABfminconBEM TheoryGreen's Theorem

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Reinforcement Learning for Wing Kinematics in Hovering Flight

Completed

M.Eng. Aerospace Engineering project, Cornell University — advisor Prof. Jane Wang

Flapping-Wing Flight & RL

Derived the full nonlinear dynamics of a flapping-wing flyer from first principles, built the simulation in Python, and trained a PPO agent to search wing kinematics for hover.

+75%

Episode reward mean improvement over training

196

PPO iterations in the extended training run

PythonSymPySciPy RK45Stable-Baselines3

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Completed

MAE 5700 Finite Element Analysis, Cornell University

Wing FEA Optimization

Minimized the mass of a thin-walled wing under aerodynamic and gravitational loading using ANSYS shell elements, taking a baseline that violated both constraints to a compliant design 6.6% lighter than the single-parameter optimum.

7,967 kg

Final mass, Design J — 6.6% under the single-parameter optimum

0.375 m

Deformation limit — the active constraint throughout

ANSYS MechanicalShell FEAParametric OptimizationMesh Sensitivity

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Apollo CSM Propulsion Redesign Trade Study

Completed

MAE 5540 Spacecraft Propulsion, Cornell University

Apollo CSM Propulsion

A redesign of the Apollo Service Propulsion System's feed architecture, showing that a turbopump meets the same 2,800 m/s mission Δv with roughly 25% less propellant.

−24.6%

Required propellant mass at 5 MPa chamber pressure

5.5 MPa

Design chamber pressure, up from 0.69 MPa

Rocket PropulsionSolidWorksMATLABTrajectory Simulation

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Vortex Panel Method Solver for Airfoil Aerodynamics

Completed

AEP 5380 Computational Engineering Physics, Cornell University

Vortex Panel Method

A from-scratch 2D vortex panel solver in Python, built to test whether public airfoil coordinate databases are directly compatible with a Kutta-enforced panel method. The answer turned out to be no, and why is the interesting part.

NACA 0012

Test geometry, swept from −5° to +10° angle of attack

Γ → C_L

Lift recovered via the Kutta–Joukowski theorem

PythonNumPyGauss EliminationPotential Flow

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