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This page details many of my projects and experiences. The title of each project/experience links to a page with more information and images.
During my senior year, I joined the Purdue Aero SAE club. This club was determined to build a remote-controlled aircraft for the annual competition in Florida. I was the controls lead and led a team of 10 younger engineers, even though I had never built an RC airplane before nor had I been in the club before. I learned a lot about how to build and design aircraft. This was one of the best experiences I had during college because I had to think critically and make real design decisions.
Although not aerospace engineering related, the recent volunteer experience I’ve had has been very influential. In fact, there are some parallels to engineering in teaching English. Through teaching English, I have learned a lot about how to describe complex thoughts to others. Within each sentence contains many different components, each of which has different uses and meanings. Additionally, I have learned how to communicate with people who speak a different language, and how to appreciate and support ideas that are different than my own. Helping others in a foreign country has given me a better worldview and helped me realize what’s truly important in life. I am very grateful of the friends and the impact I have made on the community of Atacames, Ecuador.
Butler America Aerospace and Defense – Airframe Design Engineer
While I was at Butler America Aerospace and Defense, I worked as an Airframe Design Engineer and helped manufacturing engineers solve their design-related problems. The problems I worked on were specifically on rotary wing aircraft designed by Lockheed Martin. On two occasions I was tasked with redesigning airframe components. I did this through working with structural, manufacturing, and senior design engineers.
ME 463 Final Report – Parked Car Climate Control
I led a team of four other Mechanical Engineers with the determination, design, test, and analysis of a real-world engineering problem. We chose the overheating of car interiors due to the greenhouse effect. When car windows are rolled up and light from the sun enters the car it increases the temperature. We chose to constrain ourselves by not using the car’s battery or rolling down the windows. Through an iterative design process, we solved the problem by combining a solar panel with a set of thermoelectric devices connected along a crossflow heat exchanger. Our solution was successful through removing energy via our heat exchanger and limiting the incident sunlight.
ME 452 Project 2 – Crankshaft Sizing
This project focuses on the design and analysis of a four-stroke diesel engine crankshaft. I was given some geometrical dimensions and tasked with determining a material, finalizing the finish, choosing an appropriate radius, and other tasks. This project was done through Matlab analysis and hand calculations/sketches.
ME 452 Project 3 – Gear Sizing
During my senior year, I was given the project to design a set of gears. I worked through my selection methodology and what the results were. This was a great project for me because it was clearly applicable in the real world and showed me the types of problems and design questions that can occur.
ME 315 Final Project – Compressor Overheating
This was a project for my Heat Transfer class. I worked in a team of two other Mechanical Engineers as we tried to lessen the effect of a compressor overheating. This project was influential because it gave me experience in testing and analysis.
While studying abroad in Shanghai, China, I took on a position in a research laboratory. I was the only undergraduate working in my group and the only non-Chinese student. I worked alongside very talented and driven students to study soot formation. This was one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever had. I was on the front lines of lessening the effects of soot from diesel engines in a country that is having an especially difficult time dealing with this.
While I was a senior at Purdue, I participated in research at Zucrow Laboratories. I worked alongside graduate students as they studied combustion and vaporization. I played a critical role in assisting their background research, in addition to the construction of their experiments. This was a similar role I had while at the research lab in Shanghai.
Samuel Belliel's Portfolio 