Skills: SolidWorks, Ansys, Siemens NX, Fusion, (CNC) Mill, Lathe, Waterjet, Composites, Hydrostatic/pneumatic pressure testing, Instron mechanical testing, OpenRocket, Project management/leadership
I served as Project Manager and Structures Lead of Olin Rocketry for two years, and was the team’s senior mentor in my final year. Olin Rocketry is a fully student-led project team focused on designing and building increasingly advanced rockets. We maintain a commitment to keeping the design and manufacturing processes entirely student-driven. In June 2022, we competed at IREC (the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition) in New Mexico, participating in the 10k COTS category.
Team photo at IREC in NM with the rocket and the 5 team members, including myself, designated to bring the rocket to the launch pad.
Click below or scroll to see some of the projects I worked/advised on while on the team
As a senior engineer and mentor on the team, I supervised the design and manufacturing of a new modular engine test stand capable of testing motors ranging from 29mm to at least 80mm in diameter. The test stand was constructed primarily from 80/20 aluminum extrusion to maximize modularity. All custom components, excluding the 80/20 sections, were fabricated in-house using waterjet cutting, CNC machining, and manual milling and lathe operations. The test stand includes a 300 kg load cell, which can be easily swapped depending on the motor being tested, and a 3,000 psi pressure transducer (PT) to measure chamber pressure. Additionally, adhesive thermocouples (TC) were installed to monitor casing temperatures during tests.
I trained team members to perform pneumatic pressure leak decay tests. The fitting assembly shown below connects the engine to the PT to measure internal chamber pressure. The aluminum component on the left, secured to the engine bulkhead, features an in-house machined female boss port. The test’s purpose was to verify that the boss port was machined to specification. We pressurized the assembly to 1,000 psi and conducted a 5-minute leak decay test, recording data with our DAQ system while performing snoop checks of the assembly.
Below is an integration test of the smallest motor currently tested on the engine test stand. Thanks to its modular design, the test stand can be easily adapted to accommodate motors of varying diameters and thrust levels.
We conducted our first static fire on the test stand using a COTS engine to verify the stand’s functionality and validate AVI data acquisition. The images below show the assembly and testing process for this initial static fire.
I also advised and collaborated on the design of the airbrakes mechanism. In my senior year, our team pursued a fully custom airbrakes system integrated with our SRAD avionics, aiming to improve apogee control. The design used a central lead screw to actuate flaps simultaneously in a straightforward yet reliable configuration. A key design challenge was minimizing weight, which we addressed by lightweighting the T-bar, using composite materials for the flaps, and opting for wooden centering rings instead of aluminum.
I also taught the team how to perform FEA and CFD analyses of the airbrakes mechanism using ANSYS. These simulations were used to optimize the structural margins of key components and to estimate drag coefficients, which informed our calculations for flap deployment speed and flight timing. The airbrakes system was then rigorously tested in conjunction with our SRAD avionics to ensure full compatibility and reliable in-flight control.
During my first year, I focused on fin design for the Phoenix IV rocket, which we competed with at IREC. This involved extensive research into various fin geometries and optimization strategies, alongside numerous OpenRocket simulations to evaluate stability, fin flutter, and apogee. Ultimately, I designed a clipped-delta fin shape that met all our performance and stability targets.
The fins were manufactured from G10 sheets and epoxied to the motor retaining tube and fuselage using a jig to ensure precise alignment during curing (not pictured). Following this, we began developing custom carbon fiber airfoil fins — a project still in progress. We have tested various layup and vacuum bagging techniques to optimize fin quality while minimizing weld lines.
As Project Manager, I championed the shift toward fully student-built carbon fiber body tubes. We purchased carbon fiber fabric in bulk and developed various layup techniques, enabling us to customize material properties by adjusting layer thickness while reducing cost and production time. After successfully flying these tubes on several rockets, we advanced to building a tube winding machine that starts with individual carbon fiber strands rather than fabric. This machine allows us to optimize strength by controlling fiber orientation and enables the fabrication of complex shapes such as nosecones.
We conducted extensive Instron tensile/compressive testing primarily on the fabric-wound tubes, as the filament-wound tubes are still a work in progress. These tests measured the strength of our carbon fiber tubes and provided a basis for comparison with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) tubes. We evaluated the impact of various layup techniques to build a comprehensive dataset on how different factors influence the final product’s performance. The image on the right below shows the use of liquid nitrogen to facilitate the removal of a carbon fiber tube from the aluminum mandrel used after winding.
