Johaneev Sheelam B.S. Mechanical Engineering — Propulsion B.S. Electrical Engineering — Space

A six-foot internally ridged detonation tube built to prove detonation initiation, wave characterization, model fidelity, and test infrastructure before committing to annular RDE hardware. Selected by faculty leadership to lead system architecture, numerical design screening, integration, ignition, DAQ, test planning, and formal program communication for a four-person student-led, faculty-advised team.

• Reactive-flow solver development Numerical Built the program's MATLAB reactive-flow toolchain, including a Cantera-referenced HLLC solver that reproduced a 2,506.3 m/s equilibrium CJ reference within ~0.4% for a φ = 1.30 C₂H₄/O₂ case at 101.9 kPa and 293 K. Implemented multi-condition detonation tracking, persistence checks, threshold invariance, and conservation audits specifically to reject ignition, launch, and numerical artifacts.
• HPC reacting-flow campaign Completed Owned the end-to-end workflow for an eight-case OpenFOAM 9 blastReactingFoam campaign on the VEGA cluster: 192 MPI ranks, 156,416-cell smooth and true-ridged domains, GRI-3.0 chemistry at 53 species / 325 reactions, varied initial conditions, submission automation, failure recovery, field reconstruction, export, quality checks, and canonical dataset production.
• Structural and thermal screening Numerical Mapped solved pressure histories into a geometry-aware structural and thermal screening model incorporating thick-wall Lamé stress, transient radial conduction, NASA SP-8089-informed dynamic amplification, ridge stress concentration, and temperature-dependent material limits. Predicted 4.566 MPa peak pressure and 51.3 MPa peak dynamic stress with no modeled yield, allowable-stress, ultimate-strength, or thermal-limit exceedance.
• Burst diaphragm — analysis-driven design selection Numerical Surrogate tested Ran ANSYS structural sweeps across candidate diaphragm designs and wrote a MATLAB post-processor applying yield- and ultimate-strength accept/reject criteria to the sweep results, driving selection of the released four-petal, 0.25 in 316L stainless, 0.05 in scored configuration. Separately authored the program's primary MATLAB transient finite-element opening model — imported solid geometry, prescribed transient pressure loading, fixed mounting face, ~0.006 m maximum element size — evaluating transient displacement, stress, strain, and spatial stress concentration against screening limits. Opening behavior was evaluated through surrogate-geometry burst testing and a 3-D-printed demonstration. The model is linear elastic and carries no fracture or damage physics.
• Ignition system Built & bench-fired Designed, fabricated, and bench-tested a remotely operated 20.25 J capacitive-discharge ignition system: 12-to-450 V charging stage, 200 µF pulse capacitor, SCR discharge path, optical isolation, bleeder protection, and remote firing and abort controls. Completed four successful firings across a 0.2 mm gap at approximately 18 J estimated transferred energy.
• Instrumentation and DAQ architecture Integration underway Architected a 10 MHz NI PXI transient-pressure and time-of-arrival DAQ — sensor selection, signal conditioning, routing, EMI controls, synchronized triggering, and the MATLAB acquisition and post-processing software. Verified the trigger chain through MATLAB, breadboard hardware, and oscilloscope testing. Hardware is on hand; final integration is in progress.
• Subsystem and surrogate test campaign Executed Completed combustion, cold-flow, pressurization and leak, diaphragm-burst, sensor-calibration, and integrated dry-run testing on subsystem and surrogate-geometry hardware. Full-scale tube hot fire is targeted for September 2026.
• Design release Pending CDR & fabrication Led the technical design release of the tube and its integrated purge features, establishing and reviewing system-level constraints and coordinating compatibility across collaborator-created CAD, production drawings, and manufacturing outputs. Requirements, geometry, and 17-4 PH H1150B material condition and heat treatment are frozen; team- and faculty-approved production drawings are complete; certified tube material is on hand pending integrated-system CDR.
• Reviews and test operations Executed Led or delivered the majority of PDR/CDR, safety, and faculty and department technical reviews. Co-developed the P&ID and led test procedures, safety and readiness documentation, hardwired-abort planning, and purchasing coordination.

The direct continuation of the detonation-tube work. Phase I exists to earn the right to build this. Phase II has completed preliminary engineering — no Phase II hardware has entered fabrication or procurement.

• Injector impingement and splash modeling Numerical Developed Python simulations of injector impingement and liquid splash behavior to support preliminary LOX/propane injector design and compare candidate configurations before hardware development.
• CJ cell sizing and chamber analysis Numerical Completed Chapman–Jouguet detonation-cell sizing analysis plus preliminary chamber and cowling simulation to bound annular geometry constraints.
• Annular CFD setup In progress Set up OpenFOAM meshes for future annular reacting-flow simulation, extending the Phase I toolchain rather than restarting it.
• Canonical data foundations Preliminary Established CFD export and canonical-data foundations for PINN/PINO-based detonation-field reconstruction. Field-reconstruction model development remains preliminary.

Flight-hardware electrical engineering in an ITAR/EAR-controlled environment. Described here at the level my employer has authorized for public discussion.

• Filtered-interface redesign In production Developed and advanced to production a replacement filtered-interface architecture that eliminated an approximately 40-week connector procurement constraint across roughly 3,000 avionics units, substituting an unavailable filtered D-sub with a lower-cost unfiltered connector and 42 board-mounted 1,000 pF signal-to-ground capacitors.
• Design through production Executed Developed the digital signal and switching-noise filtering solution in Altium Designer and LTspice, then advanced it through supervisor and audio engineering manager review, applicable DO-160 qualification and environmental testing, ECO approval, PCB manufacture, electrical verification, complete-assembly integration, and production implementation.
• Board bring-up and failure isolation Executed Performed bring-up and failure isolation on approximately 20 aerospace PCB assemblies using oscilloscopes, DMMs, laboratory sources, schematic analysis, and PCB inspection. Investigated digital signal integrity, grounding and return-path, EMI, humidity-leakage, and unintended D-sub backshell-short faults.
• Change management Executed Supported more than 60 engineering change packages spanning schematic and PCB review, electronics validation, manufacturing support, ECO/ECR/EDR documentation, and Infor PLM release workflows.

Three fixed-wing and multirotor platform designs, approximately 25 operational systems built and deployed across more than 300 field missions serving four local rural farmers. Real aircraft, flown repeatedly, by real users, with failures I had to find and fix myself. This is the most complete design → build → test → field → redesign loop I own.

• Lifecycle ownership Fielded Owned requirements capture, CAD, structures, propulsion, electronics, flight controls, payload integration, fabrication, assembly, testing, repair, field operations, and direct user support — including mass-property and center-of-gravity management under varying payload configurations.
• Payload-release mechanism Designed, tested, redesigned Defined the airborne seed-release requirement, then designed, integrated, and tested a servo-actuated hopper-gate release mechanism — hopper geometry, gate and outlet, servo selection and mount, horn-and-linkage drive, travel limits, and command configuration — accounting for seed head load, friction, granular bridging, servo torque and linkage mechanical advantage, endpoint stall, vibration-induced inadvertent release, and CG shift during payload depletion. Verified through a staged progression of empty cycling, loaded bench cycling, partial- and full-hopper release, on-aircraft vibration, ground-run, and field release testing, then redesigned the mechanism after in-service jamming and inconsistent release.
• Failure-driven iteration Root-caused Diagnosed a recurring fixed-wing motor-mount and firewall failure — cracking around motor-mount fasteners, firewall delamination, fastener-hole elongation, motor misalignment, and rising vibration after repeated missions — through post-flight inspection, motor removal and fastener-hole examination, propeller-balance and shaft-runout checks, and comparison of crack direction against expected thrust and torque load paths. Reworked the motor-mount and firewall interface, after which subsequent missions showed no repeat cracking, reduced vibration, improved motor alignment, and faster inspection and repair.
• CAD, drawings, and fabrication Sole author Fusion 360 as the primary rapid part, payload, and assembly environment; SOLIDWORKS for detailed fixed-wing airframe geometry, multi-component assemblies, mates and assembly motion, drawings, and mass-property checks. Produced dimensioned fabrication drawings and templates covering mounting-hole locations, motor and servo bolt patterns, shaft and fastener clearances, payload-envelope dimensions, stock thickness, fit allowances, and bend and cut locations, applying datum structures with positional, flatness, and perpendicularity controls on selected parts. Fabricated by manual cutting, drilling, 3-D printing, laser cutting, and basic machining in foam, plywood, aluminum, and composite stock.

• Development support Executed Supported CAD, prototyping, testing, and iterative development of remotely piloted conventional fixed-wing and multirotor UAV platforms during a paid, full-time, on-site defense R&D internship.
• Prototype contribution Contributed Contributed to three development prototypes within a broader program that later progressed to more than 200 manufactured units. Prepared technical reports and supported engineering presentations while preserving customer and contractor confidentiality.