Life of a Mechanical Engineer

One of the most time-consuming types of simulations is Explicit simulations. Simulations can either be implicit or explicit. Explicit simply means that the simulation is run for a very small time period where energy change is very high and instantaneous. Many different studies are done using Explicit methods. One of these is the simulation of an explosion. This is what I did in my six-month internship. Since this internship was under a government organization, I can't describe the specifications of the process, but basically, it was the simulation of an explosion. Here's an image of how the failure occurred just after 0.1 s of the explosion. Image: Failed sheet due to explosion on Ansys Explicit. While using Explicit methods, it is very important to define the material properties properly. Unlike Implicit models where a few properties like density and elastic modulus can fully define the material, Explicit models require much more data. Thus, one of the most important steps is ...

This was quite a famous project last year. Basically, this is meant to be a prank. There is a box with a switch on it. You flick the switch, an arm comes out and flicks the switch back to the original procedure. We thought of making this with some upgrades so that we can use much of our knowledge about Arduino in a single project. So we started designing the same box, but with the added functionality of movement and proximity detection. Not only it could flick the switch, but also detect if someone is approaching to flick the switch and even move back to avoid that. And this all was done inside a small box with an easily manufacturable structure. Here's a render! Image: Rendered Product on Fusion 360. The project started with a model on Fusion 360. A cuboid was cut into parts to ensure different motors and microprocessors can be fitted in. Further, the structure was made in such a way that it could be made by laser-cut wood sheets. Laser cutting was chosen due to it's relativel...

CNC machines are the most vital part of Mechanical Engineering. One way or another, we all end up using CNC machines in our projects. Let it be robotics, automobile, prototyping, additive manufacturing, CNC is used everywhere. My first experience with something similar to CNC was the 3D printer. We had an FDM based 3D printer in our college, which was majorly used for research purposes. We had worked on it for some time when we came up with the idea of making our own 3D printer.  We thought of making something less complex before making a 3D printer, something like a 2D printer. So, we decided of making the least complex 2D CNC machine: A Plotter. What it does is simply using a pen to plot whatever the file is provided with on a piece of paper. But making any CNC machine is very complicated. There are many things to take care of, the most important being vibrations. The body of a CNC machine needs to be stiff enough to ensure minimal vibrations. We achieved this by using layers of ...

First of all, Formula Student can't be called a personal project. It was rather a team project where I was in charge of designing the car. As a team of twenty, we worked for over eight months to come up with this vehicle. And believe me, it took more effort than any of us had expected. To start with, it was the first time our college was making a Formula Student, so we had no guidance. Although we had a team for BAJA India, the last few years were not going good for our teams. So we had a bit of experience, but that too with an All-Terrain Vehicle. I was the head of designing for the Formula Student. And I had to read the rule book at least three to four times and design a chassis at least ten times to come up with a design that looked fairly good. It took us (me and my team) five months and nearly 97 iterations to come up with the final design. Yeah, you read it right. I had to make the roll cage up from scratch tens of times. Then each of these was modified to ensure no rule is b...

Today I'll like to talk about my college life in general. You know being a mechanical engineering student sucks in India. Majorly because of two reasons. First: Our fellow students think we don't know girls and how to talk to them, and that we are desperate as fuck. Second: We and even our professors know that most of us won't be getting any job in our branch-related company. To be very honest please do understand that most of the mechanical engineers are very comfortable talking to girls. We are the same as everyone else. And those who think we are desperate, well we are not. We don't need to be. We have the smartest guys in the whole college/university. And yes, most of the colleges in India are able to provide placement to only 10% of the mechanical engineers. There are a hundred reasons for this, but yeah, campus placement in our core stream is not easy at all. But, one way or another all of us do find a job and do make a good career. And, we also are the most Jugad...

This was the first real project we ever made. Our university had allocated some funds for green initiatives inside the campus, and one of our seniors had an idea. He thought of making an 8 seater cycle bus. And I along with my friends started working under him. We started by deciding the orientation of the passenger. Then we worked on the mechanism to transmit power from eight different pedals to one driving shaft. And slowly, we kept on solving every problem and finally came up with a chassis. Somehow, this project made me understand Solidworks in a way I couldn't even learn by studying or from Youtube. I did my first simulation on Solidworks as well.  The project also helped us all to understand why we were studying all our subjects. We had to do calculations for the turning radius, gear ratios, transmission mechanism, clutch mechanism, and whatnot. We designed the chassis, simulated it, removed unnecessary components, and then repeated everything until we reached the most optimu...