Design Engineer

Ashok Seshadri

TEL: 905-***-****

E-mail: ********@*****.***

Profile

Ø 12 + years experience in design and analysis of automotive door and chassis assemblies comprised of metal and plastic components for vehicles in QS 9000 environment

Ø Proficient in simulating Non-linearity and Contact behaviour of structural assemblies

Ø Excellent problem solver and team player with a successful background delivering operational enhancements, leveraging emerging technologies

Ø A lifelong learner who accepts new challenges and adapts to new situations quickly

Work Experience

Freight Car America, Johnstown, PA, USA ---Lead Design Engineer---Sep. 06 – Feb. 09Freight Car America (www.freightcaramerica.com) builds and designs aluminium railcars to haul coal.

Ø Mentored and guided the team for performing structural & durability analysis on very large assemblies of railcars conforming to AAR specifications. Typical load cases involved buff, draft and compressive end loads. Developed models involving non-linear conditions for Abaqus solver

Ø Proficient in Design-modeller for modifying CAD models imported from Pro-E and Inventor. Created sub-models to incorporate in-depth features and connections between parts and evaluate stresses. Worked on applying the fatigue tool in Workbench to known fatigue failure prone areas of the railcar. This helped in predicting life and developing a procedure for fatigue analysis of future railcars.

Ø Performed modal analysis on railcar models. Developed JavaScript code for automating routine tasks in Simulation.

Flex-N-Gate, Bradford, Ontario, Canada --- Senior Engineer --- Jan. 2004 – Sep. 2006

Flex-N-Gate Bradford division (www.flex-n-gate.com) is a Tier 1 automotive supplier of mechanical assemblies such as Jacks, Hinges, Parking brakes, Pedals etc.,

Ø Develop test and CAE verification plans to ensure effective use of resources and reduce the number of prototypes. Conduct monthly review with senior management to obtain buy-in for the design changes and recommendations

Ø ANSYS 10.0 was used to model and solve contact problems between rigid to flexible and flexible to flexible surfaces. Optimized the structural design of scissor-jacks, door hinges and pedal assemblies to save cost and weight without sacrificing the structural performance.

Ø Applied for a patent for an innovative idea to enable holding the doors open during painting before the door checks are assembled on a car or truck.

Ø Developed macros and APDL scripts to replace or improve routine modelling tasks in ANSYS. Documented new analysis techniques for use in future projects. Performed analysis to determine permanent set in mechanical assemblies. Performed material and thickness optimization studies by running scripts pre and post processing different scenarios

Flex-N-Gate, Bradford, Ontario, Canada --- Design Engineer --- May 1999 – Jan. 2004

Ø Automotive chassis components were some of the products simulated for FEA. Test criteria specified by FMVSS were used to check and verify design development activities. Door hinges were generally simulated for drop & sag and check load simulations. Pedals and jacks were usually checked for maximum displacement under worst load case scenarios. FEA results were often correlated with in house physical testing of prototype parts.

Ø Applied mesh independent spot-weld feature in ANSYS to simulate spot weld joints in sheet metal components. Actively participated in R&D activities such as introducing new products like running boards, 180 degree hinges, finding new applications for software, improving existing methods and practicesØ LS-DYNA solver used to determine impact forces on push to release type park brake assemblies

Ø Possess working knowledge of HYPERMESH & UNIGRAPHICS-NX softwares to pre-process CAD models for meshing. Created mid-surfaces and modified CAD data to suit for translation into ANSYS and to improve mesh quality

Blazer International, Franklin Park, IL, USA --- Design Engineer --- Feb, 94 – Mar 99

Blazer International was a Tier 1 supplier of Fog lamps and Headlamp assemblies for the major automotive companies.

Ø Design components of headlamps and fog lamps of cars for GM and Chrysler. Primarily the components were made from plastic injection molds or Die-cast tools

Ø Skilled in the use of Unigraphics CAD system for Modelling, Drafting and Free form features. Constructed & manipulated complex optical surfaces using Free-form feature techniques of Unigraphics. Accumulated excellent solid modelling skills by working on several complex lamp components

Ø Performed stress analysis on lamp components to determine weak areas during initial phase of design using ANSYSØ Proficient with many aspects of mold construction like draft-angles, die-pull directions, mold parting line determination, side-action insert issues etc

Software Skills

Ø FEA – ABAQUS, ANSYS, HYPERMESH, LS-DYNA

Ø CAD - UNIGRAPHICS-NX, PRO-E

Ø PC Skills – Word, PowerPoint, Excel

June 1989

June 1992

BS in Mechanical Engineering

MS in Mechanical Engineering

Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, Bangalore, India

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, USA

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