Edward Kral, Ph.D.

Edward Kral, Ph.D.

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Results-driven Senior Mechanical Engineer with expertise in computer-aided

design, numerical simulation, high performance computing, and computing systems.

Experience with several finite element and design packages, programming, and

reliability and data mining. Experienced with taking projects from concept to

results on schedule. Have excellent communication and writing skills. Speak

beginning level of Japanese.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies / IBM Corp, San Jose, California, 1997-2008

Senior Engineer, 1999-2008

Advisory Engineer, 1997-1999

Performed data analysis, mechanical simulation, physical testing, and test code

development related to hard disk drive technology and design.

Major projects in simulation, analysis, and programming included:

• Reliability analysis of disk drives and components. Data mining on

drive log data from the field. Data Mining Worldwide Initiative

Team Leader for San Jose.

• Airflow simulations to characterize material parameters of filters

and particulate disbursement in drives.

• System integration and administration of Linux clusters for airflow

simulations and data mining.

• Simulation of shock response of disk drive components using ANSYS.

• Development and maintenance of disk drive accelerated test code (C++).

• Simulation and analysis of rough surface contact at the head-disk

interface.

Major projects in hardware testing included:

• Testing of lubricant pickup on the slider at the head-disk interface

during flying.

• Testing of prototype disk drives for contact start/stop and

load/unload reliability, including statistical analysis of lifetime

expectancy.

IBM Corp, San Jose, California, 1996-1997

Project Manager, Scientific and Technical Systems and Solutions

Served as on-site computational applications specialist at the Lawrence

Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, CA. Provided technical

computing expertise for large engineering and physics codes on the 512-node

IBM Scalable Parallel (SP) computer at LLNL as part of the Department of

Energy’s Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI).

IBM Corp, San Jose, California, 1994-1996

Project Manager for Engineering Solutions,

Scientific and Technical Systems and Solutions

Provided engineering and scientific support for RS/6000 workstations and SP

parallel computing systems. Enabled and optimized engineering applications

and provided expertise in engineering applications, scalable parallel

technologies, and high-performance computing to IBM customers (both end users

and third-party software vendors).

University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, 1993-1994

Postdoctoral Researcher, Computer Mechanics Laboratory

Modeled contact at the head-disk interface in hard disk drives. Incorporated

the roughness of each surface into a fractal model of surface topography and

developed a fractal description of three-dimensional surfaces. Performed finite

element contact simulations of these surfaces and established load criteria for

prevention of wear at the contact interface.

Dynamics Technology Inc., Torrance, California, 1983-1986

(acquired by Applied Signal Technologies, Inc. in 2005)

Research Engineer

Designed and tested mechanical components for an undersea internal wave sensor

and prototype fiber optic sensors. Modified a two-dimensional finite difference

Navier-Stokes code to investigate the forces on a sediment particle in the viscous

sublayer of a turbulent boundary layer.

EDUCATION

University of California at Berkeley, Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, 1993

Major field: Solid Mechanics

Minor fields: Materials Science and Applied Mathematics

Research Advisors: Profs. Kyriakos Komvopoulos and David B. Bogy

Harvey Mudd College, Master of Engineering, 1983

Harvey Mudd College, Bachelor of Science in Engineering, 1982

COMPUTER AND TECHNICAL SKILLS

Programming Languages: FORTRAN and C++

Data Mining Packages: Clementine

Finite element packages: ANSYS, I-DEAS, MARC, and ABAQUS

CFD packages: CFD-ACE

Other: MatLab

Operating Systems: AIX, Linux (primarily Red Hat), Windows

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS (Complete list available)

“Surface Characterization and Micromechanics Contact Simulations for Magnetic Head-Disk Interfaces,” presented at the First World Tribology Congress, September, 1997, London, U.K.

"Three-Dimensional Finite Element Analysis of Subsurface Stress and Strain Fields Due to Sliding Contact on an Elastic-Plastic Layered Medium," with K. Komvopoulos, ASME Journal of Tribology, Vol. 119, No. 2, 1997, pp. 332-341.

"Three-Dimensional Finite Element Analysis of Subsurface Stresses and Shakedown Due to Repeated Sliding on a Layered Medium," with K. Komvopoulos, ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics, Vol. 63, No. 4, 1996, pp. 967-973.

"Three-Dimensional Finite Element Analysis of Surface Deformation and Stresses in an Elastic-Plastic Layered Medium Subjected to Indentation and Sliding Contact Loading," with K. Komvopoulos, ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics, Vol. 63, No. 2, 1996, pp. 365-375.

"Finite Element Analysis of Repeated Indentation of an Elastic-Plastic Layered Medium by a Rigid Sphere: Part I--Surface Results," with K. Komvopoulos and D. B. Bogy, ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics, Vol. 62, No. 1, 1995, pp. 29-42.

REFERENCES

Available upon request (I don't want to expose their addresses/phone numbers on this web site)

Contact this candidate