Hi there I'm Akshat,

And I love to help in achieving lightweight design goals. I am a materials researcher with 8+ years of academic and industrial experience in material selection, advanced testing (characterization), material modeling and FE simulations.

2024 - Present
Research Scientist - Structural Materials @ Teledyne Scientific & Imaging, Thousand Oaks CA

• Material characterization, modeling and finite element simulations for government funded research projects.

• Supporting other Teledyne business units in their R&D efforts.

2020 - 2024
Material Testing and Development Engineer @ FADI-AMT, Greenville SC

• Leading the material testing group at FADI-AMT, a company specialized in providing high-quality experimental data in support of R&D activities using state-of-the-art testing systems and sensors.

• Subject-matter expert for advanced mechanical testing of materials and components using optical metrology techniques, especially digital image correlation (DIC), and its integration with the standardized and custom test setups in support of research and development efforts.

2019 - 2020
CAE Engineer @ FADI-ASD, Greenville SC

• Material Testing Lead for redesigning the rail tank cars for improved safety and reduced weight for a major railroad transportation corporation.

• Responsible for the material characterization of new and innovative materials, driving material selection, presenting the outcomes and results to industry leaders, and defining directions for new research project proposals.

2017 - 2019
Graduate Research Assistant @ Clemson University (CU-ICAR), Greenville SC

• Technical Project Lead, Study on cure dependent viscoelastic-plastic modeling of adhesives to capture CTE effects in multi-material structures, sponsored by Henkel Adhesives NA.

• Technical Contributor, Evaluation of AA7075 for hot-stamping, funded by BMW AG, Germany.

2016 - 2016
Co-op Supplier Quality Assurance @ Volvo Group Trucks Operations, Greensboro NC

New product development experience in the part approval process through various qualification gates in collaboration with the suppliers.

2013 - 2015
Supplier Quality Engineer @ Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India

Started my professional career with Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India as a SQE in the Electrical and Proprietary parts team.

2012
After-Sales Service Intern @ Skoda Auto India

Root-cause analysis and countermeasure implementation for decreasing the repair time and vehicle hold up time at Skoda dealerships

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My Skills

Material Testing and modeling has been my bread and butter for more than 8 years. On top of that, I have an extensive experience in supporting development projects.

MATERIAL TESTING

• Advanced material characterization using Digital Image Correlation (DIC)

• Designing, optimizing and fabricating unique specimen geometries to achieve particular strain paths, oversized/miniaturized testing for evaluation of fracture strains and mesh sensitivity

• Designing unique test setups to determine material response for bulk materials and components at varying temperatures and strain rates.

• Formability Testing - FLC (Mechanical/ Hydraulic-Pneumatic Burst), Uniaxial Tension/Compression, Fracture Testing (UT, Plane Strain, Shear, Balanced Biaxial), High-Rate testing, Axial Crush/Impact test, High-Speed DIC, 3D Scanning, Photogrammetry

MATERIAL MODELING

• Strong solid mechanics knowledge with understanding of fracture behavior of different classes of materials (Advanced High Strength Steels, aluminum alloys, fiber-reinforced composites, additive and other advanced materials in the form of sheets, plates, foils (battery materials), joints.

• Consititutive model development and calibration; User-defined material subroutine in LS-DYNA; Fracture modeling/calibration (GISSMO); Springback model calibration (YU Model)

SIMULATIONS/CODING

• Static/ Dynamic Simulations

• FEA Experimental Validation

• LS-DYNA, LS-OPT, LS-PrePost

• LS-PrePost, JStamp

• UMAT Coding in Fortran for LS-DYNA

• ANSYS

• SOLIDWORKS, AUTOCAD

• Python

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Hands-on mechanical engineer with a specialization in materials

2015-2019
• Ph.D. and MS Automotive Engineering

Clemson University-International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR), USA

2009-2013
• BE (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering

BITS-Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus, INDIA

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