Fuel Assemblies

Over my two summers working at Scaled Power (an R&D engineering company in San Francisco) the engineers there mentored and guided me through several assembly projects. The tasks I was assigned demanded creativity and manufacturing skills—for example, most projects included taking COTS parts and figuring out how to modify them to suit the project. I ended up learning new skills including how to design air and fluid systems, use several new machines and tools, and set up tests. The following are several tasks I completed.

Kerosene Fuel System

2022

glow plug fuel system.mov

Task: Demonstrate viability of a tractor glow plug to ignite kerosene.

This work involved setting up a system of pumps, valves, and sensors (eg. flowmeters) to create a system that pumps kerosene to a tractor glow plug (pictured left) where it ignites.

A surprising challenge was creating a fitting for the glow plug (pictured left) to connect it to the system, which required adapting between NPT and AN, and UNC fittings.

Methane Fuel System

2021

Task: Create a fuel system to deliver methane to generator.

This project was mainly assembly and configuration. I find it important to create work that looks clean and is mounted well, making it easy for other engineers to understand, incorporate into a larger system, and use. My favorite part of this project learning about Venturi tube by speaking over the phone to the manufacturer of this particular Venturi tube. They showed me how to calculate how much lead-in pipe was needed upstream of the tube for the fuel to flow smoothly.

Gas Emission Cooling and Sampling System

2021

Task: Create a system to collect gas samples of a turbine generator.

The engineers at Scaled Power wanted to measure the amount of NOx emissions from a certain generator, so I was tasked with creating the system depicted in the sketch shown on the right (far right is my updated and more detailed sketch). The system was later connected to a vacuum chamber with sampling bags that could be sealed and transport the outgasses to a lab.