Moha Zakaie Far

A 1000 L tahini mixing tank, designed for ArdeAfzal from concept to six released fabrication drawings. The FEA changed the design: it caught a weak keyway corner on the drive shaft, and it showed that the shell survives a full-vacuum fault with a 3.74× elastic buckling margin.

Project

R&D mechanical design & simulation internship

My role

Requirements, concept selection, CAD, FEA and fabrication drawings

Tools

Siemens NX, NX Nastran, ANSYS Mechanical

Method

Systematic design + FEA-verified sizing

A DN1600 off-gas duct elbow in a steel plant loses only about half the pressure the handbook predicts (K = 0.153 against 0.3), and buckling governs its design with a safety factor of about 35 against a target of 4. CFD and shell FEA for Dejpod, with the CFD’s own wall pressure used as the structural load.

Project

Mechanical design & simulation internship

My role

Design basis, CAD, CFD and structural FEA

Tools

SolidWorks, ANSYS Fluent, ANSYS Mechanical

Method

SST k-ω RANS CFD + shell FEA

A Nespresso machine re-engineered to open each used capsule and separate the coffee grounds from the aluminum: 85% of the grounds removed, with no motor and no extra energy. It needs 9.85 N at the lever and 13 s per capsule, within the brew cycle.

Project

Case study, Politecnico di Milano

My role

Concept design, CAD, FEA and prototype testing

Tools

SolidWorks, Abaqus FEA

Method

Systematic engineering design process

An aluminum bearing housing redesigned to be cast in a reusable metal mold, with the bore cast directly and no core needed. It meets all ten published casting rules; the one flag, a tight mounting pad, comes with a ready fix.

Project

Personal case study

My role

Design review, CAD, drawings and verification

Tools

SolidWorks

Process

Gravity permanent-mold casting (Al A356.0‑T6)

A flat CAD blank turned into a forging-ready aluminum lever arm that meets all nine published forging design rules. Parting line, 3°/5° draft, fillets and web proportions were set for complete filling of the closed die.

Project

Personal case study

My role

Design review, CAD, drawings and verification

Tools

SolidWorks

Process

Closed-die (impression-die) forging, EN AW‑6061 T6

A solid block turned into a thin-walled ABS fitting for a simple two-plate mold: uniform 2.0 mm walls, ribs and draft, 20.12 g, and all nine published molding rules met. The thicker flange is the one spot to inspect on the first parts.

Project

Personal case study

My role

Design review, CAD, drawings and checks

Tools

SolidWorks

Process

Injection molding (2-plate, cold-runner), ABS

Designed an aluminum sensor bracket that a standard 3-axis CNC mill finishes in just two setups. It meets 7 of 8 published machining rules. The eighth, a missing corner radius on the sensor pocket, was caught before release and needs a drawing fix, not a redesign.

Project

Personal case study

My role

Design, CAD, drawings and checks

Tools

SolidWorks

Process

3-axis CNC milling (two-setup), aluminum 6061‑T6

All five functional requirements of an eight-part motorcycle swingarm pivot hold even with every part at its tolerance limit; the tightest, bolt protrusion beyond the nut, is 0.6 mm against a 0.5 mm minimum. A worst-case stack-up, taken from CAD sections to a signed-off dimensional chain.

Project

Personal case study

My role

CAD sections, tolerance stack-up and design review

Tools

SolidWorks

Method

Worst-case (arithmetic) stack-up

A 41 m composite wind turbine blade, taken from CAD through CFD into a structural model: under combined wind and centrifugal loads its tip deflects 400.9 mm. Hand checks of tip speed and root force agree within 0.1%.

Project

Case study, Cornell University (online course)

My role

CAD, CFD, FEA and verification

Tools

SolidWorks, ANSYS Fluent, ANSYS Mechanical

Method

One-way fluid–structure interaction (CFD to FEA)

The 200-bolt flange joining two shells of a large rocket nozzle opens only 0.13 mm under pressure and heat, with the bolts at about half their yield strength. Geometry rebuilt from photographs; nonlinear contact FEA checked by four hand calculations.

Project

Case study, Cornell University (online course)

My role

CAD, drawings, FEA and hand calculations

Tools

SolidWorks, Ansys Mechanical

Method

Nonlinear contact FEA (bolted joint)

An aluminum bicycle crank arm is three times stronger than needed under a 444.8 N pedal load, but fatigue is the real limit, with only about 5% margin. FEA cross-checked by hand calculation; a material study backs 6061‑T6 and names 7075‑T6 as the upgrade.

Project

Case study, Cornell University (online course)

My role

CAD, FEA, hand calculations and material selection

Tools

SolidWorks, ANSYS Mechanical

Method

Static structural FEA + hand-calc verification

A pick-and-place robot arm link made about 50% lighter by topology optimization, saving around 103 kg per arm. The reshaped link deflects only 0.281 mm at the wrist, about 20% inside the 0.35 mm stiffness target.

Project

Case study, Politecnico di Milano

My role

CAD, FEA, optimization and hand calculations

Tools

Abaqus / Abaqus Tosca Structure, SolidWorks

Method

SIMP topology optimization

A carbon-fiber running blade carries a 3000 N test load using under half its deflection allowance and with an estimated 2.8× margin to failure, leaving room for a thinner, springier design. Composite shell FEA in Abaqus, matched to the physical test rig.

Project

Case study, Politecnico di Milano

My role

Geometry, composite FEA and verification

Tools

Abaqus/CAE

Method

Composite shell FEA, Tsai–Hill failure criterion

A crack in the hub of a gas turbine disk becomes critical at about 12⁠–⁠14 mm depth at 3600 rpm, well above what ultrasonic inspection reliably detects. ASTM E1820 toughness test combined with an Abaqus J-integral crack model.

Project

Case study, Politecnico di Milano

My role

Toughness test, FEA and verification

Tools

Abaqus/Standard

Method

J-integral tangency criterion (Paris–Tada–Zahoor–Ernst)

A classifier built from two years of vibration data on Milan’s G. Meazza (San Siro) stadium tells a healthy stand from a near-identical neighboring stand that represents the damaged state, with 97% accuracy on 397 recordings it had never seen. It is designed as the core of a real-time warning system for the stands.

Project

M.Sc. thesis project

Institution

Politecnico di Milano

My role

Signal processing, feature selection, classifier design and validation

Tools

MATLAB (Signal Processing, Statistics & ML Toolboxes)