My portfolio. An overview of projects completed in the duration of my university studies,

1. Joseph Donnelly
BEng in Mechanical Engineering
(Newcastle University)
Engineering + Programming projects

2. Formula 1 Car Suspension + Wheel design

3. Why?:
To produce an optimal design for a wheel and suspension to win a formula racing car race for Newcastle university. Unfortunately, testing was
suspended due to Covid 19.
How?:
Use Newtonian static mechanics to retrieve load on each component. Select appropriate materials to maximize strength to weight ratio. Produce
final drawings in AutoCAD Inventor and a separate manufacturing plan for each component as well as bought in components.
Results:
A full set of BS8888 engineering drawings,
a bill of materials including bought in components and a full manufacturing plan for each component.

4. Wind Turbine

5. Lightweight Bridge

6. Why?:
Build a bridge to hold a 10N weight using only papers and straws. To then be tested in the lab.
How?:
Truss calculations on paper for every element in 3D. On paper calculations to find maximum deflection and yield. Optimize strength to
weight ratio. FEA software to check calculations.
Results:
A table of truss calculations produced, FINEL FEA 3D software successfully used and final drawings produced in AutoCAD.

7. Hook Design
Why?: Design a hook that will yield at 30kN and fail at 60kN.
How?: Von Mises stress, Ultimate Tensile Stress and bending moments
calculated and recorded in a logbook for each design, and FEA analysis to
be undertaken to identify areas that can be optimized. Stress concentration
calculations to be considered and an appropriate safety factor to be
determined.
Results: Final design above, with holes in appropriate areas to reduce
weight. Manufacturing considered to ease manufacturing process. Casting
likely method for mass production. Neck area reduced. More than 10
designs produced in the process before the final result reached. Drawings
produced in SpaceClaim.

8. CFD Software project

9. Why?:
To produce an analysis of fluid flow in the contexts set.
How?:
Analyse the initial conditions and program the software to find things like: wall shear stress in pipe, average velocity, load on pipe pin
joints, upwind scheme graphs, drag force, etc.
Results:
A full document/analysis of all the conditions, and checked against hand calculations.

10. Growing Spinal Rod

11. Why?:
To help correct spinal growth in children with scoliosis. The growing mechanism within the rod (which can be activated by a magnetic
control system) is to reduce the number of operations needed.
How?:
Use of stress-strain calculations, bending moments, and static calculations. Knowledge of the load on each vertebra in the spine during
events like walking and sitting, and an understanding of the shear stress on each part too. An appropriate safety factor to be
determined and a likely weight of a child to be understood. The design to be produced in AutoCAD.
Results:
Carbon fiber used for the extending bar, to reduce weight and increase strength. The Young’s Modulus of carbon fiber is higher than
Titanium’s (the originally used material). Bought in components selected appropriately online. The drive pin diameter increased slightly
to reduce likelihood of failure. Necessary surface treatment method on carbon fiber to ensure no complications with body interaction
occur. A bill of materials produced, with weight, price and material for each component.

12. Self Driving Car (TinkerCAD,Arduino,Labview,C)

13. Why?: An automatic car that can detect objects in front of it, and then make appropriate turns to avoid
objects
How?:
Use of arduino circuits to connect everything together and allow it to work with a program. C programming
language to be used to receive data and produce commands. Ultrasonic sensors to detect object in front
of it, which in turn sends data to C, which then commands the car’s controls to make a turn, depending
one which sensor detects it. The placement of three sensors allows the appropriate direction of tuning to
be decided.
Results:
Although the final simulation didn’t work, the C printed some useful data when the object was detected
and made some good call in terms of the direction to turn into and whether or not to slow down. Could be
worked on the produce a fully automated system with a heating control system, and automatic windscreen
wipers and much more.

14. Mathematical Model of a Multi-Storey building during an
Earthquake

16. Why?: A long term product would be used for construction companies to
set their parameters like N (numbers of floors), wall height, floor width,
materials used, etc, which could then be used to produce a simulation of
the building during different earthquake conditions and could automatically
tune a vibration absorber in a 2D model.
How?: Newtonian mechanics of vibration, focussing more in the horizontal
direction. Model each floor and wall as a spring and use beam bending
calculations, with, width, height, material and inertia to calculate the
stiffness. The ground motion can be modeled using Fourier Transform and
potentially the Power Spectral Density function with some random added
noise to simulate the chaotic nature of an earthquake. Python to be used
to for calculations, analysis and graph production as the calculations get
more complex.
Results: For N floors, NxN matrices would be needed, thus Python proved
very useful in finding eigenvalues, eigenvectors, etc. Python modules such
as: scipy, numpy, matplotlib, sympy, were used to produce: graphs of
motion for 100+ floors, deflection, potential failure, frequency responses,
vibration absorber tuning parameters and much more.

17. Programming projects

18. Games

19. Ping pong game produced in Python, with scoring system.
Snake game produced in JavaScript.
Canon game produced in JavaScript with projectile motion simulation for the fired cannons:
For an improved physics simulation, can include air resistance in calculation, and collision mathematics.
Draggable chess game made in JavaScript for two players on the same computer.
Dice rolling game; highest roll wins!
Runaway game with a program that chases you constantly! Built in Python.
Onscreen virtual piano built in HTML CSS JavaScript.

20. Engineering Simulations Front-End Website (ongoing)

21. Although the project isn’t finished and the responsive programming is still in
working progress. This is a mathematically modeled pendulum in JavaScript, with
a live plotting graph that uses the ‘createElement(‘div’)’ method to plot points to
create a live graph from scratch. The length of the pendulum can be changed at
any point. A menu and a search bar with a search algorithm have also been
implemented. The title animates when hovering over. Most of the animations and
functionality have been created from scratch in JavaScript. The draw page is still
in progress, but will plot new divs in a continuous loop to create drawing and allow
erasing, different sizes, image placement and shapes. A framework like Django ill
be used for the backend.

22. Rocket Simulation
Simple simulation of rocket in Python with fuel bar that
lowers over time, rocket speed changes, and how many
screens it has passed by. The number of screens passed
by can be used as a distance, then with time, the rocket
speed at any moment is calculated. The rocket then runs
out and fuel and slows down, falls then explodes as it hits
the ground. An improved model would be to add real
rocket physics with variable mass as well as improved
GUI. The next version will be that.

23. Student System
Simple database for usernames and
passwords. Sign up feature will add new
credentials to database. Notepad for
database, then split method to obtain the
correct data.
Search bar with search algorithm that it
gets from data in another notepad
database.
Navbar animation also there. Aim to have
the contact label produce a graph of
student data for any variables. Working on
encryption algorithm.

24. Banking Website

25. A banking website with a front end based on Lloyds banking system. Although it is for full screen only, the website has many features
like, an animating find a branch opening menu, find a branch search system which tells you the number of banks in that area and gives
a link to google maps, A simple JSON backend with the amounts of money made. The project is ongoing. A chat bot for the ‘ask a
question’ segment in working progress.
More projects at my github page, such as: Flask Live chat room, Python animations….
Github: github.com/JDonnellyProgramming

26. Skills
AutoCAD, AutoCAD Inventor, Ansys FEA, CFD (Ansys Fluent), TinkerCAD, Arduino,
Labview, MATLAB.
Python: modules - numpy, sympy, matplotlib, tkinter, Scikit-learn, SciPy, Pandas,
SeaBorn, etc. App building. Web scraping projects, games, dynamics systems
JavaScript - web animations, 2D game development, JSON communication
HTML, CSS - web design, functionality, animation
Flask, Django - servers, backend, URL redirect, dynamic programming
C, C++ - C utilised in engineering project, fundamentals
Flutter - fundamentals

27. About me
I am hard working and am aptitude for learning new software and
programming languages. I have a confident grasp of linear algebra, calculus
and statistics as well as a solid overview of high level mathematics and
mechanics.
Contact
Phone: 07925 064411 Email: J.Donnelly5@newcastle.ac.uk
Address: 12 Camperdown Avenue, Chester-Le-Street, County Durham,
DH3 4AB