Zachary Stratton

About Zachary Stratton

Aerospace engineer and research scientist with over 10 years of experience in…

Experience

1. Aerospace Engineer in Cfd and Noise Branch - Propulsion and Power Department

   Naval Air Systems Command Navair

   Aug 2019 — Present · Patuxent River, MD, US

   Led the CFD effort for a joint Navy-funded project with industry and academic partners to design a programmable diffuser experiment to understand the role of AFC in inlet design; published and presented conference paper.• Developed and implemented formal multi-objective genetic algorithm optimization workflow for inlet design, creating automated CAD-to-CFD scripts across six software platforms that evaluated hundreds of configurations within the design space to minimize physical space requirements of the inlet while maximizing pressure recovery.• Quantified sand-ingestion risks of a Marine helicopter by conducting CFD analyses, with Lagrangian particle tracking, of single high-fidelity vortex-tube separators to create a simple surrogate model that mapped flow rates to sand separation efficiency. This model was applied to simulations of the full-scale helicopter, consisting of over vortex-tube separators, to predict net separation efficiency.• Led the Navy fixed-wing drone icing and inlet distortion initiative by analyzing over wind tunnel data points, validating scaled-model inlet distortion, and quantified full-scale distortion risks in the presence of ice build-up and flight-test instrumentation; earned a letter of appreciation from the department for a quick turnaround time on a complex analysis that prevented schedule delays.• Accelerated analysis of EGR issue of a Marine helicopter by creating pre- and post-processing scripts for CFD analysis that saved over 200 hours/year and enabled over 100 design iterations; this effort led to a design solution that was documented in a conference paper and earned the NAVAIR Edward H. Heinemann Award.• Conducted investigation using CFD of an engine test cell experiencing severe backflow that risked hardware damage, devised a method to simulate transient RPM changes for over 30 configurations, identified the root cause and validated design changes that restored full testing capabilities.

Education

• Purdue University

  B.S.

  2007 — 2012

• Purdue University

  M.S.

  2012 — 2014

• Purdue University

  Ph.D.

  2014 — 2019