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General Electric Aviation

Engineering / Professional / Technical

General Electric set my foundation as an engineer through commitment to technical excellence and a dedication to understanding customer requirements.

I was selected for student internship with General Electric Aviation for their Control Systems department during my sophomore year as a mechanical engineer at Virginia Tech. Not only was I new to the industry, I had yet to take a class on fundamentals of controls theory. I was faced with a steep learning curve on the job. I had nothing to loose in exceeding expectations and everything to gain from the experience.

As a Controls Engineer, I gained a deep technical experience in the software for military and commercial turbo shaft engine electronic control units (ECU). I supported the SW design of a “one engine inoperable” rating switch for the T408 three engine application. After creating a truth table criteria for engine selection inoperable scenarios, I used of Karnaugh maps to develop the selection logic. Below is a simplified example.

Engine selection truth table:

A B C | F1 F2
======|======
0 0 0 | 0  1
0 0 1 | 1  0
0 1 0 | 0  0 
0 1 1 | 1  1
1 0 0 | 0  1
1 0 1 | 1  1 
1 1 0 | 1  0 
1 1 1 | 1  1

Sum of the products of expression for F1 and F2:

     _ _     _         _         _        
F1 = A*B*C + A*B*C + A*B*C + A*B*C + A*B*C
     _ _ _   _         _ _     _  
F2 = A*B*C + A*B*C + A*B*C + A*B*C + A*B*C

Karnaugh Map for F1 and F2:

F1 = A*B + C
             BC
      00  01  11  10   
A  0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
   1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |

     _ _     _
F2 = B*C + A*B + B*C
             BC
      00  01  11  10   
A  0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
   1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |

From these minimal sum functions, the logic can be pictorially displayed as:

ge_logic_diagram

And then coded in C++

Also while in the Controls group, I conducted a field analysis on a Sikorsky fleet of helicopter engines.

  • Gathered 45K heath and usage monitoring system data points

  • Paretoed results

  • Analyzed the top 92% of the faults

  • Identified the corrective action for future software design.

With a first time yield of one, this was the first successful post production investigation of engine software in the company.GE_pareto

As a Systems Engineer, I supported the T408 Engine Systems qualification and test. This turbine engine was developed to power the three engine heavy lift Sikorsky CH-53K helicopter. In this position, I was able to automate several tedious tasks that was costing the group unnecessary time. The following were my contributions:

  • Revamped the ECU engine dry rig plotting system for Controls by creating a Matlab script to process and publish results. This alone reduced the cycle time from 2 hours per day to only 20 minutes per day.

  • Designed and implemented an excel macro engine analysis tool that differentiated about 850 engine parts in 60 seconds. This was essential in formulating the Engineering Review Certificates for ground and flight test engines.

  • Created sections of the engine’s illustrated parts breakdown.

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