Engineering Portfolio
Jack Nelson Engineering Portfolio.
Project pages contain only text explicitly present in the provided PDFs.
Tip: visuals expand into an artistic lightbox (~75% viewport), with an ✕ close control.
Selected work
Each project links to a dedicated page, and project text is sourced from the provided PDFs.
Micro Gas Turbine
I am developing a regeneratively cooled, additively manufactured 100 N-class micro gas turbine engine built as a largely monolithic polymer structure. The diffuser, combustor, shaft tunnel, and fuel injection system are integrated into a single SLA-printed high-heat-deflection thermoset casing, with only the rotating assembly and nozzle guide vanes metallic.
ScramOpt
In parallel, I developed ScramOpt, a fully automated CFD and Bayesian optimization framework for hypersonic scramjet geometry exploration based on JAXA’s M12-02 configuration. The pipeline parametrically generates scramjet geometries in FreeCAD, meshes and simulates compressible Navier–Stokes flow in SU2 at Mach 5.5 freestream conditions, and trains a Gaussian Process Regression surrogate model seeded with Latin Hypercube Sampling to ensure broad design-space coverage.
Eureka 3
As a Student Propulsion Engineer on Space Enterprise at Berkeley’s Eureka 3 bipropellant rocket team, I engineered the quick-disconnect fill system to streamline propellant loading operations, optimized bulkhead geometry for structural performance under pressurization, and performed IPA injector CFD in collaboration with the simulations team to support propulsion subsystem validation. The regeneratively cooled Inconel-718 engine achieved 11 kN thrust in testing.
Drone Swarm Digital Twin
Beyond propulsion, I developed a modular optimization toolbox and emergent multi-agent swarm simulation framework for decentralized control problems. Using genetic algorithms with customizable crossover and mutation strategies, the system evolves local control laws governing attraction, separation, cohesion, and obstacle avoidance forces for autonomous agents operating in 3D environments.
Interactive Inlet Shock Visualizer
Interactive inlet turn-angle + Mach visualization with a schlieren-style view. Use presets to jump into compelling states.
Browser-based inlet/duct shock visualizer driven by a real-time 2D compressible Euler solver. Adjust freestream Mach M₁ and turn angle θ to see shocks/expansions interact with a simplified inlet geometry in density/pressure/Mach and schlieren-style views.
Open the full sim for the complete project notes and controls glossary.
Interactive Rocket Nozzle + Plume Visualizer
Axisymmetric nozzle + plume simulation with shock-cell structure (“shock diamonds”) emerging from a real-time compressible Euler solution. Use presets to jump into compelling states.
Browser-based axisymmetric rocket nozzle + plume visualizer driven by a real-time compressible Euler solver. The “shock diamonds” visible in Schlieren mode arise from the computed flow field (inviscid; no viscosity/turbulence/mixing model). Open the full sim for the complete notes and controls glossary.
Visualizations
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Contact
Email is the fastest way to reach me.