Arnav Kumar Lal

Undergraduate Research Fellow

Research Department of Mechanical Engineering, NSUT, New Delhi

I study metal matrix nanocomposites under faculty supervision, with Abhishek Tevatia and Sanjay Gupta. Using representative volume element finite element analysis in SolidWorks and ANSYS, I independently verified a stress concentration factor of 1.999 plus or minus 0.001 across nanoparticle volume fractions of 0.5 to 5 per cent, which matches the analytical limit predicted by Eshelby.

I then built a twelve-parameter XGBoost surrogate model with SHAP attribution, coefficient of determination 0.96, that feeds the finite element stress concentration factor into fatigue life prediction. The model shows that particle agglomeration amplifies predicted life by a factor of three, a cubic response rather than the linear one usually assumed.

Junior Mechanical Design Intern

3D Paradise Technologies LLP, New Delhi

I handled parts from enquiry to dispatch for clients in defence, medicine, research, manufacturing and rapid prototyping, in India and abroad. That covered ideation, reverse engineering from physical samples, modelling in SolidWorks and Fusion 360, slicing in Simplify3D and OrcaSlicer, printer calibration, printing, post-processing and dimensional checking.

I also wrote an automated batch slicing pipeline. It drives the OrcaSlicer command line interface from Python using Trimesh, NumPy and openpyxl, returns the mass and volume of every STL in a folder in one pass, and writes the result to an Excel quotation sheet. I kept iterating on infill profiles, material variants and support configurations to hold production accuracy.

Summer Research Intern

Solid State Physics Laboratory, Defence Research and Development Organisation, New Delhi

My first assignment was a centralised heating, ventilation and air conditioning system with sub-zero refrigeration for a hypothetical three-floor mixed-use building of 26 tons refrigeration, combining a supermarket, residential floors and a pharmaceutical cold room. I ran seasonal psychrometric analysis, calculated heat load by the cooling load temperature difference method to a peak of 90.4 kW, selected a six-row cooling coil at a bypass factor of 0.10, sized two-stage R-32 compression from a compression ratio of 9.82 down to two stages of 3.1, and closed with an annual energy figure of 257,127 kWh under ASHRAE 55, 62.1 and 15.

My second assignment was structural. I ran SIMP topology optimisation on thin-walled AISI 1020 components in SolidWorks, identified the critical load paths and removed 40 per cent of the mass while holding stress and displacement inside limits. I extended the method to thermo-structural analysis of an SS316 liquid nitrogen vessel at minus 165 degrees Celsius and 200 psi, where peak von Mises stress at the nozzle to sphere junction was 1,049 MPa. A multi-location fillet cut that peak by 5.4 per cent and raised the factor of safety from 1.11 to 1.18.

Winter Internship Trainee, Parts and Logistics Control

Honda Cars India Limited, Tapukara, Rajasthan

My project was titled improving storage and safety efficiencies on the gemba. I worked on part logistics and parts chasing with the mechanical, electrical and systems teams, and spent time on the floor with fabrication, CNC machining, wiring, and high and low pressure die casting. My technical study for the department was on automatic and manual machine handling equipment.

The main task was a stacktainer storage deficit across a warehouse area of 300 by 8 metres. The revised layout raised the unit count by 28.6 per cent while the unpacking area lost only 7.16 per cent. Alongside that I ran a FIFO audit across the dock bays that found parts delayed by up to 253 days, and measured milkrun truck packing efficiency, which ranged from below 35 per cent to above 85 per cent.

The project report itself is internal to Honda Cars India and is not published here.

Mechanical Designer and Powertrain Engineer

Team Daedalus Racing, NSUT, formerly NSIT Motorsports

I develop a competition all-terrain vehicle with the team, using first-principles stress, strain, thermal, tolerance and cost analysis, three-dimensional CAD in SolidWorks and finite element analysis in ANSYS. Rollover impact analysis on the 280 kg vehicle at a drop height of 3 metres gave an impact force of 3,579.33 N, peak stress of 212.3 MPa and a factor of safety of 2.898, clearing the frontal, side and rear margins by 137, 106 and 88 per cent. The team took All India Rank 2 in the combustion category and nine competition awards.

Separately, and on my own time, I modelled core subsystems from scratch to learn them properly: a double wishbone suspension, a gearbox differential, an inline four engine with its piston, crankshaft and connecting rod details, the chassis subframe and an AISI 4130 roll cage.

Heat sink thermo-structural analysis and design optimisation

Two-phase study extending Abbas, 2024, on longitudinal rectangular fins

I designed a six-fin chord-array heat sink on a 120 mm copper base in SolidWorks and ran conjugate computational fluid dynamics at an inlet velocity of 3 m/s. The simulation returned a convective heat transfer coefficient of 25.04 W per square metre per kelvin against the 15 W per square metre per kelvin normally assumed by hand, an underestimation of 67 per cent that changes the design conclusion.

Adding staggered 3 mm perforations cut thermal resistance by 4.3 per cent while removing only 0.86 per cent of the fin volume. Coupling the thermal result into a structural run gave a root stress of 22 MPa, which is within limits for the material.

Industrial shed model and fabrication drawing set

Private client, civil engineering

I produced the complete SolidWorks and Fusion 360 model and a ten-sheet fabrication drawing set for a mono-pitch steel shed measuring 47,910 by 25,598 mm. The structure uses twelve portal frames on 152 by 152 by 6 mm mild steel square hollow section columns, with Pratt pattern trusses in 76.2 by 76.2 mm square hollow section at a midspan depth of 762 mm.

The roof is 0.5 mm aluminium and zinc coated sheet, with eight turbo-ventilators referenced to IS 3103 in a four by two grid. All member sizing followed the requirement set by the client's civil engineer. My work was the modelling, the detailing and the drawing set.

International Delegate

Singapore Model United Nations, National University of Singapore

I was selected from more than 800 candidates to represent NSUT, and by extension India, at Singapore Model United Nations 2025, held at the National University of Singapore on a college-funded place. I sat in the World Trade Organisation committee, where the work was reading fast, negotiating in the room and defending a position under cross-examination.

Founder

MacroThink

MacroThink was a small platform I started in ninth grade, selling video editing, Google Forms, Sheets and Slides work, document and presentation production, and general technical problem solving. Customers were mostly students and small channels, and the work included YouTube edits, thumbnails, channel banners and profile pictures.

I ran the whole line, from design through quality assurance to delivery. As demand grew I brought on juniors and friends and delegated work to cut turnaround, and I handled the marketing that brought customers in. It ended the year it started, but it finished small and profitable.

Bachelor of Technology, Mechanical Engineering

Netaji Subhas University of Technology, New Delhi

I was admitted through JEE Main 2024 at the 96th percentile and I am in my third year. Outside the syllabus I have spent more than two years with The Debating Society of NSUT, and my coursework carries into the research fellowship and the racing team described above.

Summer School, The Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence

The London School of Economics and Political Science

I spent the summer at LSE on the summer school programme and finished with a grade of A minus. The course covered research methodology and the ethical questions that come with data and artificial intelligence, and it is where I learned to write and defend an argument to an academic standard.

Senior Secondary

St. Francis de Sales Senior Secondary School, Janakpuri, New Delhi

I served on the student leadership squad for three consecutive years: Sub Junior Prefect in 2018, Junior Prefect in 2019, and Senior Vice Head Boy in 2020. The school issued a certificate of service for the last of those, and the habit of speaking in front of a hall started there.