David is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (MEMS) department at Duke University.
Originally from South Florida, David graduated from Duke University with a B.S.E in Mechanical Engineering, a minor in physics and a certificate in Aerospace Engineering in 2013. During his undergraduate career, he served as the president for the Duke Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and was an active member of Duke Engineers for International Development (DEID) where he traveled to El Salvador to help construct a suspended pedestrian bridge.
David's involvement in research began during his Junior year when he worked with Donald Bliss on vibration attenuation in multi-layered elastic structures as an undergraduate Pratt Fellow. Through an implementation of Multi-Element Multi-Path (MEMP) design, David was able to achieve wideband reductions in thin beams and cylindrical shells without compromising constraints on mass and stiffness. The MEMP structural dynamics were modeled in MATLAB and verified with experimental results using elastically coupled aluminum beams. Upon entering graduate school, David was awarded a Wireless Intelligent Sensor Networks (WISeNet) Fellowship which allowed him to apply the research onto vibration reduction in active sensor mounts. His MEMP research was further extended to acoustic cloaking where he designed an impedance poles/zeros matching technique to reduce low frequency scattering from multi-layered cylindrical shells.
After being awarded a Pathways internship and spending a summer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division in 2015, David became involved in furthering the development of the Energy Intensity Boundary Element Method (EIBEM), a high frequency modeling technique developed at Duke University. His research has expanded the EIBEM onto cylindrical enclosures while improving the algorithm's computational efficiency and further investigating effects of absorption scaling, diffraction and room design on energy distribution. He is currently working on constructing an experimental apparatus to verify results on a large scale cylindrical tank.
David enjoys both studying and playing music (which initially led him into the field of acoustics). In his free time he watches movies at the local theater and captains the mechanical engineering intramural soccer team. David is also highly involved in the MEMS graduate student committee, helping with recruitment events, organizing basketball campout and planning social activities for the department.
Contact Information
- Email Address: dr78@duke.edu
Education
- B.S.E., Mechanical Engineering with Minor in Physics and Certificate in Aerospace Engineering, Duke University, 2013
- Master of Science with Thesis - "Vibration Transmission Reduction Through Multi-Element Multi-Path Structural Design in Thin Beams and Cylindrical Shells", Duke University, 2015
Research Interests
Energy intensity boundary element method (EIBEM), acoustic cloaking, shell structural dynamics, multi-layered structural design, experimental room acoustics, mathematical modeling