BHARADWAJ SATHIAMOORTHY

Fall 2010

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
My educational objectives have been subjected to consistent refining through the
course of my academic career. I completed my undergraduate education at Anna
University, Madras. With an interest for mechanics and machines, I found myself
exploring the intricacies of any operation and found that mechanical engineering played
a significant role in controlling the crux of any operation. During this period of my
undergraduate education, I was exposed to the various facets of Mechanical
Engineering. With my educational and research experience as a Mechanical Engineer, I
understood that Quality Control, Reliability Analysis and Efficiency Optimization are key
components of any industry’s growth. I developed a keen interest in these highly
influential fields. As a result of my pursuit to gather an in-depth understanding of
various phenomena behind the science of Quality and Reliability, I decided to continue
with my Masters degree. Here I was engaged in active research in Applied Statistics and
Simulation in the field of Quality Control, Reliability Analysis and Efficiency Optimization,
which constantly motivates and inspires me to pursue a career in research and to get a
Ph.D. degree is certainly the next step towards that goal. The highlight of my education
has been my strong research and academic background, which I believe forms the basis
of my pursuit in a research oriented career. I was among the top 5 rank holders in high
school with an overall percentage of 93%. I received a sponsorship and the young
innovator award for my project during my bachelors. I hope to carry the same
excellence to University of Wisconsin, Madison while pursuing my Ph.D. degree.

My undergraduate education has not only exposed me to a wide range of

stimulating courses but also gave me an opportunity to extend my theoretical
knowledge to practical real world applications. My responsibility as an engineer was not
confined to just the academic domains as I believed the future of tomorrow’s world was
in the hands of today’s engineers. Analyzing the security of road users which was in a
state of mere jeopardy urged me to come up with a solution as a responsible engineer
and this trickled an idea in my mind and I came up with ‘Dynamic Sensor Ranging and
Braking Automobile Crash Security Technique (DRABACT)’. The effect of my research is
an automated sensor based braking system which can be incorporated in automobiles
and hence increase the safety factor. I presented a paper in the same concept at the
International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering (ICAME) organized at
SRM College 2006. I was also awarded II prize for my paper.

The acme of my undergraduate research experience came with the success of

my ‘Rotocar model’ on which I worked for three years. It was also the focus of my
Bachelor’s thesis project. With this project, I had an opportunity of working with Prof K.
Vijayan. With his assistance I was able to design and develop a prototype model
modifying the existing Ackerman’s steering, introducing a Drive Altering Mechanism in a
car to facilitate 360 degree turn about its axis avoiding the turning radius. The concept
claimed very high recognition from technicians at Hyundai Motors, Automobile
professors at IIT Madras, Sona Koyo Steering Systems. Also, the presentation of the
concept in a conference hosted by IIT and a National Level Technical Symposium at
Anna University won awards in the innovation category. I was awarded a sponsorship
BHARADWAJ SATHIAMOORTHY
Fall 2010

for my project in my final year and received the Best Project Award from my
department.

I have also compiled a number of other papers in diverse fields like HCCI Engines,
Nanotechnology and Phase Change Materials which I presented at several National
Level Symposiums and Conferences. My summer internship at the Production and
Quality Unit, Hyundai Motors, a leading Automobile company globally, helped me
develop valuable problem solving and creative thinking skills. I worked on a project
which required me to do an in-depth study of Quality Control Charts and operations
optimization in CAM processes. The CAM processes had to be analyzed and the errors
which occurred had to be corrected to specification limits in the control charts. Apart
from academics as a member of the Society of Mechanical Engineers in my college, I
contributed in publishing the department magazine. I also held the responsible position
as a financial coordinator while hosting the National Level Mechanical Symposium at
our college (Mechamorphis).

My time at Northeastern University has been highly fruitful and a crucial stepping
stone. One of the very important aspects of my Masters degree is my research with
Prof. Nasser Fard. We have been successful in presenting a probabilistic fatigue life
prediction of specimens under fatigue loading, provided the research an experimental
verification and also conducted sensitivity analysis. The research is done based on the
two stages of fatigue failure namely, crack initiation and crack propagation stage.
Cumulative damage rules were used for strain-based life prediction, which was the
Miner’s rule for the crack initiation stage and the Walker’s rule for the crack propagation
stage. With the sensitivity analysis, we concluded that the randomized behavior of the
material parameters is the most influential on fatigue life than the other parameters.
Since the loading is of variable amplitude, the life prediction at any given stage was
inherently challenging and required smart ways to expedite the analysis without
compensating on the accuracy. During the course of this research, I was able to gain
valuable insight into Fatigue nature of materials, Failure Analysis, Strain-life
relationships, Safety factors. I am also working towards compiling a research paper
focusing on the above work, which we plan to submit to the Journal of Safety and
Reliability.

The course work at Northeastern has helped me build on my undergraduate

background and develop strong mathematical and conceptual knowledge essential for
carrying out research in the field. In spring 2009, I had taken the Simulation Analysis
course because of which I had an opportunity to work with Prof. Stewart Hoover. I
worked with him in a project for the coursework. We created a new intelligent decision
making mathematical model for accepting, rejecting or reworking based on specification
limits in control charts and built a simulation model for the same to make the
application more versatile. My paper ‘Simulation of Control Charts for Quality
Enhancement’ on the same concept has been accepted for presentation at the ASQ
conference 2010 on Quality and Improvement in St. Louis. I also completed two other
projects for course works in Statistical Quality Control and Reliability Engineering which
formed the base for my thesis research.
BHARADWAJ SATHIAMOORTHY
Fall 2010

A careful review of the information provided on the department website shows

that UW, Madison can provide a perfect environment for directing my intelligence
towards independent research. I am confident of meeting the high standards of UW and
contributing meaningfully to the research endeavors at your University. It is with this in
mind that I am looking forward to an admission with financial assistance in the
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, UW.