Dr. Rufus Neethling

Manage drawing office, including checking and drawing and design document configuration control coordination. Critically evaluate, improve on and generate reports for vibrating equipment complete assembly, sub-assembly and component designs for sales and clients using FEA (ANSYS) and other relevant design calculation methods and make recommendations and design decisions based thereon.

Critically evaluate, improve on and generate reports for vibrating screen complete assembly, sub-assembly and component designs for local and global support (sales and Sub-DCO teams and DCO internal) using parametric 3D CAD (NX), FEA (NX Advanced Simulation & Nastran Solver) and other relevant design calculation methods and make recommendations and design decisions.

Company proprietary software C++ source code configuration, maintenance, improvement & development (using WinMerge, Notepad++, MS Visual C++ 6.0, MS Visual Studio .NET 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013). Production software suite miscellaneous client error report investigation, response & code maintenance.

FEM-based synthetic diamond cutter design related simulation, evaluation, analysis & documentation (using MS Project, ABAQUS Standard with Python scripting, Notepad++, MS Excel with VBA scripting, MS Word & MS Powerpoint). Miscellaneous software tool documentation, maintenance, improvement & development (using Notepad++, MS Visual Studio .NET, VBA in MS Excel & MS Access & Scandium). Support physical testing & evaluation related activities (Prototype Manufacturing & Preparation, Results Reporting).

Perform vehicle mechanical system analyses to determine predicted vehicle ride comfort & handling performance, kinematic, static and dynamic responses, as well as expected suspension and steering system loads for use in Finite Element Analyses (using MS Excel, SMath Studio, MSC.Adams/View & MSC.Adams/Car). Perform Linear Static Finite Element Analyses (FEA) for Structural and Modal response and make subsequent design recommendations (using MSC.Patran and MSC.Nastran).

P&ID, PFD and other power station related diagram and documentation reading and interpretation. Feed- and cooling water subsystem network simulation, including Hot and Cold Condensers, using 3Key-Master. Evaporative cooling tower simulations on Excel using NIST add-ins. Development of custom simulation extensions (Furnace, Burners, Actuators & Sensors) to 3Key-Master using C++.

Develop and maintain Object Oriented engineering software GUI and solver components using ANSI C++ and Visual C++ .NET 2003. Compile, Review and Maintain GUI and solver component related User Requirement Specification.

Plan, document, implement and support mechanical software engineering course curriculum based on ANSI C++ and Visual C++ programming language. Present additional classes to students in need of additional assistance.

Perform CFD analyses and assist in reporting and recommendation process. Develop custom software components for use in commercial Flo++ CFD software. Develop custom GUI-based software for specialist use. Provide assistance to undergraduate and less experienced CFD software users. Assist in compiling Flo++ help files using Robohelp. Test-evaluate Flo++ by running tutorials and documenting unexpected behaviour.

Computational Frictional Multi-Body Dynamics (Dissertation)

Computational Frictionless Multi-Body Dynamics (Thesis), Advanced Structural Mechanics, Finite Element Methods for Structures, Computational Fluid Mechanics, Advanced Thermo-Systems