SPEAKER INTERVIEW

Fouad Mohammad, Principal Engineer – CFD & FEA at Bergstrom Inc

In the build up to Foam Expo North America and Adhesives & Bonding Expo 2021, we spoke with Fouad Mohammed who is Principal Engineer – CFD & FEA at Bergstrom Inc. Find out more about how Fouad works below:

Can you tell us a about your role at Bergstrom and what your responsibilities entail? 

Some of my major responsibilities at Bergstrom as a principal engineer include: 

• Global subject matter expert for facilitation of HVAC climate control CAE (FEA & CFD) studies for transportatiovehiclesle and for off-highway construction equipment. 
• Leads and performs complete airflow and thermal CFD analyses to optimize the airflow distribution and thermal performance of the overall HVAC system and its sub-components including electronics components using CFD tools such as OpenFoam, ParaView, Autodesk, AcuSolve, AccFieldView, Ansys Fluent and CFX.   
• Leads and performs different types of linear and non-linear FEA analyses such as modal, frequency response, random vibration and optimization using HyperWorks FEA package and other FEA tools.  
• Correlates the CFD analysis results to the experimental test data and supports the engineering team through all phases of product design stages.  
• Addresses any design or performance issues with the engineering team and tests the proposed design countermeasures to meet customer targets.
   

Why is the validation and testing of materials so important for HVAC systems during product assembly and processing? 

The validation and testing are so important because they will confirm whether the given HVAC systems designs are structurally stiff enough to withstand the applied loads or not. One type of validation tool is the FEA (virtual structural analysis) which includes a numerical approach to solve, for example, the given stresses and displacements for the given HVAC system to be compared with the allowable strength of the materials of the given design. 

Many iterations of the FEA analysis might be needed to be run by the FEA expert  after each design improvement till confirming a final robust design. The next step is to perform some type of physical testing and/or field testing to make sure that the FEA results are correlated with real-life testing. Other types of virtual validation are based on other software tools such as validating the electronics of the HVAC system requires an electronics validation tool and the flow/thermal analysis within the HVAC system requires CFD (computational fluid dynamics) tool. 

Are there any innovative projects or developments you are particularly excited about within the HVAC sector? 

Yes, there are many exciting projects underway. For me, the most interesting is how to improve the HVAC systems for the electric vehicle market. The key challenge is to keep minimizing the energy usage for such systems as much as possible to contribute to less drainage for the battery systems. 

What are you most looking forward to about attending the live event? 

I am most looking forward to opening a dialogue and exchanging expertise regarding the most important challenges for today’s materials including those being used in HVAC systems. 

If you could have one famous person (living or from the past) over for dinner, who would they be and why? 

To me the most famous person I want to have dinner with would be my Mother. I lost her few years ago and I feel that I didn’t spend enough time with her.