Meet the team: Heshitha Paranavithana

At the Henry Royce Institute at Cranfield University, we are pleased to welcome Heshitha, two week's into his new role at Cranfield University he is looking forward to supporting the team to solve your problems...

From aerospace engineer to extreme-environment coatings

My dad's an engineer and I grew up with his drawings on the walls: I liked fixing things and I always thought I wanted to build something. You know, you have a problem, I solve it, that’s my mindset. Growing up, there was a series called Air Crash Investigations and that was where my interest in aircraft kind of took off.

My interest in research, on the other hand, came later on, while I was actually working. The problems I was working on started to get more complicated, we needed next generation materials. And that's when I thought I have to properly investigate material characterization, I need to learn a bit more about what goes on at a nano scale.

A mechanical engineer mindset and training

I knew I wanted to do aeronautical engineering but making aircraft parts is still not a big industry in Sri Lanka. I chose General Sir Kotawale Defence University in Sri Lanka because the campus is literally next to an airport base. They told me on the open day that you get taken on practical’s; we had a tour of the aircraft and there's helicopters and aircraft just hanging from the ceiling. So I thought, you know what? This is where I need to be.

Just after my undergrad, I first went into Sri Lankan Airlines, engineering division. It was not what I was expecting. I think two months was helping people with technical papers. And one month where we were in an actual lab and I got to do repairs and overhauls and stuff like that. My internship at Sri Lanka Airforce was totally different. You have to get the job done, so we had a close relationship with the OEM to get the problem fixed quickly. So, for me it was really a good experience.

Delivering projects for OEMs: work ethics, regulations and project management

I'm more of a hands-on person, and day one at my AmSafe Bridport internship was testing, so I quite liked it. I got hooked on the job, and after the internship they put me through a graduate scheme and that progressed on to taking in and delivering projects.

The UK and the Sri Lankan branches at AmSafe go hand in hand as they’re both design organisations. So we talked on a daily basis. And I've been to the USA side and worked with many clients there.

I got to understand different work ethics: what’s important to a large OEM in the US, compared to a smaller client in Sri Lanka. For example, the US tend to get to the minute detail, everything down to the sub-sub-sub-component level, and see where everything comes from to ensure it aligns with FAA guidelines and policies, ranging from the geopolitical situation to safety. For other clients, regulations aren’t as strict and timeliness is more important.

AmSafe almost exclusively catered to cargo aircraft, and I think they’re still the market leader for OEMs in that space. So, an emerging problem was around transporting batteries. If an aircraft crash lands or had to conduct an emergency landing because of a battery fire, they needed battery containment solutions, or fire covers. They introduced a low-cost fire containment solution, which made sure that the aircraft can withstand a fire for five hours. My project was on making the biggest one yet, so scaling that up by a factor of four. All my time management skills that I have, I owe to that project. Managing my time and two graduates, from a weekly perspective and also managing the information flow to the client, is very important, to keep them informed without agitating them.

Solving material problems

I felt like I was doing more project management than engineering at AmSafe. I worked on another project where they were trying to make another version of this same fire cover product, but the load was too high or the cargo was different, and the thing kept failing. So, they were trying to make a version 2.0 of the material, which is where I struggled to keep up. I knew everything to do with the testing, getting it approved, but not really what goes on in the material itself. Obviously, I talked with them and then understood what was going on, but I feel like I should know more about it and wanted to be able to come up with solutions for something like that.

I realised I wanted to do research. I wanted to design a test plan, read the regulations and see if everything matches. And get back to problem solving.

I had wanted to go to Cranfield ever since my undergraduate. But at that time, I wanted to do the aerodynamics course here.

Hooked on Coatings 

Well last year, on my Materials for Aerospace MSc, I figured out that coatings is actually what I want to do. It was Professor John Nichols on day one (he’s really great), and after doing the modules on surface engineering, it got me hooked, really.

I’m two weeks into my role and we’re working on a thin-film heating and anti-reflective coating - useful for mirrors in cold environments. So right now, I’ll be conducting testing until I get up to speed with the optic side of it.

I’d really like to work on thermal barrier coatings. I quite like anywhere in the engine - it could be the turbine, the combustor, anything that's hot and harsh in the engine.

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