Research
Tour de France Performance Modeling
I am building a computational model to analyze rider performance, power output, and race-day variables such as terrain, drafting, and weather during the Tour de France. For this, stages of the Tour de France are modeled as a series of inclined planes created from distance-elevation profiles, and the laws of motion are applied to determine how much force should be applied by cyclists to counteract the aerodynamic drag, rolling friction, and gravitational forces acting on them.
Purdue Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center (RESEC)
At Purdue University’s sports engineering center, RESEC, I was given the opportunity to develop a low-cost electrode system integrated into an athletic garment. This work addresses the problem that many of Purdue’s athletes face with traditional heart rate chest straps: the straps are very uncomfortable, hindering athlete performance and not properly sticking to the body, causing inconsistent cardiovascular readings. With the help of my research mentor, Patrick Cavanaugh, I developed my own electrocardiogram (EKG) system, which allowed me to test various garment materials and configurations that can be used for the electrode portion of the athletic garment.
Semiconductor Undergraduate Research Fellow
Purdue Research Foundation — As a Semiconductor Fellow, I looked into the thermal implications of Backside Power Delivery Networks, which is a chip fabrication approach that relocates the power delivery network from the front of the die to the backside. This reduces routing congestion between power and signal networks and improves overall chip performance. However, this requires extreme thinning of the silicon substrate to connect to the backside network, creating a self-heating concerns. To investigate this, I built four scaled-down CAD models in SolidWorks, varying TSV geometry (conical vs. cylindrical) and silicon boundary conditions at the via’s base, and ran simulations in ANSYS to characterize how these design choices affect heat dissipation.
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Santino Macaggi 