Mason Shopperly
Mason with the Minerva competition airframe at SAE Aero Design West 2024
Aircraft 213 · Los Angeles · 2024

Work · the join

Math, and the airframe it has to survive.

CFD · numerics · simulation — by depth, not by tier.

Work

Engineering and numerics.

Twelve projects across CFD, numerics, and aerodynamics — sorted by depth, not by tier. Where the code isn't public yet, the page is the canonical version. The mode tag on each card — Treatise · Atlas · Workflow · Build · Probe — signals the shape of the page beneath it.

  1. ROLE · CONTRACT · 2025–2026 · Treatise

    Sepal AI · reproducible aerospace analysis workflows

    Aerospace engineering inside Sepal AI's task-based system — building reproducible analysis workflows, including constraint-driven fixed-wing UAV sizing, that someone without the original setup can re-run and trust.

    Aerospace analysis·Fixed-wing UAV sizing·Reproducible analysis

    SHIPPED Aerospace engineering on contract — reproducible analysis workflows including constraint-driven fixed-wing UAV sizing, built so a non-author can re-run them.

  2. Ahmed-25 baseline U_x on the symmetry plane — body, slanted-back separation, wake recirculation

    INDEPENDENT · 2024 → · Workflow

    aeroAUTO

    A personal OpenFOAM workflow built around the Ahmed body — mesh-independence series end-to-end, pressure / wake / y⁺ inspection on the converged solution, with the DrivAer geometry queued as the next step away from the textbook test case.

    OpenFOAM·Python·bash·Linux·snappyHexMesh·ParaView·DrivAer

    SHIPPED Drag-coefficient regression on a baseline OpenFOAM workflow, end-to-end.

  3. MENG · UTIAS · 2023–2025 · Treatise

    SBP operators and Gregory quadrature

    MEng project with Prof. David Zingg on high-order summation-by-parts finite-difference operators and generalised Gregory quadrature rules for boundary closures.

    MATLAB·LaTeX

    SHIPPED Element-wise convergence verified on model PDEs; energy-stability proof drafted.

  4. Mason with UTAT competition airframe
    Aircraft 213.
    UTAT wing spar at inspection
    Wing spar.
    SAE Aero Design West 2024 plaque, 1st Place Advanced Class
    1st place, advanced class.

    UTAT · 2023–2025 · Build

    UTAT wing MDO

    Wing aerodynamics and a simple multidisciplinary design loop — nonlinear lifting-line coupled with beam-bending spar sizing — for the UTAT SAE Aero competition aircraft.

    MATLAB·XFoil·XFLR5

    SHIPPED Non-linear lifting-line + beam-bending sizing loop, on a real airframe at competition.

  5. Log-log E_11 vs kη with Kolmogorov −5/3 inertial-range fit overlaid
    Velocity-gradient marginal PDFs
    Q-criterion isosurfaces — coherent vortex tubes in the JHTDB forced-isotropic-turbulence block

    GRADUATE · UTIAS · AER1324 · Workflow

    Forced isotropic turbulence on JHTDB

    Statistical and structural analysis of a high-fidelity DNS of forced isotropic turbulence — from PDFs and spectra to Q and Λ₂ vortex identification.

    MATLAB·Python·JHTDB API

    SHIPPED JHTDB DNS read; spectrum, Q–R PDFs, velocity-gradient PDFs reproduced.

  6. Multi-node CFD server — local cluster topology diagram

    INFRA · 2024 → · Build

    Multi-node CFD server

    A small local cluster Mason built so OpenFOAM, Nektar++, and other CFD / numerical workloads run with more cores, better turnaround, and from anywhere — with proper monitoring.

    Linux·MPI·OpenFOAM·Nektar++·remote ops·monitoring

    SHIPPED Multi-node OpenFOAM cluster — built, tuned, in daily use.

  7. JST (ARC1D) vs Roe + MUSCL-minmod (upwind1d) — Sod shock tube density panel, t=6.1 ms

    INDEPENDENT · 2024 → · Atlas

    CFDLab — a two-book CFD codebase

    An independent, ongoing Python implementation of the Lomax–Pulliam–Zingg two-book CFD curriculum — three structurally different quasi-1-D Euler solvers, an analytical-method probe layer, and CI-pinned numerical baselines.

    Python·NumPy·Matplotlib·MD5 baselines·CI

    SHIPPED Three solvers (ARC1D / FLOMG / upwind1d), 43 CI-pinned baselines, 18 analytical-probe figures, 74-entry Exercise Guide.

  8. Hess structural pilot model — block diagram with feedback paths and switching

    COURSEWORK · UTIAS · AER1211 · Probe

    Human Control of Flight Systems

    UTIAS coursework on pilot-vehicle dynamics and handling qualities — the simulator photographs around the site come from this work.

  9. INDEPENDENT · 2026 → · Build

    LightRAG · local-model retrieval over the CFDLab vault

    Self-hosted LightRAG deployment running entirely on local models, pointed at an Obsidian knowledge graph of the Lomax–Pulliam–Zingg CFD curriculum — entities, relations, and retrieval all built from the same notes that drive CFDLab.

    LightRAG·Obsidian·Python·FastAPI·local LLMs·NetworkX

    SHIPPED LightRAG (HKUDS) deployed locally over the CFDLab Obsidian vault — entity / relation extraction, embeddings, and inference all on local models.

  10. Cylinder Re=100 — von-Kármán vortex shedding, U_y on the x-y plane, cool-to-warm
    Mach-2 oblique-shock reflection on a 15° wedge — numerical schlieren (|∇ρ|), shock fronts as dark lines on white

    INDEPENDENT · 2025 → · Atlas

    aeroBASE — compose-first OpenFOAM case builder

    An independent, ongoing OpenFOAM workflow that turns small declarative descriptors into runnable case workspaces — nine canonical cases from lid-driven cavity to oblique-shock reflection, each on the same compose-first pipeline.

    OpenFOAM·Python·JSON descriptors·snappyHexMesh·ParaView

    SHIPPED Compose-first OpenFOAM pipeline; nine canonical cases from lid-driven cavity to oblique-shock reflection on a single descriptor pattern.

  11. Selig 1223 airfoil section outline

    COURSEWORK · UTIAS · AER1216 · Probe

    Fundamentals of UAVs — fixed-wing design

    The fixed-wing track of UTIAS AER1216 Fundamentals of UAVs — airfoil pick, drag-polar generation, planform geometry, and a constraint-driven sizing pass landing a single design point in the P/W vs W/S plane.

  12. Sigmund-MATLAB-style bending-beam truss output

    COURSEWORK · UTIAS · AER1410H · Build

    Topology optimization — method and bracket

    AER1410H Topology Optimization at UTIAS — method fundamentals via the Sigmund 99-line MATLAB family, then applied SIMP on a Zenith 701 wing-rib bracket, taken from raw optimization output through a polyNURBS-fit manufacturable form.