https://kurz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/03-2.mp4

Kurz Wind Division’s Dan Frantz had the pleasure of interviewing Neel Sheth from Mersen USA.  We sat down with Neel to understand more about how Mersen has become an expert in electrical power and advanced materials within the wind sector.

Dan F.: Ladies and gentlemen for the third installment of the Kurz industrial solutions one division podcast we have Neel Sheth from Mersen USA. Neel’s wind power applications manager at Mersen USA. Obviously, Mersen is a global expert in electrical power and advanced materials. Mersen designs innovative solutions to address its client’s specific needs and enable them to optimize their operations. They have over sixty-nine hundred employees operating in 35 countries and provide purpose-designed solutions bespoke to customer requirements anywhere on the planet. Neel that’s a pretty big introduction I would say. Obviously, the reputation of the company speaks for itself. Firstly, thanks for coming on this show here and we really do appreciate the time.

Neel: Thanks for having me and is a great initiative you have there Dan and always are always here to help.

Neel’s Story

Dan F.: Yeah absolutely. So, Neel, we’ve got a list of questions here. We’re going to let it kind of free flow so feel free to add in or chime in anything that you like but we’re going to dive right into it. I would imagine you weren’t you know 5 years old telling your parents you wanted to be a wind power engineer maybe you’re the anomaly here. I’m not 100 percent sure but I certainly didn’t think I’d be in the industry even just five years ago right. I’d love for you to take me through some of your background and how you ended up working at a company like Mersen USA and what decisions eventually led you to be in this awesome role that you’re in today.

Neel: Yeah. So it’s been an interesting journey so far. Actually, I’m an aerospace engineer I started off with a bachelors in aerospace from Russia and wanted to do something offbeat so I ended up in a school there in Russia of all the places. Super cold, as I found out when I went there but after that my focus back then was mostly satellite design and upper stage rockets but then I decided to go for a master’s degree and then ended up at Penn State which actually focuses quite a bit on wind energy in the aerospace department. So that was my foray into wind energy and rotating machines as such. Penn State has a great program. They have two small scale turbines on campus. I think they have a one-kilowatt and then there is a five-kilowatt machine. And after that during grad school, I actually worked at Toulon as an intern in Chicago so which was my ideal exposure to utility-scale when in the U.S. after that it was quite interesting. I was presenting in we are and my research was based on optimizing small scale turbines – what they call distributed wind. And I met the team from Mersen four years ago I would think now. Yeah, that was back in 2015. And since then it was a good fit. They were looking for someone hands-on, I fit the role and I’ve been with them since and it’s been a great journey so far.

Dan F.: That’s excellent. So, you’re at Penn State, they’ve got a great aerospace program. Did you have to make a decision at any point to go either directly into the wind or go elsewhere and to rockets and other sectors?

Neel: It was it was quite interesting they offered a range of rotating machinery science but one of the most interesting things I found there was the icing chamber. They actually have a giant fridge with equipment donated by NASA to study icing on blades of rotating machines – either it could be a chopper or it could be a wind turbine. Many wind turbines in cold regions face icing conditions and I’ve seen issues, loss of performance, so there was a big research program at