RESEARCH INTERESTS

·         Vibrations, structural dynamics

·         Energy Harvesting

·         Structural control

·         Meta structures

·         Inertial amplifier 

Welcome to my website. Presently I am working as Professor and Vice Principal (Academics and Research) at BLDEA’s VP Dr. P G Halakatti CET, Vijayapur, Karanataka. Also, I am member of Board of examinations, Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi. guest scientist at Lublin University of Technology, Lublin, Poland under ehDialog program. My present responsibility is to enhance the research culture in the institute. My current research involves developing low frequency broadband energy harvesters and vibration control. The research findings and developments originating from our investigations are regularly published in reputed journals (with publishers like  Elsevier, AIP and Springer), conferences and books. This website serves as a medium for the dissemination of research findings as well as for interaction with interested researchers. I am open to collaborating and working on the above topics. Please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Recent Works

1. Malaji P V, Adhikari S, Friswell M I, Litak G,” High-energy orbit harvesting with torsionally coupled mistuned pendulums”, JVET

This article demonstrates the possibility of energy harvesting by mistuned pendulums with torsional coupling. Two pendulums of different lengths with coils and magnets at the pivots are used as electromagnetic harvesters. The ambient energy source to the system is considered in the form of harmonic base excitations. Torsional coupling is achieved by connecting the pendulums with a torsional spring. The non-linearity of the underlying dynamics arises due to mechanical coupling and forcing amplitude. Numerical results are presented to analyze the performance of the pendulum energy harvester under different torsional coupling values.

2.  Chaurha A, Malaji P V, Mukhopadhyay T, “Dual functionality of vibration attenuation and energy harvesting: Effect of gradation on non-linear multi-resonator metastructures” Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 231, 1403–1413 (2022). 

Metastructures and phononic crystals could have several unique physical properties, such as effective negative parameters, tunable band gaps, negative refraction, and so on, which allow them to improve multi-physical performances at the materials level. Motivated by the elastic negative mass metastructures, this work reports the enhancement of bandwidth and vibration suppression while achieving better energy harvesting via non-linear attachments. We propose to consider the effect of spring softening and spring hardening simultaneously along with exploiting the coupled influence of multiple variables, such as spring stiffness, damping, number of unit cells, electro-mechanical coupling coefficient and masses. A mathematical model of the metastructure having linear spring with nonlinear attachments is developed and analyzed numerically including the effect of functional gradation. Dimensionless parametric study is performed to tune two-cell and multi-cell models to enhance vibration suppression and energy harvesting performances. In an eight-cell model, the non-linear characteristic parameter is functionally graded from softening to hardening using exponential and power law to explore the dual functionality further. It is revealed that the resonant peak can be reduced by non-linear softening characteristics. For enhanced energy harvesting, a smaller value of mass ratio is preferred, while a larger value of damping characteristic is suitable for vibration suppression. Under certain configurations, band structure of the phononic metastructure is capable of achieving absolute band gaps, resulting in frequency ranges, where waves cannot propagate. The comprehensive analysis presented here on the effect of various system parameters would lead to the design of non-linear multi-resonator metamaterials for the dual functionality of vibration attenuation and energy harvesting that can be applied in a wide range of automated systems and self-powered devices including the capabilities of real-time monitoring and active behaviour.

 3. Kondaguli R S, Malaji P V , “Geometry Design and Performance Evaluation of Thermoelectric Generator” Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 231, 1587–1597 (2022). 

A thermoelectric generator is a solid-state device that directly converts heat into electricity without any moving parts. The problem with these devices is that they are less efficient. The present study considers modeling and numerical simulation of a thermoelectric generator of different shapes to evaluate their efficacy. Effective material properties of TEG are used in CPM model of analysis. Different shapes of the leg have been simulated, keeping the same isothermal boundary conditions. The effect of the cross-section area of the leg and leg length. Hot-side and cold-side junction temperature and thermal stress developed are reported. Results shows that trapezoid generators are better from efficiency point of view where as square and circular cross-section leg produces more power.