My interests

Reactive and Electrokinetic flow system

Reactive and electrokinetic flow systems are integral to various scientific and engineering fields, involving the interplay of chemical reactions and fluid dynamics under electric fields. In reactive flow systems, chemical species transform as they move through a fluid, playing a crucial role in processes like combustion and catalysis. Electrokinetic flow systems, on the other hand, utilize electric fields to control the movement of fluids and particles, enabling precise fluid manipulation in microfluidic devices for applications like chemical analysis and particle separation. When integrated, these systems are pivotal in advancing technologies such as fuel cells, batteries, and electrolysis. In fuel cells and batteries, they enhance ion transport and chemical conversion efficiency, contributing to better energy storage and conversion. In electrolysis, they facilitate the breakdown of compounds, such as water into hydrogen and oxygen, which is essential for clean energy production and environmental remediation. Understanding these systems is vital for optimizing performance and efficiency across a wide range of applications.

Self-organization and hydrodynamics of active rods

The transport and self-organization of active self-propelled rod-like proteins and biopolymers on the cell membrane is a key component of many cellular processes and functions. Such systems are shown to exhibit a complex range of collective behavior, including aggregation, self-organization, and complex defect dynamics. Here we use a combination of continuum modeling and particle simulations based on slender-body theory to study the collective dynamics of a suspension of pusher and puller rods in a fluid membrane submerged in bulk fluid, as a simplified model for the assembly of cytoskeletal biopolymers on the cell membrane. Specifically, we explore the effect of the ratio of the membrane to bulk fluid viscosities and the aspect ratio of the rods on the generated flows and the orientation and concentration fields of the active rods.

Membranes Biophysics

Cellular membranes are fluid films that possess elastic properties in bending. Membrane bending is ubiquitously found in cell biology and has implications in various cellular processes like exocytosis, endocytosis, cell migration, cellular trafficking, etc. The curvature generation to the membrane attributes to interaction with the peripheral and transmembrane proteins and interplay with the cytoskeleton. In addition to that membrane contains in-plane viscous flow, which makes bending of the membrane, the in-plane flow of lipid, and transport of proteins non-linearly coupled. The coupling can give rise to interesting physics and can alter the energy landscape of individual physics. Here I listed some of the topics which particularly align with my research interest.

Fluid flow and transport Phenomena in a deforming membrane

The objective of this project is to build a comprehensive framework to account for the aggregation-diffusion of proteins in a deforming membrane alonwith in-plane viscous flow. Please check out our recent studies on:

Transport phenomena in a fluid film with curvature elasticity: Mahapatra et al. JFM 2020

Curvature-driven feedback on aggregation-diffusion of proteins in lipid bilayers: Mahapatra et al. Soft Matter 2021

Cellular motility and actin polymerization

Many of the motile cells use treadmilling of actin network is one of the crucial mechanisms which has three major steps protrusion, adhesion, and contraction. In the protrusion step, the cellular membrane deforms to a tubular shape due to actin polymerization force. On the other hand, actin polymerization is regulated by the localization of GTP-ases like Ar2/3, n-WASP.

Interfacial Fluid Dynamics

Fluid dynamics of the interface regulate myriads of multiphase flow and heat transfer processes, which have numerous real-life applications, ranging from inkjet printing to droplet formation in falling liquid film. Surface tension is one of the predominant factors in all these applications. One other factor which controls the force balance of this situation is the deformation of this surface.

Liquid Liquid Phase Separation

The aggregation in proteins in the lipid membrane is reminiscent of some of the liquid-liquid phase separation studies observed in proteins and nucleic acids with multivalent interaction. Therefore, the study can be extended to include multivalent interaction with the help of Flory-Huggins potential to model the Liquid-Liquid phase separation of proteins.

Nanofluid

Nanofluid is a colloid where nanoparticles are stably dispersed in the base fluid. The particles whose diameter ranges from1 nm to 100 nm are defined as nanoparticles. Different kinds of base fluids are used like water, ethylene glycol, ethanol, oils, etc. The types of nanoparticles used include metallic oxide (such as alumina, silica, titania, and oxides of copper, etc.), metals powder (copper, gold, silver, etc.), and others (diamond nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes (CNT)). The nanoparticles in base fluids undergo Brownian diffusion and thermophoresis, which lead to a higher thermal transport as compared to the base fluid. Thus nanofluids can be used for the enhancement of the heat transfer, especially cooling of electronics components. In our numerical study, we have observed an enhancement in heat transfer as high as 22% in an extrusion process. Please check out the paper here.

Phase Change Heat Transfer

The heat transfer corresponds to the phase change of fluid associated with an order of magnitude higher heat transfer coefficient as compared to conduction or convective heat transfer. This phenomenon is used in many heat transfer devices to enhance heat transfer where heat transfer due to conduction and convection is not adequate. This mechanism is used in large length scale heat exchangers like feedwater heaters in a powerplant to smaller-scale applications like Heatpipe. Non-adiabatic capillary tube (NACT) is a capillary expansion device that is used in a vapor-compression refrigeration cycle. NACT results in lower vapor quality at the outlet of the refrigerator due to heat loss to suction line fluid. We analyzed the fluid flow and heat transfer of refrigerant in a NACT in this paper.

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