Correlative Microscopy and Micromechanics Lab 

I am presently working as an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Innovative Manufacturing Research, VIT Vellore. Before joining VIT, I served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Sunchon National University, South Korea, where I investigated the cryogenic behavior of additively manufactured steels. I earned my Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where my doctoral research focused on understanding the dwell-fatigue behaviour in titanium alloys. I hold an M.Tech. in Materials Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, where I studied advanced sheet metal forming through finite-element simulations and experimental characterisation. I completed my B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.

My research focuses primarily on the use of correlative microscopy and allied materials characterization tools, as well as numerical simulations, to understand how materials respond at the microstructural and continuum levels to externally applied static and transient mechanical, thermal, and environmental stimuli. The evolution of stress and strain fields at the microstructural scale provides a unique signature of the complex coupling between atomistic features, microstructural heterogeneity, and external loading. These microscale interactions govern key macroscopic behaviours such as anisotropy, fatigue/creep failures, formability, machinability etc. to name a few. 

A central theme of my research is establishing rigorous links between fundamental deformation mechanisms and the macroscopic performance of engineering components. This includes understanding fatigue crack nucleation and fatigue lives, creep–fatigue interactions in high-temperature gas-turbine materials, cryogenic behaviour of steels for chemical and space applications, formability limits in metal-forming operations, hydrogen-embrittlement phenomena critical for a hydrogen-fuelled economy, and the influence of strain rate—from very slow loading to quasi-static and impact regimes—on material response. These problems allow me to combine mechanistic insights with application-driven objectives.

The technical impact of my work lies in developing physics-based models and theories that capture these interactions across length and time scales. Such understanding is essential for defining safe performance windows and for designing new alloys and microstructures with enhanced capabilities.

Our research spans multiple material systems relevant to the aerospace, chemical, energy, and automotive sectors. We have also made significant contributions to the development of advanced testing and characterisation methodologies, enabling us to probe deformation processes with unprecedented resolution. Characterisation is one of my core strengths, with hands-on expertise in advanced scanning and transmission electron microscopy and a range of state-of-the-art mechanical testing methods.

In essence, one part of my work focuses on uncovering the fundamental physics of deformation at small length scales, while the other translates these insights to real-world performance and manufacturability. This dual perspective guides our efforts to optimise industrial-scale processing routes and tailor microstructures for targeted properties.