|| विद्याधनं केवलं व्ययेकृते वर्धते ||

My doctoral work was directed towards the development of a fluid-structure interaction framework for moving boundary simulations to examine the unsteady aerodynamics and propulsion performance of biological flyers. This study is expected to facilitate the design and analysis of realistic and bio-inspired micro-air vehicles (MAVs). The in-house code developed using C comprises of two separate fluid and structure solvers that work in-tandem to determine the aerodynamic forces and wing deformation, respectively. The fluid solver employs multi-relaxation time lattice Boltzmann method (MRT-LBM) and is capable of running on several multicore systems using message passing interface (MPI) based parallelization that I have accomplished on my own. Moreover, a novel and distinctive shifting discontinuous-grid-block methodology was formulated where a body-fitted fine mesh translates with the moving solid on a carpet of coarse block. This approach resolved issues pertaining to grid resolution and stability often encountered in LBM, without any surplus computational cost.

In my post-doctoral work, I developed a particle-fluid interaction framework comprising of combined discrete element – lattice Boltzmann method (DEM-LBM) to examine the flow physics of Electrorheological (ER) fluids. I applied lubrication theory for calculating hydrodynamic forces on particles near contact and mutual dipole model for determining particle electrostatic forces. In addition, I enhanced the competence of my flow solver to simulate complex turbulent flow setups in 3-dimension by incorporating entropic multi-relaxation (EMRT) LBM. The in-house parallel solver has been generalized for any arbitrary stationary or moving geometry with multi-levels of grid refinement. I am currently constructing the framework for examining unsteady flapping aerodynamics of an owl by performing full body simulations by mimicking its plunging/pitching kinematics.

My broad research interests are in flapping wing aerodynamics, fluid-structure interaction, computational fluid dynamics using LBM, turbulence and moving boundary simulations, high performance computing and electrorheological fluids.