Pandi Pitchai, Ph.D

Senior Scientist

Department of Engineering Mechanics, 

Institute of High Performance Computing, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), 1 Fusionopolis Way, 138632 Singapore.

Email iDs : pandi.pitchai@polimi.it ; pitchai@aero.iitb.ac.in; pitchai_pandi@ihpc.a-star.edu.sg

Scopus iD: 57192557214

OrciD: 0000-0001-8582-820X

Mendeley: Mendeley

Google Scholar: Google Scholar

Research Interest: 

Pandi P is a Scientist at the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC), Agency for Science Research and Technology (A*STAR) in Singapore, with a specialization in Computational Solid Mechanics. He previously served as an Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore and an Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at IIT Bombay. He earned an A.M.I.E degree from The Institution of Engineers India, Kolkata, and research-based Master's and Ph.D. degrees from IIT Madras and Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy, respectively.

His research focuses on multi-scale modeling of heterogeneous bodies, and he developed a novel Variational Asymptotic Method-based homogenization technique during his Ph.D. and Postdoc research. This technique is computationally efficient and can calculate both global and local field properties in all directions simultaneously, even for anisotropic or orthotropic constitutive properties based on modeled composite microstructures. Pandi P believes that this framework could serve as an alternative to the conventional method used in the micro-mechanics community for solving various micro mechanics-related problems based on industrial and research applications.

He has also extended his deterministic framework into a stochastic context by coupling it with Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the presence of micro-structural uncertainty in composite structures. However, due to the increasing number of samples, this coupled stochastic framework became computationally expensive. Therefore, he has applied a method called the Stochastic Reduced-Order Model (SROM), which can produce an accurate solution with fewer samples and without much loss of accuracy when compared to the regular stochastic model available in the literature.

Apart from micro-mechanics research, Pandi P has also worked on structural health monitoring of bridges. He proposed two algorithms for detecting the presence of end rotational stiffness and determining material parameters of statically determinate girders subjected to longitudinal bending, torsion, and warping using static strain measurements. He believes that the research experience gained in the area of health monitoring could be applied to study the behavior of other mechanical or aerospace structures.

Pandi P has received numerous awards and recognition from various institutions and organizations, including IIT Madras, the European Commission, KMM-VIN, Belgium, the Ministry of Human Resource Development Govt. of India, and the Director of Technical Education, Tamil Nadu. He has published more than nine papers in top peer-reviewed international journals, along with two international book chapters.