My research interest includes high performance computational fluid dynamics modelling to problems of industrial relevance. Over my educational career, I have developed a keen interest in employing computational techniques to perform numerical simulations of complex flow systems towards a better understanding of the fundamental and applied flow physics. Having an elementary scientific computing and software development skills, I am keen towards development of engineering models for fluid flows.
My research interests include the broad fields of:
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Numerical Analysis
Aerodynamics
Turbulent Flows
An early research experience as an intern at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, during my undergraduate studies was crucial in shaping me towards pursuing a research career. With an interest in numerical analysis of fluid flows, I carried out a project titled "Identification of Lagrangean Coherent Structures in Atmospheric Flow". Here, I made simplified assumptions to model the earth's atmosphere as a grid of latitude and longitude in the form of a 2D matrix, with each cell representing position of a fluid particle. This matrix of fluid particles was advected in time to simulate convergent and divergent material lines. The fluid particle's behavior with respect to its initial position in the flow field was measured by the "Finite Time Direct Lyapunov Exponent (FTLE)". The FTLE field provided a simple computational tool for understanding the characteristics of Lagrangian coherent structures. As it was my first research experience in a research laboratory, it was a valuable and rewarding experience. The experience helped me realize that research does not always yield positive results; it is an iterative process, in which hurdles are often encountered. One has to remain patient and focused to overcome these obstacles.
After my undergraduate study, I had a short stint of about an year in I.C. engines R&D industry, where I was intrigued towards turbulent flows by the complex multi-dimensionality of the flow physics occurring in-cylinder. Motivated by this, I joined the Fluid Mechanics group at the Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India as an M.S. scholar.
My post-graduate research at Computational Flow, Turbulence and Combustion (CFTC) laboratory, Indian Institute of Technology Madras titled "Direct numerical simulation of flow over perforated plates" aimed to have an understanding of the turbulent flow physics. Here, I have studied the effect of porosity on the wake characteristics of perforated plates. The study explores the reasoning on why porosity alone is considered to be the dominant factor for strong periodicity of span-wise vorticity in the wake of perforated bluff-bodies. The effect of porosity on the wake flow behind a normal plate is studied with a focus on the near-wake vortex dynamics, where the "bleed" flow through the holes affect the Karman vortex shedding as well as the modes of transition. These mechanisms and flow physics are explored by using fully parallelized in-house finite volume DNS code, MGLET.
During my study at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, I have studied topics such as fluid mechanics, computational fluid dynamics, turbulence and fluid-structure interaction, which have improved my skills in numerical analysis with sound understanding of the fundamentals in the mentioned areas. I have also gained skills in C, C++, Fortran, Git, Matlab, Paraview, etc., which I believe will be helpful towards a successful career towards computational modelling of turbulent flows.