Virkeshwar Kumar

IIश्री गणेशाय नमःII

Manufacturing Materials and Thermal Applications Lab (MMTA Lab)

Overview of Research Activities @MMTA Lab

Our group's major goal is to develop multi-phase and multi-physics systems to enhance the manufacturing, transport, energy, and food processing sectors. Our findings can be scaled up from lab to industrial size by comprehending the transport phenomena in the additive manufacturing, manufacturing, and phase change processes.

Our research covers the manufacturing sector (additive manufacturing, casting of turbine blades and semiconductors, welding, and segregation), freezing of high Prandtl number fluids (salt waters, volcanoes, and magmas), biosciences (cryosurgery), metallurgy (alloy solidification), energy sciences (phase change materials), and interfacial interactions phenomena (evaporation, condensation, and boiling) for manufacturing, fouling, and bio-inspired surface engineering.

The broader theme of our research lab is, namely,

1. Additive Manufacturing

2. Casting: Solidification/ Melting of alloys

3. Welding

4. Evaporation/Crystallization during evaporation

5. Multi-scale modeling during solidification, coupled with multi-physics

6. Natural Convection

7. Food Processing: Detection of Adulterants

8. Boiling

9. Flow Visualization

1. Additive Manufacturing

Aerospace part manufacturing using Additive Manufacturing
Thermal Modelling in Additive Manufacturing
Growth mechanism of microstructure in Additive Manufacturing
Understanding of multi-component alloys in additive manufacturing

2. Casting: Solidification/ Melting of alloys

The casting is for the semiconductor, aerospace, and bio-medical industries.
Solidification of binary and ternary alloys (salt solutions and organic alloys: SCN/Acetone/Camphor/Salol).
transport phenomena during solidification in the manufacturing process (casting or welding).
energy storage, such as phase change materials.

Dendrite Fragmentation

Binary alloys (water-salt)

3. Welding

4. Evaporation/Crystallization during evaporation

Crystallization of evaporation of aqueous/organic/bio-inspired fluid
Freezing and evaporation of droplets on solid substrates
Colloidal deposits

More details: doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c01535

More details: doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.3c00214

5. Multi-scale modeling during solidification, coupled with multi-physics

FSI using Ansys
Fluent Ansys for solidification

6. Natural Convection

Rayleigh-Benard convection, Rayleigh-Taylor convection, double-diffusive convection, and plumes

The video shows the life cycle of the double-diffusion layer during the solidification of a binary mixture.

7. Food Processing: Detection of Adulterants

We use a simple evaporative deposition-based technique to detect adulterants – water, AmS, urea, and oil in milk. A specific pattern of fat is formed at the center of the undiluted deposits. When water and other adulterants are added, these patterns are altered. Crystallization happens when urea and AmS are added, and this crystallization can be detected in milk by looking for certain patterns in the droplet. Similarly, adding vegetable oil separates out after evaporation and gives a different impression. While milk is a complex system, adulteration may not be restricted to only these adulterants. This evaporation-based method opens up an avenue to explore the dependence of the evaporative deposition pattern on the composition of milk and use it as a physical detection tool for detecting adulterants at home or at any remote location.

8. Boiling

In the current scenario, our research will focus on heat transfer enhancement and understanding of micro-layer theory using experiments. Additionally, we are interested in the boiling of binary systems.