Lecturer in Chemical Engineering

Subjects Taught
Chemical engineering laboratory,Introduction to design of multiphase reactors

Research Interests
Reactor design, interface heat and mass transfer, computational fluid dynamics

• I work on the applications of computational and experimental fluid dynamics to study flow patterns in various chemical processing equipments such as pipe flow, jet loop reactors, stirred vessels, Taylor Couette flow. The design parameters such as heat and mass transfer coefficient, mixing and drag etc. are dependent on flow patterns. Accurate estimation of these parameters is essential for reliable and energy efficient design. The major focus of my work is to understand the turbulence mechanism close to the interfaces which affects the heat and mass transfer rates. To quantify the rate of surface renewal, turbulent eddies need to be characterized in terms of size, shape, age and energy content distribution. This can be obtained from temperature and velocity time series. I am using DNS data set, LES (computational techniques) and HFA, LDA and PIV (experimental techniques) for obtaining such data. Another aspect of my work involves turbulence modeling in CFD. The standard RANS models involve many assumptions. In order to reduce intensity of assumptions, model parameters are tuned based on application. I am using LES to quantify the assumptions and strengthen the traditional RANS model to suit for chemical process equipments.

• University of California at Santa Barbara (U.S.A.) (May 2008-September 2008), “Surface divergence studies using PIV technique in open channel flow in presence/absence of wind.

• Life Member, UDCT Alumni Association.

• Mangalam Pharma Prize for securing highest number of marks in the Master of Chemical Engineering examination, Univ. of Mumbai (2006)