Seminar topics for M.
Tech Batch 2017
Sr. No. Faculty name
1 Prof. Abhilash J.
Chandy
2 Prof. Amit Agrawal
3 Prof. Arindrajit
Chowdhury
4 Prof. Arunkumar
Sridharan
5 Prof. Atul Sharma
6 Prof. Atul Srivastava
Seminar topics
• Numerical modeling of acoustics in open channels.
• Assessment of turbulence models for homogeneous
turbulence.
• Sorting of particles and cells in a microfluidic device:
Sorting of various components of blood - red blood cell
(RBC), white blood cell (WBC) and platelets is required in
several applications. Similarly, detection and isolation of
unwanted cells in blood is another important
requirement. The project is geared towards literature
review and (later) development of microfluidic based
devices for such applications.
• Heat transfer in rarefied gas flow: Heat transfer at high
Knudsen number (with relevance to gas flow in
microchannel and rarefied gas flow) involves velocity slip
and temperature jump at the wall. This makes the problem
interesting and can lead to some non-intuitive flow/thermal
behaviour. The literature review will later be followed by
measurements.
• Flame diagnostics using DSLR cameras
• Propellant decomposition kinetics using TGA-FTIR
spectroscopy.
• Studies in Heat Transfer of Orthogonal Horizontal
Impinging water jets on Vertical Heated Surface
• Heat Transfer Modelling studies in Inverted Annular
Film Boiling
• Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations for
Hydrodynamics during Fish Like Locomotion: The
objective of this fluid-structure interaction problem based
seminar topic is to present a literature review on CFD
application and analysis for hydrodynamics during fish like
locomotion, with regard to the mechanism for the thrust
generated for propulsion.
• Finite Volume Method (FVM) for Computational Solid
Dynamics (CSD): Finite volume method is more
commonly used in CFD as compared to CSD. The
objective of this seminar topic is to present a literature
review on the application of FVM for CSD.
• Fast Linear Algebraic Equation Solver for applications
to Computational Fluid Dynamics: System of Linear
Algebraic Equations (LAEs) formulated in CFD are solved
by iterative methods. The performance of a CFD code
depends a lot on the computational time, which varies with
the change in the iterative method. The objective of this
seminar topic is to do a literature survey and present the
methodology as well as performance-study for those
solvers which results in substantial reduction in
computation time.
• Understanding heat transfer mechanisms during
nucleate boiling phenomena with water and nanofluids
as the working fluids (Keywords: Boiling heat transfer,
Bubble dynamics, Surface heat transfer rates, Nanofluids):
 Device miniaturization and process intensification have
resulted in increased heat fluxes and stringent operation
limits, which has resulted in a quest of new effective heat
dissipation techniques. Boiling heat transfer is one of most
efficient modes of thermal energy transfer in which the
vapor that is formed at the heater surface is periodically
removed, thereby enhancing the heat transfer rates. In
addition, current developments have established the
potential of nanofluids in significantly enhancing the rates
at which thermal energy may be dissipated. The present
topic deals with developing a fundamental understanding
of various heat transfer mechanisms that are associated
with water as well as nanofluids-based nucleate boiling
phenomena and its potential applications in various areas
of scientific and technological relevance.
• Thermal analysis of biological tissue phantoms
subjected to high intensity focused ultrasound:
(Keywords: Fourier and non-Fourier heat conduction,
High intensity focused ultrasound, Temperature
distribution, Heat transfer through biological samples.):
High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is one of the
minimally invasive techniques for selective destruction of
cancerous cells. HIFU generates heat into the body, which
causes a sudden change in temperature of the local tissue
environment. Because of its potential advantages, this
technique has found considerable attention in the recent
past and the primary interest of any thermal engineer is to
develop an understanding of the phenomena of thermal
energy propagation within the body of the tissue samples
that are subjected to such focused ultrasound waves. The
present project is concerned with the investigation of such
phenomena using Fourier as well as non-Fourier
(hyperbolic and dual phase lag) heat conduction models.
• Numerical modeling of solidification phenomena of
highly supercooled melt droplets (Keywords:
Solidification, Latent heat of crystallization, Heat
transfer, instabilities): The project topic is concerned with
developing an understanding of various numerical models
that have been proposed in the literature for simulating
melt solidification of highly supercooled molten droplets.
The study holds its importance in the solidification of
metals and alloys as the resultant growth rate is controlled
by the diffusion of latent heat of crystallization from the
advancing crystal-melt interface. This interface is
morphologically unstable when the latent heat is
transferred from the interface to liquid and this instability
is believed to cause dendritic-like structures. The current
project focuses on the concerned heat transfer phenomena
at the crystal-liquid interface.
• Heat Transfer Characteristics of Nanofluids:
Fundamentals and Applications: Device
miniaturization and process intensification have resulted
in increased heat fluxes and stringent operation limits,
which has resulted in a quest of new effective heat
 dissipation techniques. Conventional methods of heat
transfer are inadequate to deal with these high heat fluxes.
Fluids with nano-sized particles suspended in them, called
Nanofluids, offer a promising solution to this problem.
The proposed project involves numerical simulations and
experimental studies for understanding the heat
conduction, natural convection and forced convection
aspect of nanofluids with a focus on elucidating the
physics behind heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids.
7 Prof. Janani Srree • CFD investigation of Subcooled flow boiling in rod
Murallidharan bundles
• Computational investigation of Pool Scrubbing related
phenomena
8 Prof. Kannan Iyer • Modelling of Cavitation in Hydraulic Circuits.
• Modelling of Condensation in Power plant Condensers.
9 Prof. Milind Atrey • Pulsating heat pipe
• Cryo stay Design
• Topic of mutual interest
• If ISRO candidate ... Then on mutual consent
10 Prof. Milind V Rane • Low Pressure Ratio Air Compressors and Vacuum
Pumps: Objective is to conduct literature survey, patent
search and review of commercially available units that
have been or can be deployed for low pressure ratio air
compressors or vacuum pumps. Pressure ratio of the order
of 1:3. Analyse and compare the performance of various
available technologies with respect to isentropic efficiency,
volumetric efficiency, specific power consumption
(kWh/kg air delivered at 3 bar), size, weight and cost.
Conclude with identification of the best choice and
recommend ways of improving the performance further.
• Atmospheric Water Harvesters: Objective is to conduct
literature survey, patent search and review of commercially
available units that have been or can be deployed for
harvesting potable water from atmosphere. Analyse and
compare the performance of various available technologies
with respect to specific power consumption (kWh/kg water
recovered), size, weight and cost. Conclude with
identification of the best choice and recommend ways of
improving the performance further.
11 Prof. Neeraj • Methods for predicting density and phase of energetic
Kumbhakarna materials from molecular structure data.
• Methods for predicting phase change characteristics of
energetic materials from molecular structure data.
12 Prof. Rajendra P • Film cooling using large diffusion angle holes
Vedula
13 Prof. Rajneesh • Fluid-structure interaction and drag reduction of
Bhardwaj elastic thin plates in laminar flows: Fluid-structure
modelling (FSI) of a deforming thin elastic plate by fluid
dynamic forces involves moving fluid-solid interfaces,
coupled structure dynamics and geometric and/or material
non-linearity of the structure. The non-linear interaction
may lead to complex system behaviours such as lock-on,
beating patterns etc. In addition, drag on such elastic bodies
 reduces due to the reconfiguration caused by flow-induced
deformation. The present project will investigate these
effects numerically, with applications in autonomous
underwater vehicles and micro aerial vehicles. The student
will employ a fully-parallelized, three-dimensional and
state-of-the-art immersed-Boundary method based FSI
solver.
• Microfluidics and microscale heat transfer in an
evaporating droplet loaded with micro- and nano-
particles: Evaporation of droplets containing micro- and
nano-particles particles on a heated solid surface has
several technical applications in inkjet printing and micro-
manufacturing. The physics during the droplet evaporation
on a solid surface is characterized by complex and coupled
transport phenomena: fluid dynamics in the presence of a
severely deforming liquid-gas surface, wetting line motion
and convective and conductive heat transfer. The effect of
Marangoni stresses at liquid-gas interface and wetting at
three-phase contact line are not completely understood and
will form the basis of this numerical study. The student will
employ a state-of-the-art, finite-element matlab based
solver for the proposed investigation.
14 Prof. Sandip Kumar • Design of a salt hydrate based open thermochemical
Saha heat storage (THS) system for seasonal storage of heat:
THS systems have gained attention of researches
worldwide for their high heat storage density and
negligible heat loss. THS systems store heat in the form of
chemical energy through exothermic/endothermic
reactions. In general, the solid-gas reactions with water as
the gas reactant are preferable choices for such systems
owing to their simplicity and compactness in design and
safe operation. Salt hydrate-water is an attractive reaction
pair for low temperature (<100 °C) heat storage
applications. Numerical and experimental studies have
been performed by researchers on salt hydrate-water pair
with different salt hydrates (SrBr2, CaCl2, MgCl2 etc.) and
for both open and closed systems. Nevertheless, the
modeling and simulation studies of open THS systems
based on salt hydrate-water reaction pairs available in the
literature are insufficient. Also, research related to
optimization of the reactor configuration and design for
obtaining maximum specific power and compact heat
storage are scarce. Hence, there is a need to further
investigate open THS system based on salt hydrate-water
reaction pair, both numerically and experimentally to
achieve an optimized design for specified conditions.
• Hydrodynamics and thermal transport past bluff
bodies of various shapes/orientations and its
application to electronic chip cooling: Since the
advancement of electronic industry, especially in the field
of high performance computing applications, one of the
important factors is the heat generation in the electronic
circuits. Electronic circuits contain tiny electronic chips of
various sizes and shapes. For sufficiently long hours of
 operations, the temperature of the chips will rise until the
heat transferred to the surroundings is equal to the heat
produced by the component, i.e., thermal equilibrium is
reached. For reliable and efficient operations, the
temperature must never exceed a specified maximum
permissible value for each component. If the generated
heat exceeds its critical limit, a complete failure in
computing devices may occur. Therefore, sufficient and
effective cooling arrangement is required to handle this
heat generation problem. To tackle this issue, several
research efforts have been emerged to understand the
physical insights of the problem. The research
considerations that have been emerged in this area is by
considering electronic chips as the bluff bodies of various
shapes and sizes. The aim of the work will be to study the
thermo fluidic performance of bluff bodies for various flow
conditions mimicking the applications in electronic chip
cooling. Combined influence of forced and mixed
convective flows will be studied in detail for various flow
and geometrical conditions.
15 Prof. Shankar Krishnan • Bubble column condenser
• Periodic micro-lattice heat exchangers
16 Prof. • Asynchronous time integration schemes for parallel
Shivasubramanian computing.
Gopalakrishnan • Uncertainty and error quantification of higher order
Galerkin methods.
17 Prof. Sreedhara • Tabulated Conditional Moment Closure Moment
Sheshadri Closure Model for Turbulent Premixed Combustion:
The Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) is a well-known
method for the modelling of turbulent non-premixed
combustion. The equations are solved in mixture fraction
space. However, in premixed combustion scenario
variation of mixture fraction is very minimal. Hence to use
CMC in the premixed scenario, equations are developed in
the progress variable space and solved. Implementation,
validation and improvement of the code are necessary.
• Modelling of oxy-fuel combustion of pulverized coal in
a swirl burner: Modelling of pulverized coal combustion
is a challenging task as it involves modelling of turbulence,
combustion, radiation, heat loss etc. A CFD code is to be
developed to mimic the experimental data accurately but in
a reasonable CPU time.
18 Prof. Sridhar • A diagnostic study of water extraction from
Balasubramanian atmospheric convection.
• Sub-regional scale analysis of geophysical fluid flows.
19 Prof. U N Gaitonde • Carathéodory's Formulation of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics: Requires a good grasp of
Thermodynamics, and also of Mathematics.