Doctoral work

Numerical study of the damping behaviour of polymer matrix composites

Vibration and noise suppression problems are in aerospace, automobile and railways etc. Structural vibrations

fall in the range of 0.1-10kHz for a general kind of load. Ideal damping of vibration should be for

complete range of frequency. There are many methods used to suppress the vibration and noise. These are

active, passive, magnetic and particle dampers etc. In these passive damping is simple and cost effective.

In this high damping material is used in the form of layers. So it would be best to have material of high

damping with wide application frequency range. In this work we attempt to establish a numerical scheme for

determining the overall damping response of a range of polymeric composites. The broad goal is to identify

material combinations and microstructural morphologies that render the composite to have a high peak

damping response over a large frequency range without significantly sacrificing its strength. To this end

we have formulated a unitcell, small deformation based Finite Element technique for determining the

overall damping response of a composite, given its microstructural morphology. Our results show that the

general procedure for widening the damping response over a large frequency range involves engineering the

morphology of viscoleastic-viscoelastic composites with the constituents having appropriate relaxation

times. In cases where the particulates added have sizes in the nanometer range, significant volume

fractions of interphases develop around the particulates. Presence of these viscoelastic interphases

sensitively determines the overall damping response of the nanocomposite. In fact, we demonstrate how

the overall damping behavior of a nanocomposite bears the signature of the properties of the interphase region.

Master's work

 

Three dimensional transient temperature distribution Finite Element model for butt-weldments

 

As welding is important means of joining metals and alloys. The welding process has inherent nature of

uneven heating and cooling of the parts to be welded. That results in unwanted distortion and residual

stresses. To overcome these shortcomings pre or post or both heat treatment is required. For necessary

heat treatment to be done, it is required to know the temperature distribution in the parts with time. So

three-dimensional Finite Element (FE) model has been made for transient temperature distribution in butt

weldments. Model had been varified with the experiment carried out here. It was found that model was in

good agreement with the experiment. Study of temperature distribution in the butt weldments have been done

with the help of model for varius steels.

 

Undergraduate project work

 

Design of solar water heating system for university swimming pool

Main aim of designing this solar water heater for swimming is to utilize the unconventional solar energy

for heating of water. So that the swimming pool can be used in winter season also. In this design 53 % of

total energy was coming from the sun. Rest of the heating was done from the auxiliary system.