PhD | Department of Applied Mechanics

The Department of Applied Mechanics has a well-established PhD research programme with the following broad theme of research

Elasticity, Plasticity, Large Deformations, Manufacturing Analysis, Impact and Crash worthiness, Composite Materials, Composite Plates and Shells, Off-shore Structures, Smart Structures, Snow Mechanics, Computational Methods for Stress Analysis and Structures, Structural Optimization, Finite Element Method, Seismic Analysis of Tall Structures, Parallel Computing, Non-linear Dynamics and Chaos, Stability and bifurcation theory, Nano-mechanics, Bio-mechanics, Impact Mechanics, Continuum Damage Mechanics, Probabilistic Mechanics, Structural Health Monitoring and Fracture Mechanics, Machine Learning in Mechanics, Physics-informed Deep Learning, Digital Twins, Stochastic Mechanics, Inverse Problems in Mechanics, Solid Mechanics Inverse Problems in Dynamical Systems, System Identification, Structural Health Monitoring, Creep and Fatigue Resistant Materials, Discrete Dislocation Dynamics, Lightweight Structures Design, Crystal Plasticity, Uncertainty Quantification. • Hydrodynamic Stability Theory and Turbulence, (Theory Computation and Experimental), Low Dimensional Modelling, Proper Orthogonal Decomposition, Computational Fluid Dynamics; Compressible Flows; Industrial Aerodynamics and Pollution Dispersion, Wind Effects on Structures, Diffusers, Impellers, Combustors, Hypersonic Flows, Renewable Energy, Experimental Fluid Mechanics, Fluid structure interaction, Two-Phase Flows, Polymer Hydrodynamics, Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Biological and Complex/Polymeric Fluid Flows, Machine Learning in Fluid Mechanics, Theoretical and Computational Fluids and Molecular Mechanics, Nonlinear Waves in Fluids, Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics, Computational Statistical Mechanics, Multiscale Modeling Techniques, Shock Waves, High Order Methods for Fluid Mechanics and PDEs, Electro-hydrodynamics, High Performance Computing, Aeroacoustics, Noise Control. • Computer Aided Design, Design Engineering, Reliability Engineering.

Laboratory facilities

The Department has well-equipped laboratories, workshop and library facilities. The laboratories and their major facilities are as follows:

• Computation Laboratory: Graphics Workstations with engineering software such as ANSYS, ABAQUS, COMSOL

Design Optimization Laboratory: Workstations, Dual Processor–Softwares such as IDEA, ABAQUS, FLUENT, MATLAB, MATHCAD.

• Fluid Mechanics Laboratory: Pilot plant test loop for slurry transportation, pilot plant for flow rate measurement up to 8 cusecs, Bohlin viscometer, Weissenberg Rheogoniometer, Water tunnel with advanced measurement techniques.

• Gas Dynamics Laboratory: Industrial wind tunnel (1.6m x 1.6m x 10 m test section closed loop), Environmental wind tunnel (2m x 2m x10m suction type; is currently being renovated and may qualify for a central facility to be used by Civil Engineering Department, Mechanical Engineering Department and Atmospheric Sciences) and low turbulence wind tunnels, Wide angle diffuser rigs. Instruments: PIV(2D/3D), LDV, Hot wire Ancomometry, Pressure and Strain Scanners.

• Instruments: PIV (2D/3D), LDV, Hot wire Ancomometry, Pressure and Stain Scanners.

• Impact Mechanics Laboratory: Split Hopkinson Bar apparatus (tension and compression), High velocity projectile launch system, Dynamic three point bend test facility, Ultra high speed cameras, High speed data acq. system.

• MTS Laboratory: 250 kN and 25 kN & MTS machine with facilities for mechanical testing, fracture mechanics testing and fatigue testing.

• Strength of Materials Laboratory: 25 T Computerized Universal Testing machine (Zwick), 50 T Instron m/c, 10T and 100 T hydraulically operated Universal Testing m/c, Avery machines for hardness, impact, torsion and fatigue testing, Drop hammer facility (Instron 9250 HV) modified for Helmets. Stereo Zoom Microscope (Leica), 50 kN UTM machine with thermal chamber and bending/compression/fracture accessories (Zwick), Camera (Basler).

• Biomechanics/Soft Material Lab: 5kN UTM, AFM, Inverted Microscope Optical Bench, Sample preparation facility.

• Stress Analysis Laboratory: Photo-elastic bench, Reflection polariscobe, Moire fringe equipment,

Admission

PhD admission is a competitive process. Generally we admit people based on a two step process of shortlisting and interview. The shortlisting criteria is updated on a regular basis at the beginning of each admission cycle (Semester 1: Fall Semester, and Semester II: Spring Semester).

Interview is mostly for testing the fundamental understanding of the students. More detaild information regarding the admission criteria etc are given in institute level Information Brochure