Droplet Formation

My Ph.D. dissertation was focused on developing a mathematical model to simulate droplet formation process under various external force, like gravity, shear, etc. We see droplets forming in many natural and industrial settings. Rain drops and wave breakup into tiny droplets being examples of natural occurrence while ink-jet printing, emulsion, atomization in hybrid rocket engine, etc. are examples in industrial processes.

First, I developed a computational model to simulate a straight forward example of a droplet formation under a gravitational force. This model was implemented in C programming language using an open-source library PETSc. A self-consistent algorithm to calculate the length of a moving droplet was included in the model. The validation was performed using the previous experimental study on water and 85% glycerol solution.

Solar Updraft Tower

My MS thesis was about exploring designs of solar updraft tower and performance analysis of the power output. The solar chimney power plant works on the principle of natural convection. I designed a geometry with a conical diffuser at the base of the solar chimney. An example schematic is given below.

The table below shows the power outputs for all considered design attributes for the diffuser compared with the original design. The diffuser design shows promising results with up to 26.6% power output increment. These simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent. Consider reading my thesis for the details.