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Ramkarn Patne

Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering

Ph.D, IIT Kanpur


Email:   ramkarn[at]che.iith.ac.in

Office:  A-507         Lab:  A-512

Tel:  040-2301-6221

Areas of Interest:  Hydrodynamic stability, Biofluid mechanics, Complex flows


“The growth of the perturbations in space and time leads to hydrodynamic instabilities which could lead to the ubiquitous turbulent flow. Thus, control of instabilities is essential in controlling turbulence.”

Understanding the dynamics of fluid flows is essential in myriad natural and industrial settings ranging from biofluid mechanics to additive manufacturing. The overarching theme of my research group is to analyse the dynamics of flows and apply it to manipulate the hydrodynamic instabilities to achieve the industrial application goal or understand the natural phenomena.

Research Areas

1. Pulmonary fluid dynamics: We analyse the instabilities involved in the mucus flow vital in leading to the airway closure scenarios. The strategies to mitigate these instabilities is also being explored.

2. Buoyancy instabilities: A liquid layer heated from below is known to become unstable as heating temperature is increased beyond a certain value due to buoyancy instability. We analyse the modification of this instability by subjecting the liquid layer to an oblique temperature gradient.

3. Flow past deformable surfaces: These flows are encountered in biological and microfluidic settings. We analyse the impact of the deformable surface on flow dynamics and use it to manipulate the mixing.

4. Complex flows: Biological and industrial fluids often have a complex relationships between the applied stress and resulting velocity field gradient defined by a constitutive relation. We analyse the impact of non-Newtonian character on hydrodynamic instabilities.



Selected Publications

1. R Patne, Effect of inhaled air temperature on the mucus dynamics, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, under review.

2. R Patne and J Chandrana, Spatio-temporal dynamics of a two-layer pressure-driven flow subjected to a wall-normal temperature gradient, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 957, A11 (2023).

3. R Patne, Purely elastic instabilities in the airways and oral area, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 928, A22 (2021).

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