Devang Khakhar's Research Group

Mixtures of particles of different sizes separate during flow. Such segregation has significant practical implications. The segregation of particles during surface flows and the packing of particles in the deposit formed will be studied by means of DEM simulations. The results are important for the understanding of feeding raw materials into a blast furnace used for steel making.

Particle size reduction is one of the most energy inefficient unit operations despite being very widely used in the chemical metallurgical and mining industries. It is proposed to study size reduction using computational modelling and experiments for model size reductions systems. Examples include shear flow air jet mill and sheared mill. The motivation is to devise new more efficient grinding systems. The project will involve interaction with industry.   Co-guide: J. B. Joshi

Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) is a highly inert polymer with excellent piezoelectric properties and is hence used for sensors. The polymer has different crystal phases of which alpha phase is non-polar while beta phase is polar. The beta phase has high piezoelectricity while the alpha phase does not. Conversion of alpha phase to beta phase can be done by solid state stretching or by addition of nucleating agents. Both methods will be used to produce beta phase PVDF films. Further the films will be exposed to high electric fields at elevated temperatures to align the polar crystals and…