Aerosols

This project is a large scale CFD (LES - large eddy simulation) investigation of wind-generated ocean waves leading to wave breaking leading to sea spray formation [1]. The work will be jointly supervised with two other faculty members at IIT Madras (Prof. Anubhab Roy) and IIT Ropar (Prof. Devranjan Simanta). The student is expected to simulate wind generation of waves and turbulence in the uppermost layer of the ocean, wave breaking, bubble entrapment and fragmentation, bubble bursting and aerosol spray formation using LES based tools.

The phenomenon of ultrasonic atomisation was first reported by Wood and Loomis nearly a century ago in 1927 [1] and since then has been extensively used for various purposes [2] like pulmonary drug delivery [3], preparation of fine powders [4], combustion of liquid fuels [5], ultrasonic spray pyrolysis [6] to name only a few. In this method of atomisation, mechanical energy transmitted from a rapidly vibrating piezoelectric crystal (in the ultrasonic regime) to a liquid layer in contact with it, causes large capillary waves to develop at the surface of the liquid.