Prof.Sumesh

Prof. Sumesh P Thampi

Department of Chemical Engineering

Prof. Sumesh P Thampi

Research Areas

Hydrodynamics of complex fluids, interfacial flows, active matter.We primarily perform continuum modelling of soft and active matter and the models are simulated on a computer to visualise and understand the dynamics of these interesting materials. Our research group specialises in phenomena driven by fluid flows and thus usually our approach stems from principles of fluid mechanics

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Research

  1. Our research group specialises in phenomena driven by fluid flows and thus usually our approach stems from principles of fluid mechanics. Thanks to the fact that typical length scales of interest in these novel materials are very small (nm to mm) colloidal and interfacial phenomena become invariably important along with fluid mechanics, a field classically known as Physicochemical hydrodynamics. 
  2. In addition, princples of heat and mass transport, phase transitions and statistical mechanics are also useful in modelling soft and active matter. Therefore we usually resort to mesoscale simulation techniques such as lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) to simulate the dynamics of soft and active matter, in contrast to traditional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. 
  3. With this approach we attempt to solve a variety of design problems with futurisitc applications in mind: micro-robots for targetted drug delivery and surgical applications, self pumping and energy extracting microfluidic devices from biological and living materials, materials with predetermined patterns and tunable microstructure for small scale devices. 

Projects

We have currently undertaken the following projects:

  1. Hydrodynamics of driven and active micro-robots/swimmers in a crowded and confined environment
  2. Controlling the hydrodynamics of biological and living matter via geometric confinements
  3. Evaporation driven flows for two dimensional patterning
  4. Tuning polymer crystallisation for making sustainable materials

 

Facilities

To be Added

Publication

  1. Transport of topological defects in a biphasic mixture of active and passive nematic fluids KVS Chaithanya, A Ardaseva, OJ Meacock, WM Durham, SP Thampi, 2024
  2. Simulating dynamics of ellipsoidal particles using lattice Boltzmann method SP Thampi, K Stratford, O Henrich  2024
  3. Conducting Gold Nanoparticle Films via Sessile Drop Evaporation A Das, H Kumar, S Hariharan, SP Thampi, AK Chandiran, MG Basavaraj Langmuir 2024
  4. Dynamics of spreading of an asymmetrically placed droplet near a fluid-fluid interface M Reddy, MG Basavaraj, SP Thampi Soft Matter 2024
  5. Viscoelastic confinement induces periodic flow reversals in active nematics F Mori, S Bhattacharyya, JM Yeomans, SP Thampi Physical Review E 2023
  6. Confinement induced three-dimensional trajectories of microswimmers in rectangular channels BN Radhakrishnan, A Purushothaman, R Dey, SP Thampi 2023
  7. Drying drops of colloidal dispersions SP Thampi, MG Basavaraj Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering 14, 53-83 8 2023

Collaboration

  1. Sanat K. Kumar – Chemical Engineering – Columbia University

  2. Christopher James Durning – Chemical Engineering – Columbia University

  3. Julia Yeomans – Oxford Department of Physics

  4. Tyler Shendruk. University of Edinburgh

  5. Amin Doostmohammadi Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

Social Impact

Contents to be added

Turbulent flows of active nematic generated inside a rectangular channel (illustrated with streamlines and vorticity field in 2 dimensions)

Hydrodynamic collision of puller microswimmers (red) with a spherical particle (blue)