- Siddarth Srinivasan
- Doctoral Candidate, Chemical Engineering
- Project: Fabrication of Non-Wetting Surfaces for Drag Reduction and Dynamic Wetting
- co-advised by Gareth McKinley, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
- B.Tech. Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras, 2009
- Email: ssid@mit.edu
- Website: http://www.mit.edu/~ssid/
- Phone: (617) 253-6478
- Office: 66-357
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Research Summary
I am a PhD student at MIT in the department of Chemical Engineering working with Robert Cohen and co-advised by Gareth McKinley in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
My interests encompass phenomena in applied polymer physics, fluid mechanics, wetting and biomimetics. In my thesis, I investigate the fundamental problem of how structured liquid-repellent surfaces, which support a composite liquid-air interface, can reduce skin friction in both viscous laminar and turbulent flows. I have performed experimental characterization and applied mathematical modeling to demonstrate that such a macroscopic drag reduction in turbulent flow is indeed sustainable, thus settling a long standing unresolved question.
My research leads to a number of practical applications such as reducing the drag in marine vehicles and energy savings in pipe flows. In addition to this central theme, I have also worked on a mathematical analysis of the gravity driven deformation of drops on non-wetting surfaces, correlating the wetting dynamics on the barbs and barbules of aquatic birds with diving and wing-spreading behavior and on developing a hierarchical model to design oleophobic woven fabrics. Please take a look at my published work for more details.
Publications
- Srinivasan, S., Choi, W., Park, K.-C., Chhatre, S.S., Cohen, R.E., and McKinley, G.H. "Drag Reduction for Viscous Laminar Flow on Spray-Coated Non-Wetting Surfaces" Soft Matter 9, 5691-5702 (2013)
- Srinivasan, S., McKinley, G.H., and Cohen, R.E., "Assessing the Accuracy of Contact Angle Measurements for Sessile Drops on Liquid-Repellent Surfaces". Langmuir, 27 (22), pp 13582-13589 (2011)
- Srinivasan, S., Chhatre, S.S., Mabry, J.M., Cohen, R.E., and McKinley, G.H., "Solution spraying of poly(methyl methacrylate) blends to fabricate microtextured, superoleophobic surfaces". Polymer 52, 3209-3218 (2011).
- Kleingartner, J.A., Srinivasan, S., Mabry, J., R. E. Cohen, G. H. McKinley. Utilizing dynamic tensiometry to quantify contact angle hysteresis and wetting state transitions on nonwetting surfaces, Langmuir (2013)
- K-C. Park, S. S. Chhatre, Srinivasan, S., R. E. Cohen, G. H. McKinley.Optimal Design of Permeable Fiber Network Structures for Fog HarvestingLangmuir (2013)
