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Expert’s interests and experience extend over a wide range of air-cooled heat exchangers. Prompted mainly by the present day environmental concerns and scarce water resources, as well as by the more attractive maintenance-free operation of air-cooled units compared to water-cooled systems, he worked extensively on alternative air-cooled technologies. Selection, design, and operation of compact heat exchangers for a variety of specialized and automotive applications is of considerable interest to him. He is particularly adept in proposing new and effective air-cooled systems based on heat pipe technology as alternatives to conventional air-cooled heat exchangers. He is working on the design of HVAC systems based on heat recovery from automobile exhaust for passenger comfort. He is currently evolving comprehensive design software for heat pipe heat exchangers using aluminum-ammonia, copper-water, and copper-methanol heat pipes for application as CACA coolers for large electric motors and generators. He is also working on heat pipe heat exchangers for air preheaters using carbon steel-water, and carbon steel-naphthalene heat pipes. He proposes to work with clients in the power generation industry to design and develop efficient air-cooled systems with innovative and unconventional technologies.

Expert strongly believes that in-house R&D should be an integral part of new industrial ventures, especially in developing countries. He further believes that acquiring know-how might offer immediate and short term solutions to meet the ever-changing market needs, and setting up R&D centers will go a long way for furthering and sustaining technology growth. Organizing R&D teams with well-defined objectives and time-bound goals, particularly directed toward introducing new and alternative technologies in potential areas, is his main interest. His long experience of nearly 25 years with a large industrial R&D company in the power sector has enriched his knowledge base.

Expert has considerable experience in the design and development of cooling systems for large power devices (thyristors, GTBTs, large HVDC systems, converters/inverters, TWTs etc.). Apart from design, development, and prototype testing of conventional and heat pipe-based heat sinks for power devices, he worked on two major projects: one related to the cooling system for “the bipolar 100 MVA national HVDC project” and the other under a defense contract for “design, development, and supply of 2kW heat pipe based TWT cooling units.” The first project involved the design and development of die-cast aluminum heat sinks with demineralized water as the cooling medium; the work involved sizing and selection of cooling system components like pumps, fans, valves, piping, etc. The second project involved the design and development of heat pipe cooling systems for traveling wave tubes used in retractable radar antenna. The units were developed from concept stage, prototype tested to mil-duty specifications, and field tested. He was responsible for procuring a large repeat order for several units, which have been in operation for nearly four years. Besides being the project coordinator, Expert was responsible for establishing the necessary infrastructure and testing facilities for the heat pipe cooling systems and preparation of technology documents.

While Expert was with BHEL R&D, he was involved in the design and rating of industry scale heat exchangers with particular reference to power plant auxiliaries like regenerative (rotary) and recuperative (tubular) air preheaters, economizers, surface condensers, generator coolers, oil coolers etc. He has considerable expertise in the application of heat exchanger design software of HTRI, HTFF etc., for performance evaluation as well as rating of heat exchangers. In addition, Expert is currently working in collaboration with Cusp Technologies on heat exchanger design software incorporating heat pipe concepts that are seen as efficient alternative to conventional equipment in terms of size and performance.

Expert's interest in heat pipes spans two decades and diverse areas. His focus is on application of efficient heat pipe technology to solve heat transfer problems. He developed and prototype-tested many industry scale heat pipe products like a 1MW air preheater, a 300 kg/hr steam condenser, a 200 kW generator cooler, a 2 kW TWT cooler, etc. He has designed and developed heat pipe based electronic cooling systems for power devices like thyristors, GTBTs and TWTs. He has worked on several aspects of heat pipes including material compatibility, fabrication, performance, and quality assessment for different applications. He has developed software for the design of heat pipes for different applications including electronics cooling, heat pipe heat exchangers, and waste heat recovery systems, hvdc applications. He is currently developing a computer program for sizing of heat pipes for large industrial heat exchangers.

Expert has 20 years of industry and 10 years of academic experience dealing with all aspects of heat transfer, both basic and applied. His industry experience is primarily built around power plant equipment. He has extensively dealt with problems related to transient heat transfer and the resulting thermal stresses in steam turbine casings and rotors during startup and loading; heat transfer analysis in electric generators and large motors for optimal design of machine ventilation and cooling; heat transfer in large oil-cooled power transformers and design of radiators; heat transfer in control equipment using power devices; and thermal performance and rating of air preheaters, heat exchangers, steam condensers, etc. He contributed to the thermal design of cooling plates for PAFC and PEM fuel cells. His interest in basic heat transfer and fluid dynamics stems from his work on variational principles and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. He has considerable experience in modeling of complex heat transfer problems. He is skilled in the application of numerical FEM and CFD software to tackle practical heat transfer problems with complicated geometries, and physical and boundary conditions. He takes special interest in micro and nano heat transfer where the conventional Fourier law of heat conduction fails and one has to resort to dealing with more involved hyperbolic heat conduction with relaxation and time lag between heat flux and temperature gradient.

Expert has flair for challenging tasks related to new product development and in improving thermal performance of existing products by application of new technologies. He has considerable interest and expertise in thermal management of electronics, which requires continuous advancement and concurrent engineering concepts to address problems of packaging with higher densities. He believes that customer feedback is one motivating factor in developing new products and accordingly equips himself with market trends and directions based on new materials, technologies, and processes. He further recognizes that solutions to certain unique and complex problems with conflicting technological requirements can lie in engineering fields other than ones own specialization for which innovative tools like TRIZ (the theory of inventive problem solving) come handy while developing new products. He has considerable knowledge of the software tools that help develop new products by rigorous computer-based trials and experimentation.

Expert has worked on advanced electronic cooling techniques for nearly 15 years. His interest in this area began with performance evaluation of aluminum extrusions for power electronic devices like thyristors, diodes, IGBTs, etc. for application in control equipment like rectifiers, converters, inverters, etc. He established extensive test facilities for this purpose. He later worked on water-cooled die-cast heat sinks for HVDC application. He was instrumental in developing and testing new die-cast aluminum heat sinks for a national HVDC project. He has subsequently worked on heat pipe heat sinks for diverse applications in the electronic industry. He continues to be interested in heat pipe cooling systems for microelectronics, thermal management, and electronic packaging. He believes in concurrent engineering in electronic system design where the thermal and packaging aspects are simultaneously tackled along with circuit design.

Expert was actively involved in the design and development of heat pipe TWT cooling systems for a strategic defense electronic application from concept to commercialization.He was responsible for project coordination, design, and development of 220 a kW heat pipe generator cooler for BHEL, Hyderabad, India. Expert is actively associated with Satyam Engineering Sevices, Hyderabad, India for design analysis issues using CFD & FEM software.He is Principal Consultant to Cusp Technologies, Hyderabad, India, for thermal design and failure analysis of clamshell heat exchangers. Expert is a consultant to Enertech Engineering, Hyderabad, India for the design of slip-on air conditioners for military-duty shelters for electronic panels.