V. Shankar

Class of 1984 Chair

  • Email

    vshankar[AT]iitk.ac.in

  • Office Phone No.

    +91-512-259-7377/7827 (Office)
    +91-512-259-7175 (Lab)

  • Office & Lab

    NL-II-205 (Office)
    NL-II-203B (Lab)

  • Group Home Page IRINS Profile

Research Interest

  • Stability of fluid flows
  • Rheology of complex fluids
  • Applied mathematics
  • Interfacial phenomena

Education

  • B.Tech, Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi, 1993
  • M.E, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 1995
  • Ph.D, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 2000
  • Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2000-2002

Research Overview

Our research interests center around the areas of fluid dynamics, rheology of complex fluids and interfacial phenomena. Specifically, we focus on the understanding, prediction and control of hydrodynamic instabilities that arise in the flow of simple and complex fluids, and in devising new strategies to manipulate instabilities towards many technological applications. We use tools from applied mathematics such as perturbation theory, asymptotic analysis, as well as computational techniques such as the spectral method to this end. For the first time, we have demonstrated that soft solid coatings could be potentially used to suppress a class of interfacial instabilities that occur in co-extrusion of polymers and film coating operations, without triggering any new instability in the system. We have also uncovered new instabilities in viscoelastic liquid flows adjacent to a deformable solid wall, which could be potentially exploited in improving mixing at small scales, such as in micro-fluidic devices. Our work on dewetting of viscoelastic liquids has shown, for the first time, the importance of incorporating inertial effects in the theory in order to obtain a correct description of the length and time scales of the instability. This prediction has important implications in pattern-formation applications.

Awards

  • INSA Young Scientist Medal,(2004)
  • INAE Young Engineer Award,(2006)
  • IIChE Golden Jubilee Young Achiever Award,(2007).
  • Associate, Indian Academy of Sciences,(2004-2007)

Work Experience

  • Assistant Professor, Department Of Chemical Engg., IIT Kanpur, July 2002 - Dec 2007

Publications

  • SK Yadav, G Subramanian, V Shankar, Elastic instability in a family of rectilinear viscoelastic channel flows devoid of centerline symmetry, Physics of Fluids , 9, 013301 (2024).
  • M Priyadarshi, KV Srita, V Bhaskar, M Khalid, G Subramanian, V Shankar, A new elastic instability in gravity-driven viscoelastic film flow, Physics of Fluids , 35 (7) (2023).
  • V Nair, I Sharma, V Shankar, Equilibrium shapes of liquid drops on pre-stretched nonlinear elastic membranes, Journal of Fluid Mechanics , 961, A28 (2023).
  • S Sharma, YM Joshi, V Shankar, Transient shear banding during startup flow: Insights from nonlinear simulations, arXiv preprint , (2023).
  • S Sharma, V Shankar, YM Joshi, Viscoelasticity and rheological hysteresis, Journal of Rheology, 67 (1), 139-155 (2023).
  • V. Shankar et al., Perspectives on viscoelastic flow instabilities and elastic turbulence, Physical Review Fluids, 7, 080701 (2022).
  • V. Shankar et al., Understanding viscoelastic flow instabilities: Oldroyd-B and beyond, Journal of non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 301, 104742 (2022).
  • M. Khalid et al., Continuous pathway between Elastoinertial and elastic turbulent states in viscoelastic channel flow, Physical Review Letters, 127, 134502 (2021).
  • I. Chaudhary et al., Linear instability of viscoelastic pipe flow, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 908, A11 (2021).
Complete list of Publications