PhD, IISc Bangalore
Associate Professor, IIT Delhi
Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
Research Interests: Turbulent reacting flows, Aero-acoustics, Combustion Dynamics, Furnace Heat Transfer.
Focus on reducing pollutant emissions and increasing fuel utilization efficiency. Research includes industrial combustion studies, turbulent lean premixed combustion, and low temperature combustion strategies relevant to small scale Indian industries and rural applications.
Focus on reducing pollutant emissions and increasing fuel utilization efficiency. Research includes industrial combustion studies, turbulent lean premixed combustion, and low temperature combustion strategies relevant to small scale Indian industries and rural applications.
Interventions to Improve Performance of Combustion Systems. Sponsored by PCRA/CHT, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Improved Furnaces for Handtool Clusters in Jalandhar and Nagaur. Sponsored by United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Austria.
Vipin Kakkar
Ongoing Researcher
"Design and Testing of emerging industrial burner concepts"
My research focuses on flame stabilization of premixed fuel air mixtures from high-velocity, small diameter jets under turbulent flow conditions. Using CFD simulations alongside experimental observations, the study analyzes how jet velocity, Reynolds number, and equivalence ratio affect stability, focusing on recirculation zones and reaction zone dynamics. The work is further extended to syngas (H2/CO) to examine how fuel composition influences flame stability under high flow conditions.
Mayank Pandey
Ongoing Researcher
"Study of Intrinsic Flame Instabilities"
His work focuses on exploring intrinsic instabilities inherent to premixed flame fronts, namely Darrieus-Landau, cellular, and pulsating instabilities, as well as Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in slowly propagating flames. He is also studying triple flames in mixing layers and explosion limits in fuel/oxidizer systems.
Sourov Ghosh
Ongoing Researcher
"Combustion Dynamics of hydrogen Enriched fuel in a Micromix, Multi-nozzle Burner"
My research focuses on thermoacoustic instability (TI) in a micromix burner configuration. In addition to its advantages such as low NOx emissions, particularly for high hydrogen content fuels the micromix flame also presents distinct stability challenges. It exhibits unique thermoacoustic characteristics governed by periodic vortex shedding, fuel air mixing, fuel composition, combustion mode, and burner geometry. I investigate the coupling between unsteady heat release rate and the acoustic field under external forcing conditions, both experimentally and numerically. Experimentally, I examine differences in TI behavior across combustion modes partially premixed and fully premixed micromix flames and compare them with a swirl stabilized flame to identify the underlying mechanisms. Numerical simulations under matching conditions provide detailed insights into the flow field, mixing, and turbulence combustion interactions, which are essential for predicting and mitigating TI during the burner design phase.
Kanika Thakur
Ongoing Researcher
"Development of LES sub-grid scale model for combustion mixtures with thermodiffusive instabilities"
The roles of flame curvature, strain rate, and thermo-diffusive instabilities at sub-grid scales requires modeling. Although DNS captures detailed hydrogen flame physics, it is computationally expensive, while LES resolves only large scales and requires accurate sub-grid modeling. For hydrogen flames, where essential physics occurs at small scales, these insights have not been effectively translated into reduced-order models. Moreover, existing data-driven approaches lack physical interpretability and generalizability. The work aims to extract key physics from DNS and develop validated, physics-guided reduced-order models.
| Year | Name | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Jugal Pathak | Naturallly aspirated burners |
| 2023 | Rohit Meena | Turbulent flame test rig |
| 2021 | Himanshu Lal | Reduced order thermo models |
| Year | Name | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Rajat Kharbanda | Spray injection in RCCI |
| 2019 | Swapnesh Agrawal | Forging Furnaces Design |
| 2022 | Ayush Tanwar | IIT Delhi Data Center Analysis |
Sandeep Lamba (PhD, 2026): CO production in unsteady flame scenario using OpenFOAM.
Alok Kumar (PhD, 2025): Biomass pellets based heating systems for Jaggery making.
Amit Sharma (M.S. Research, 2022): Numerical Studies on Combustion Dynamics due to Liquid Fuel Droplets in Swirling Flame.
B.Tech Alumni: Rohit Meena (2019), Priyadarshan Jawanjal (2019), Saurabh Dhabu (2019), Anmol (2020), Vijay Kumar Meena (2020), Jatin Singh (2022), Manisha Verma (2022).
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016
kkant@mech.iitd.ac.in
Please send research inquiries and collaboration proposals via the institutional email address provided.
Internship Applications
UG students who have completed 3 years of engineering education and able to provide full-time commitment for more than 3 months should only email.