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Neelesh A. Patankar
Associate Professor

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Northwestern University
2145 Sheridan Road, Rm. M310
Evanston, IL 60208-3111, USA

TEL: 847-491-3021
FAX: 847-491-3915

n-patankar@northwestern.edu

link to research site

BTech Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India(1993)
MS Mechanical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania(1995)
PhD Mechanical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania(1997)

Honors and Awards

  • Cover article of Langmuir, June 2009
  • NSF CAREER Award, 2002
  • Searle Junior Fellowship, Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, Northwestern University
  • John Goff prize, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania
  • Certificate of outstanding ability at high school level mathematics (ranked 14th in India) 1988, Indian Mathematics Olympiad Association
  • National talent scholarship, 1987, National Council for Education Research and Training, India

Research: Computational and Theoretical fluid dynamics

Prof. Patankar specializes in fast and efficient algorithms for fully resolved simulation of immersed bodies in fluids. His techniques are applicable at varying length scales ranging from Brownian systems to high Reynolds number flows. The immersed bodies can be rigid particles or freely swimming/flying bodies. Some application areas he is interested in are: fundamentals of aquatic locomotion and aerial flight, evolution of fish form and function, development of artificial evolution computational tool, animation, active mechanics of intracellular processes, sediment transport in geomorphic processes, and dynamics of sport balls.  

Other areas of research include studying the Lotus effect and its application to self-cleaning surfaces, low drag and slip near hydrophobic surfaces, and electrohydrodynamic flows and instabilities in microfluidic or nanoscale devices.

In the classroom

Prof. Patankar has taught Engineering Fluid Mechanics (ME 373) and Engineering Analysis III (EA3; Gen Eng 205-3) for undergraduates. He will lead the EA3 course beginning from Spring 2008. He has developed the following graduate courses: Introduction to CFD (ME 423), Advanced Topics in CFD (ME 424), and Design and Analysis of Microfluidic Systems (ME 421). His future course development effort will specifically focus on the hydrodynamics of aquatic locomotion in the broad context of biology, evolution, neuromechanical modeling, underwater vehicle design, and animation. This effort will be undertaken in collaboration with Prof. Malcolm MacIver.

Selected publications

Chen Y, Sharma N, Patankar NA, Fluctuating Immersed Material (FIMAT) dynamics for the direct numerical simulation of the Brownian motion of particles, In PROCEEDINGS OF THE IUTAM MEETING AT ARGONNE, Eds. S. Balachandar and A. Prosperetti. Springer Verlag, 2006.

Sharma N, Chen Y, Patankar NA, A distributed Lagrange multiplier based computational method for the simulation of particulate-Stokes flow, COMPUTER METHODS IN APPLIED MECHANICS AND ENGINEERING 194: 4716-4730 NOV 2005.

Sharma N, Patankar NA, A fast computation technique for the direct numerical simulation of rigid particulate flows, JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS 205 (2): 439-457 MAY 20 2005.

Lee J, He B, Patankar NA, A roughness-based wettability switching membrane device for hydrophobic surfaces, JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING 15 (3): 591-600 MAR 2005.

Sharma N, Patankar NA, Direct numerical simulation of the Brownian motion of particles by using fluctuating hydrodynamic equations, JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS 201 (2): 466-486 DEC 10 2004.

Patankar NA, Mimicking the lotus effect: Influence of double roughness structures and slender pillars, LANGMUIR 20 (19): 8209-8213 SEP 14 2004.

Patankar NA, Transition between superhydrophobic states on rough surfaces, LANGMUIR 20 (17): 7097-7102 AUG 17 2004.

He B, Patankar NA, Lee J, Multiple equilibrium droplet shapes and design criterion for rough hydrophobic surfaces, LANGMUIR 19 (12): 4999-5003 JUN 10 2003.

Patankar NA, On the modeling of hydrophobic contact angles on rough surfaces, LANGMUIR 19 (4): 1249-1253 FEB 18 2003.

Patankar NA, Ko T, Choi HG, Joseph DD, A correlation for the lift-off of many particles in plane Poiseuille flows of Newtonian fluids, JOURNAL OF FLUID MECHANICS 445: 55-76 OCT 25 2001.

Patankar NA, Joseph DD, Modeling and numerical simulation of particulate flows by the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIPHASE FLOW 27 (10): 1659-1684 OCT 2001.

Hu HH, Patankar NA, Zhu MY, Direct numerical simulations of fluid-solid systems using the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian technique, JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS 169 (2): 427-462 MAY 20 2001.

Patankar NA, Singh P, Joseph DD, Glowinski R, Pan TW, A new formulation of the distributed Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain method for particulate flows, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIPHASE FLOW 26 (9): 1509-1524 SEP 2000.

Patankar NA, Hu HH, Numerical simulation of electroosmotic flow, ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY 70 (9): 1870-1881 MAY 1 1998.