Abstract

Weakly or partially ionized air plasma remains an area of strong research interest due to its broad practical relevance. Besides local flow modification for lift, drag, surface heat flux, turbulence, and noise control, these charged particles have shown excellent efficacy for biological decontamination for space and medical applications. At the heart of this charged particle technology is a set of electrodes separated by sufficient potential difference across a suitable dielectric medium to produce reactive species including short-lived metastables and charged particles. A range of electrical and geometric parameters determines the effective coupling of these charged particles with the neighboring working gas and/or surfaces. We will discuss key findings, advancements, and challenges for select practical applications of this charged particle technology. Realizable performance issues of the electrodes under adverse ambient conditions will also be discussed.


Venue - ME Auditorium
Date - 4th December 2024
Time - 15:00 to 16:00


Speaker Biography

Subrata Roy is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida and the founding director of the Applied Physics Research Group at the University of Florida. He is also the President and the founder of SurfPlasma Inc., a biotechnology company in Gainesville, Florida.

Subrata Roy earned his Ph.D. in engineering science from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN in 1994. Roy was a senior research scientist at Computational Mechanics Corporation in Knoxville, Tennessee, and then professor of mechanical engineering at the Kettering University up to 2006 In 2006, Roy joined the University of Florida as a faculty member of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He has also worked as a visiting professor at the University of Manchester and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Subrata Roy's research and scientific work encompasses computational fluid dynamics(CFD), plasma physics, heat transfer, magnetohydrodynamics, electric propulsion, and micro/nanoscale flows.

In 2003, Roy incorporated Knudsen's theory that handles surface collisions of molecules by diffusive and specular reflections into hydrodynamic models, which has been used in shale gas seepage studies. In 2006, Roy invented the Wingless Electromagnetic Air Vehicle (WEAV) which was included in Scientific American in 2008 as the world's first wingless, electromagnetically driven air vehicle design. Roy is known for introducing various novel designs and configurations of plasma actuators for applications in mitigation of flow drag related fuel consumption, noise reduction, and active film cooling of turbine blades and propulsion.These designs and configurations include serpentine geometry plasma actuators, fan geometry plasma actuators, micro-scale actuators, multibarrier plasma actuators, and plasma actuated channels of atmospheric plasma actuators. Roy also led multidisciplinary research on innovating eco-friendly ways of microorganism decontamination using plasma reactors.

Roy served as the Technical Discipline Chair for the 36th AIAA Thermophysics Conference in 2003, the 48th Aerospace Sciences Meeting (for Thermophysics) in 2010, the AIAA SciTech Plasma Dynamics and Lasers Conference in 2016, and served as the Forum Technical Chair for AIAA SciTech in 2018. Roy served (2005–2007) as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Fluids Engineering and served (2012–2017) as an Academic Editor of PLOS One.[2] Roy serves as a nation appointed member to the NATO Science and Technology Organisation working group on plasma actuator technologies; a member of the editorial board of Scientific Reports-Nature; and, an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Physics, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, and Journal of Fluid Flow, Heat and Mass Transfer. Roy is an inducted Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a lifetime member and Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and an Associated Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.