The following are the broad areas that our group is currently working on:
(i) Design and failure analysis of railway rolling stock: Our group is looking into how track irregularities, bogie design, track layout, operating conditions influence ride quality, rail-wheel contact forces, rail, wheel wear, and vehicle stability. To better understand mechanics at rail-wheel contact a six-degree of freedom rail-wheel simulator is being setup. Our group has also looked extensively into wheel gauge widening from heat dissipated during tread braking.
(ii) Design, fabrication, testing, and evaluation of metal-polymer-metal sandwich panels: A new joining technique has been developed by our group for achieving high interface strength for metal-polymer sandwich panels. We are currently look at effect of sandwich panel geometric parameters, weld parameters, phase properties on strength of the panels and on their formability.
(iii) Mechanics of fluid filled open cell porous elastomeric foams: These foams have applications in superfinishing, vibration isolation, and energy absorption. They are being studied experimentally as well as analytically.
(iv) Machine design: Our group does a lot of in-house design and development for testing equipment (e.g. creep setup, six degree of freedom rail-wheel contact simulator, bi-axial testing setup, etc.) and products relevant for rural development and sustainability (e.g. peanut desheller, electric three-wheeler).
(v) Friction stir welding and processing
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Design optimization of high interface strength metal polymer metal sandwich panels Naik R.K., Das A.K., Mahale P.R., Panda S.K., Racherla V. By Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 171 - (2023)
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Deformation behavior of fluid-filled porous elastomers: Analytical estimates and validation Singh V., Racherla V. By Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 163 104835- (2022)
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Analysis of Tool Wear and Counter Surface Roughness in the Flexible Abrasive Tool Finishing Kumar M., Sidpara A. M., Racherla V. By lubricants 10 316- (2022)
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Failure analysis of metal-polymer-metal sandwich panels with wire mesh interlayers: Finite element modeling and experimental validation Naik R.K., Panda S.K., Racherla V. By Composite Structures 280 114813- (2022)
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Finishing of OFHC copper using fluid filled open-cell porous flexible abrasive impregnated tools Kumar M., Sidpara A. M., Racherla V. By Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture 237 1086-1099 (2022)
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Finite element modeling of railway wheel gauge change during braking: Effect of lateral shift of brake block Abenesh K. S., Vakkalagadda M. R., Racherla V. , Vineesh K. P. By Materials Today: Proceedings 56 1447-1451 (2022)
Principal Investigator
- Conducting Longitudinal Restrain Test of Railway Fastening System
- Design Verification for Yoke and Roller for Gangway
- Development of Automated Gearbox for Deshla
- Enhancement of Battery Related Technologies
- Enhancement of Deshla 2.0
- National Initiative for Design Innovation
Co-Principal Investigator
- Peta-Scale Computations of Geophysical Flows with Bi-directional Thermal Gradients National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
Ph. D. Students
Abhilash Vishwakarma
Area of Research: Rail vehicle
Aju Sukumaran
Area of Research: Rail-wheel contact mechanics and railway vehicle dynamics
Debanjan Maity
Area of Research:
Desai Jayram Shivajirao Sangeeta
Area of Research:
Mayank Kumar
Area of Research: Surface finishing using flexible abrasive tools
Sayan Das
Area of Research: Plastic deformation of metals
Shreedhar Sahoo
Area of Research:
Sudhir Kumar Singh
Area of Research: method of inclusions, mechanics of composites
Vivek Singh
Area of Research: Viscoelastic composites
MS Students
Akshay Kumar
Area of Research: Slot die coating machine design and development
