PhD Applicant — Thermal Management, CFD & Numerical Simulation
Harish Ragul
Rajaramaduraikarthik
Building numerical solvers for incompressible flows and conjugate heat transfer — from FEniCS finite element methods to Navier–Stokes — with a long-term goal of PhD research in thermal management, CFD, and numerical simulation.
Chennai, Indiaharishragulkarthik@gmail.com
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Key Projects
Research & Engineering Work
Each project combines rigorous theory with working implementations — solver code, deployed applications, and open-source contributions.
Academic Background
Education
M.E. Thermal Engineering
JJ College of Engineering and Technology
Anna University
2023 – 2025
CGPA 8.33 / 10
Thesis
Development of a Web-Based Application for Solving Steady-State Thermal Conduction and Convection Problems Using FEniCS and Django
- ›Discretised the 2D steady-state heat conduction equation using FEM; solved with FEniCS handling spatially varying thermal conductivity and mixed boundary conditions (Dirichlet, Neumann, Robin) — directly applicable to conjugate heat transfer modelling in electronics cooling geometries.
- ›Conducted steady-state and transient thermal simulations using ANSYS Thermal and Fluent; performed structural analysis using ANSYS Mechanical; used ICEM CFD, Fluent Meshing, and SpaceClaim within ANSYS Workbench.
- ›Packaged the solver into a Django web application — boundary conditions and material parameters configurable through a browser interface; results plotted inline.
- ›Coursework: heat transfer, fluid mechanics, turbomachinery, computational methods, thermal system design.
B.E. Aerospace Engineering
Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Engineering College
Anna University
2019 – 2023
CGPA 8.37 / 10
Thesis
Integration of Inertial Navigation System in a Quadcopter
- ›Fused accelerometer and gyroscope data from an MPU-6050 IMU for real-time attitude estimation; implemented IMU driver from scratch in MicroPython for Raspberry Pi Pico (published on GitHub).
- ›Interfaced navigation output with a Pixhawk flight controller to close the stabilisation loop.
Research Output
Publications
Rajaramaduraikarthik, H. (2026). Lid-Driven Cavity Flow: A Python Projection Method Solver Validated Against Ghia et al. (1982). Zenodo.
doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20623227Rajaramaduraikarthik, H. (2026). CFD from Scratch: A Self-Paced Python Course from Finite Differences to Turbulence. Journal of Open Source Education.
jose.theoj.orgExperience
Professional & Research
Industry work provides deep computational software engineering skills — directly applicable to building research infrastructure and production-grade numerical solvers.
CFD Research
Incompressible Flow Solver Suite — Python
Independent Research
2025 – Present
- ›Built a complete FVM pipeline from scratch: control volume discretisation, face flux assembly, pressure-velocity coupling via projection method and SIMPLE algorithm on staggered grids.
- ›Implemented and validated a 2D lid-driven cavity solver (129×129 grid, Re = 100) against Ghia et al. (1982) — u- and v-velocity centreline profiles in close agreement with benchmark data; results published as a Zenodo technical note.
- ›Studied RANS turbulence modelling from first principles: Reynolds decomposition, closure problem, k-ε transport equations, k-ω SST blending functions and stress limiter; validated turbulent channel flow against the log-law at multiple Reτ.
- ›Built mesh generation tools: y⁺ estimation workflow, geometric and tanh clustering, mesh quality metrics (skewness, aspect ratio, non-orthogonality) — directly applicable to RANS boundary layer meshing.
- ›Currently implementing TVD schemes (van Leer, minmod, superbee, MC) on a MAC staggered grid to eliminate checkerboard pressure modes and improve accuracy near sharp velocity gradients.
CFD Research
OpenFOAM — Case Setup, Meshing & Simulation
Independent Research
2026 – Present
- ›Completed icoFoam lid-driven cavity simulation at Re = 10 and Re = 100; independently diagnosed and resolved a Courant number instability (Co > 1).
- ›Completed mesh generation: blockMesh 2D channel (8,000 cells, y⁺-graded), mesh independence study, snappyHexMesh sphere in channel (28,292 cells, non-orthogonality max 36°).
- ›Completed boundary condition setup and solver selection; extending to turbulent cases — k-ω SST backward-facing step validation is the current focus.
Thermal Simulation
FEniCS Thermal Solver — M.E. Thesis
JJ College of Engineering and Technology, Anna University
2024 – 2025
- ›Solved the 2D steady-state heat conduction PDE using FEM with spatially non-uniform thermal conductivity and mixed boundary conditions — the same class of conjugate heat transfer problem that governs heat dissipation in power electronics packages.
- ›Applied ANSYS Thermal and Fluent for complementary steady-state and transient thermal simulations during thesis validation, gaining direct experience with temperature field analysis and thermal boundary condition setup.
- ›Django web interface allows interactive boundary condition and material parameter input with inline result visualisation.
Backend & Data Engineering
Software Developer — Python
Telebillz Solutions LLP · Bangalore (Remote)
Jun 2023 – Present
- ›Built and maintained production backend services in Django and Flask: REST APIs, PostgreSQL/MySQL database design, payment integrations, analytics pipelines (Pandas + SQL).
- ›Developed clean, reviewed, production-quality code in an agile team — practices directly transferable to simulation scripting and reproducible research workflows.
Technical Toolkit
Skills & Tools
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Thermal Simulation
- Steady-state & transient heat conduction
- Conjugate heat transfer
- ANSYS Thermal & Fluent (temperature field analysis, BCs, material properties)
- FEM (FEniCS)
- Mixed boundary conditions
- Non-uniform thermal conductivity
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CFD & Numerics
- FDM, FVM
- Projection method, SIMPLE
- TVD schemes (van Leer, minmod, superbee, MC)
- QUICK, MUSCL
- Pressure-velocity coupling
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Turbulence
- RANS
- k-ε, k-ω SST (Menter 1994)
- Wall functions
- y⁺ estimation
- Turbulent channel flow validation
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CFD & Thermal Tools
- ANSYS (Fluent, CFX, Thermal, Structural, ICEM CFD, Workbench, SpaceClaim)
- OpenFOAM (icoFoam, simpleFoam, blockMesh, snappyHexMesh, ParaView)
- FEniCS
- Python/NumPy solvers
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Programming
- Python (NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, Pandas, Django)
- C/C++ (basic reading & modification)
- Git
- Linux
Writing
Research Notes
Technical notes on solver derivations, numerical methods, and CFD case studies — written to build depth and share understanding.
Get in Touch
Contact
I am actively seeking PhD positions and research collaborations in thermal management, CFD, and numerical simulation. If you work in these areas, I would be glad to connect.