Rituraj Nandan

11 Steidle Building, University Park , PA 16802

(814) 308-4146

rituraj at psu dot edu

Education

Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University , University Park

Major: Materials Science and Engineering

Course work: Kinetics, Thermodynamics, Transport Phenomena, Numerical Heat Transfer, Finite Element Methods, Materials Characterization, Nano-structured Carbon Materials, Dielectrics and other Electro-ceramics, Computational Materials Science, Computational Physics, Number Theory, Turbulence

Achievements:

  • GPA of 3.95/4.0
  • Received Kennametal fellowship for 2005-06.
  • Graduate Award for Academic Excellence for 2007 from Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State.
  • American Welding Society Graduate Fellowship Grant for 2007-2008.

Bachelor of Technology, Indian Institute of Technology , Kharagpur

Major: Metallurgical and Materials Engineering

Related course work: Physical Metallurgy, Iron and Steel-making, Phase transformations, Materials Characterization, Computational Materials Science, Corrosion, Welding Metallurgy, High Temperature Materials Processing

Achievements:

  • Was at the top of my graduating class with a GPA of 8.57/10.0. Received the Institute’s Silver Medal in recognition of my academic performance.
  • Selected among top 100 students for Summer Research Fellowship Programme, 2002 by Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore , India.
  • Received Indranil Award for Metallurgy of 2002-03 from Mining, Geological and Metallurgical Institute of India and Best Student Award of 2004 from Indian Institute of Metals.

Projects

  • Development of reliable heat and momentum transport model for Friction Stir Welding Process, with the ability to predict residual stresses based on welding parameters.
  • Optimizing rolling schedule in Hot Strip Mill at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur to regulate crown and improve flatness using Genetic Algorithms.
  • Characterization of Sm2Co17 high strength permanent magnets produced by powder metallurgy in order to evaluate effect of initial powder size on domain alignment in the magnets.

Publications

  • R. Nandan, G. G. Roy, T. J. Lienert and T. DebRoy, "Three Dimensional Heat and Material Flow during Friction Stir Welding of Mild Steel":  Acta Materialia, 2007, vol. 55(3), pp. 883-895.
  • G. G. Roy, R. Nandan and T. DebRoy, "Dimensionless correlation to estimate peak temperature during friction stir welding":  Sci. Technol. Weld. Joining, 2006, vol. 11, pp. 606-608.
  • R. Nandan, G. G. Roy, T. J. Lienert and T. DebRoy, "Numerical modelling of 3D plastic flow and heat transfer during friction stir welding of stainless steel":  Sci. Technol. Weld. Joining, 2006, vol. 11(5), pp. 526-537.
  • R. Nandan, G. G. Roy and T. DebRoy, "Numerical Simulation of Three-Dimensional Heat Transfer and Plastic Flow During Friction Stir Welding" : Metal. Mater. Trans. A, 2006, vol. 37(4), pp. 1247-1259.
  • R. Nandan, R. Rai, R. Jayakanth, S. Moitra, N. Chakraborti, A. Mukhopadhyay, "Regulating Crown and Flatness During Hot Rolling: A Multi-objective Optimization Study Using Genetic Algorithms": Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 2005, 20(3), pp. 459-478.

Work Experience

  • Research Assistant, Pennsylvania State University , to Professor T. DebRoy  – working on the development of a numerical model to simulate heat transfer and visco-plastic flow in Friction Stir Welding process (August 2004 – present).
  • Teaching Assistant, Pennsylvania State University , for the course “Engineering Materials (MATSE 259)” - Graded examination papers, helped clear doubts of students, and maintained a course web site (Spring 2005, Fall 2006).
  • Summer internship at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur , the largest private sector steel plant in India (2003).
  • Summer internship at Defense Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Hyderabad , India (2002). 

Professional Activities

  • Member of committee on Friction Stir Welding for next edition of Welding Handbook, published by American Welding Society

Computer skills

  • Programming languages: FORTRAN, C, C++
  • Operating systems: Linux, Windows operating systems
  • Technical softwares: Mathematica, MATLAB, Ansys and Tecplot
  • Other applications: MS Office, Front Page
  • Computational methods: Control Volume, Finite Difference and Finite Element methods, Genetic Algorithm based optimization techniques.