About
Bharathram Ganapathisubramani (he/him) is a Professor of Experimental Fluid Mechanics in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Southampton. His research and teaching interests are aerodynamics, hydrodynamics and propulsion relevant to transportation, energy generation and autonomous systems.
Bharath was born and brought up in Chennai (India). He completed his undergraduate degree in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (1995-1999). Upon completion, he moved to the University of Minnesota in the US where he secured his Masters and PhD in Aerospace Engineering (1999-2004). He followed this with a stint as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin in the Centre for Aeromechanics research (2004-2006). He moved to the UK as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London (2007-2010). He has been in Southampton since 2010, first as Senior Lecturer and then as Professor.
He currently serves as an Associate Editor for Experiments in Fluids and Flow (the former focuses on the development and application of experimental methods in fluid flows while the latter on practical applications of fluid mechanics). He is a Fellow of the Alan Turing Insitute as well as an Associate Fellow of AIAA. He is a member of the executive and management boards of the National Wind Tunnel Facility. He also serves on the executive and advisory committees of various international conferences.
He has held several administrative roles at Southampton including Head of Aero/Astro department (2019-2022), Director Admissions for Aero/Astro programme (2019-2022), Deputy Head of School for Research for School of Engineering (2018-2019) and the Head of the Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics research group (2012-2018).
In his spare time, Bharath plays cricket and squash (at a very amateur level). He also enjoys running, playing video games and sometimes binge-watching TV shows.
Research
Research groups
Current research
Research in Bharath's lab follows an experimental approach to understanding, predicting and controlling fluid flows relevant to aerodynamic and hydrodynamic applications in the transportation, autonomous systems and energy generation sectors. His research work is funded through varied sources including EPSRC, EU-FP7/Horizon2020, European Research Council, US AirForce, Office of Naval Research, Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Huawei.
The multi-talented researchers and PhD students working with Bharath combine state-of-the-art experimental facilities and newly developed diagnostic methods to generate high-fidelity experimental data. This data is analysed and assimilated in innovative ways to understand, predict and control unsteady and turbulent shear flows. Current projects in the lab include: prediction and manipulation of boundary layer flows, flow control for aerodynamics and aeroacoustics, unsteady flow such as flapping foils for thurst and energy production, data assimilation and machine learning methods for aerodynamic predictions and development of new diagnostic tools.
More information on the research carried out can be found here
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Bharath is currently teaching Design for first-year students and Aerodynamics for second-year students. Previously, he has taught Part 1 Thermofluids (as a tutor), Experimental Methods for Aerodynamics, Turbulence, Fluid Mechanics for the Mechanical Engineering programme and the Race-car Group Design project. He typically supervises 6-7 individual UG and PG projects and 1-2 Group Design Projects every year.
His UG/PG projects are typically in Experimental Aerodynamics and Hydrodynamics as well as turbulent shear flows with applications in Aerospace, Energy, Marine and Automotive sectors. These generally involve the design of rigs/models to be installed in wind tunnels and water facilities, numerical modelling of the models/rigs using CFD, FEA or bespoke Python/Matlab codes, and obtaining measurements with different techniques and analysis of data using Python or Matlab. Applications range from drag and noise reduction, flow control and prediction of aerodynamic performance. Typical projects in the past have included quantifying the drag of rough surfaces in turbulent flows, the aerodynamics of rotary, flapping and fixed-wing autonomous systems (in air and water), design and testing of race-car aerodynamic surfaces, flapping foils for energy harvesting, Design of gust generation device for wind tunnels etc. This video presentation provides some further information on the range of individual and group projects that can be pursued under Bharath's supervision.
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Prizes
- European Research Council Starting Researcher Grant (2012)