PhD student receives ASME best paper award

Deb Banerjee, a  PhD Candidate in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, was recently awarded the Fluid Measurement & Instrumentation Technical Committee Best Paper Award at the 2020 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE). Banerjee is advised by MAE professor Dr. Ahmet Selamet.

The paper, titled “Particle Image Velocimetry as Applied to Inlet Flow Field of a Turbocharger Compressor at Varying Rotational Speeds with Emphasis on Surge,” explores surge instabilities at the inlet of a turbocharger compressor at different rotational speeds using Particle Image Velocimetry – a laser diagnostic technique.

Banerjee said the work describes detailed characterization of the instabilities, leading to improvements in the fundamental understanding of the involved physical processes. The data acquired by the team will help validation of computational fluid dynamics predictions of the turbocharger flow field.

“I want to thank my co-authors, Dr. Ricky Dehner and Prof. Ahmet Selamet for their contributions in this collective effort along with Mr. Miazgowicz from Ford Motor Company for funding this work,” said Banerjee. “We are deeply honored in receiving this recognition, and personally, the award provides great motivation to continue the research, and hopefully make further scientific contributions.”

Since receiving the award, the paper has also been accepted to appear in the ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering.

For Banerjee, the difficulties imposed on engineers and researchers by the COVID-19 pandemic made the recognition all the more special.

“Because of the challenges faced by the entire engineering community during the pandemic, we are pleased that our efforts have been successful,” said Banerjee.