Kalyana Babu Nakshatrala, Ph.D.

Nakshatrala's general research interest includes mathematical formulation and analysis, and development of computational techniques for problems in structural, solid, and fluid mechanics. His current research interests include degradation/healing of man-made and natural materials, and heterogeneous porous media (both flow and structural aspects).

Nakshatrala's application areas include degradation/healing of civil and aerospace structures and materials, geosciences (contaminant transport, carbon-dioxide sequestration, enhanced oil recovery) and bio-mechanics. The research goal is to develop relevant mechanics, numerical techniques, and mathematical tools to model and study various (steady state and transient) multiscale phenomena. Specific research topics of interest include:

Geomechanics

• Flow and transport in deformable porous media
• Constitutive modeling of geomaterials
• Fracturable porous media

Computational Mechanics

• Multiscale and stabilized finite elements
• Coupled problems, structure-structure interaction, fluid-structure interaction
• Numerical homogenization and upscaling techniques
• Numerical optimization and sensitivity analysis
• Applications and numerical techniques for differential-algebraic equations (DAEs)

Continuum Physics

• Modeling degradation / healing of materials and structures
• Nonlinear continuum mechanics
• Thermomechanical constitutive modeling & Implicit constitutive modeling
• Theory of interacting continua

Applied Mathematics and High Performance Computing

• Partial Differential Equations (More of a spectator)
• Maximum Principles
• Applied Optimization
• Parallel Computing