Suhas Rao Tamvada

t.suhasrao@gmail.com | LinkedIn | Gainesville, FL

Postdoctoral Associate with expertise in mechanical design, thermal, and fluid sciences. Committed to applying engineering principles in design, analysis, and problem-solving to drive innovation and excellence in impactful projects. Seeking a challenging role to leverage applied research experience for breakthrough advancements.

Education

Ph.D, Mechanical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL May 2024
Thesis: Physics of Critical Heat Flux - Answers to Century Old Questions and New Discoveries

MS, Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL Jan 2020
Thesis: Partial Coalescence of Oil and Water: Spreading Behavior and Material Synthesis

B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India May 2017
Senior Design: Design and analysis of guide rods of an automotive head restraint

Relevant Coursework

Fluid mechanics I & II; Advanced transport phenomena; Phase-change heat transfer; Computational fluid dynamics; Energy storage; Thermodynamics; Applied stress analysis; Conduction heat transfer; Convection heat transfer; Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning; Mechanics of solids; Fundamentals of Machine learning.

Experience

University of Florida, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Gainesville, FL
Postdoctoral Associate May 2024 - Present

Lead a team of 5 graduate students and a Post-Doctoral researcher to develop direct-to-chip phase change cooling technology for data centers, successfully bringing technology readiness level (TRL) from 3 to 6.
Collaborate with engineering, manufacturing, and reliability teams to develop scalable packaging processes.
Perform techno-economic analyses (TEA) to assess commercialization feasibility of heat sinks.

Graduate Research Assistant Aug 2020 - May 2024

Demonstrated a proof-of-concept (TRL 3) phase change heat sink for data center environments.
Achieved a 5× improvement in heat transfer coefficient (HTC) compared to state-of-the-art technologies.
Conceptualized, investigated and explained physics of critical heat flux (CHF) during pool boiling.
Achieved a 6× increase in CHF through flow stabilization and developed force balance based correlations.
Developed heat pipes for thermal management in low gravity environments and confined spaces.

Airity Technologies (Advanced Energy) Redwood City, CA
Mechanical Engineering Intern May 2023 - Aug 2023

Led a team of 3 interns towards product development of a high voltage module, bringing technology to market.
Created bill of materials (BOM) for high-volume manufacturing and contributed towards patent applications.
Designed, fabricated, and tested mechanical components for high-voltage power electronic systems.
Procured thermal interface materials and heat sinks based on electrical, thermal, and mechanical requirements.

University of Illinois at Chicago, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Chicago, IL
Graduate Research Assistant Jan 2018 - Mar 2020

Investigated oil drop interaction with water-air interfaces in context of oil spills.
Designed and conducted experiments, and established scaling laws to predict coalescence and spreading of oils.
Investigated freezing and rebound of drops on sublimating surfaces to aid the design of self-cleaning surfaces.
Leveraged principles of solid mechanics, heat transfer, and fluid mechanics to conduct experiments and formulate models that predict the freezing and rebound characteristics of drops.

Satyam Venture Engineering Services, BMW Division Hyderabad, India
Design Intern Nov 2016 - May 2017

Created CAD models of guide rods of an automotive head restraint using design and GD&T specifications.
Performed structural analysis simulating a rear end collision on a BMW sedan.
Improved passenger safety by 8% by optimizing design to minimize severity of whiplash effect.

Skills

Laboratory - Photolithography; Deposition (sputtering, PECVD, E-beam); Etching (wet, DRIE); Electroplating; SEM; High-speed imaging; Confocal microscopy; Tensiometry; Interferometry; Prototyping; CNC; cold welding
Design & Analysis - Solidworks; AutoCAD; GD&T; Fusion 360; COMSOL; ANSYS Mechanical, Fluent; Python (SciPy, numPy, OpenCV, TensorFlow, matplotlib, scikit-learn); MATLAB; Fortran; C; ImageJ; OriginPro; KLayout
Mathematics - Numerical methods; Scaling analysis; Linear ODEs; Asymptotic analysis
Documentation - MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint; Adobe Illustrator, Premiere Pro; \LaTeX

Selected Journal Publications

(For a full list of publications, visit my Google Scholar page.)

Kulkarni, V., Lolla, V.Y., Tamvada, S., Anand, S., Bursting of underwater oil drops. Physical Review Letters (2024).
Kulkarni, V., Tamvada, S.R. Shirdade, N., Saneie, N., Lolla, Y.V., Batheyrameshbapu, V., Anand, S., Increased solidification delays fragmentation and suppresses rebound of impacting drops. Physical Review Fluids (2024).
Tamvada, S.R., Attinger, D., Moghaddam, S., On critical heat flux and its evaporation momentum and hydrodynamic limits. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (2023).
Tamvada, S. & Moghaddam, S., Data center energy efficiency enhancement potential of a membrane-assisted phase-change heat sink. Applied Thermal Engineering (2023).
Tamvada, S.R., Alipanah, M., Moghaddam, S., Membrane-based two phase heat sinks for high heat flux electronics and lasers. IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology (2021).
Kulkarni, V., Lolla, V. Y., Tamvada, S.R., Shirdade, N., & Anand, S., Coalescence and spreading of drops on liquid pools. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science (2021). (*equal contribution)

Media Coverage

B. Crosbie, “Grad student Suhas Tamvada achieves influential discovery in heat transfer.” Mar 2023
D. Staudacher, “Researchers looking at oil and water interaction to prevent water contamination.” Apr 2021

Awards

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Graduate student research award. May 2024
Travel award for IEEE iTherm Conference. May 2024
Travel award for ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference. May 2022
Third place - MAE Student poster competition, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Apr 2022

Volunteer/Leadership Activities

Reviewer for IEEE Access and IEEE iTherm.
Mentored 10+ graduate students towards their MS research work.
Conducted summer workshops for high-school students interested in STEM degrees.
Evaluated research as judge at the Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium (CAURS) 2019.
Led a team of 15 graduate students in organizing semi-annual cultural festivals as president of Indian Graduate Student Association (IGSA) at University of Illinois at Chicago from June 2018 to August 2019.
Led a team of 5 volunteers in developing teaching modules and conducting co-curricular workshops for middle school students as project coordinator at Becoming I Foundation, India, from January 2016 to July 2017.