Dr. Prabhat K. Agnihotri

Dr. Prabhat K. Agnihotri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Ropar. He has worked as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Micromechanics Department at University of Groningen, The Netherlands before joining IIT Ropar. He received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Agar Universiry  in 2001, M.Tech. in Materials Science Programme from IIT Kanpur in 2005,  and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 2012.  During his doctoral studies, Dr. Agnihotri has demonstrated that an optimum length of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is required to take full advantage of their superior properties in a multiscale hybrid composite. It is observed through MD simulations that the length of nanotubes affects not only the average properties of composite materials but also the deformation behavior of CNTs under compressive loads and nanotubes undergo a shell-to-column-to-wire transition with an increase in their aspect ratios. Moreover, it has been shown using Kirchoff’s elastica theory that the different chirality of nanotubes imparts them a small but non-zero initial twist density, which plays a significant role in the deformation behavior of very long nanotubes (l/d greater 100). During his postdoctoral work, he has investigated the rate dependent deformation behavior of metals using discrete dislocation plasticity (DDP) framework. A change in deformation controlling mechanism is observed while moving from low strain rate regime (less than 5000 s^{-1}) to high strain rate region (greater than 10000 s^{-1}). The effect of impurities present in real materials, which obstruct the dislocation motion, on it's rate sensitivity is also discussed. Dr. Agnihotri has received Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) Best Student Project Award for the year 2006 for Master’s thesis work.