About me

I am a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, working under the supervision of Prof. K. R. Sreenivasan Previously, I earned my M.Tech (Research) in Computational Science from the Department of Computational and Data Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.

My research investigates the governing laws of turbulent kinetic energy and length scales in decaying turbulence. Using massively parallel Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of three-dimensional periodic boxes, I am working toward simulating decaying turbulence at the highest possible Reynolds numbers over extended durations. My goal is to provide a definitive, high-fidelity picture of the long-time evolution of turbulent flows.

Beyond the lab, I am a sports enthusiast with a particular love for Football, Badminton, and Cricket. I also enjoy the outdoors through trekking and camping.

Interests:

Fluid Mechanics: Fundamental turbulence and high-Reynolds-number flows.
Scientific Computing: Massively parallel DNS and HPC optimization.
Combustion: Flame structure and alternative fuel transitions.
Data Analysis: Interpreting complex physical phenomena through simulation.

Current Projects

The Asymptotic State of Decaying Turbulence

The long-time evolution of decaying homogeneous turbulence remains a fundamental challenge in fluid dynamics. My current work utilizes a comprehensive suite of DNS to investigate this problem. We initialize the energy spectrum using both the Birkhoff-Saffman (BS) form (with $E(k)\sim k^2$ for small $k$) and the Loitsianskii-Kolmogorov-Batchelor (LKB) form (with $E(k)\sim k^4$ for small $k$).

By extending simulations to unprecedented durations—on the order of 200,000 initial eddy-turnover times—we have observed an unambiguous power-law decay ($E_n\sim t^{-n}$) for both cases. These findings provide critical empirical benchmarks for the recent theory of decaying turbulence developed by Migdal.

Publications

Rodhiya, A., Bhattacharya, S., & Verma, M. K. (2025). Relative accuracy of turbulence simulations using pseudo-spectral and finite difference solvers, Sādhanā (in press)

Rodhiya, A., Gruber, A., Bothien, M. R., Chen, J. H., & Aditya, K. (2024). Spontaneous ignition and flame propagation in hydrogen/methane wrinkled laminar flames at reheat conditions: Effect of pressure and hydrogen fraction, Combustion and Flame, 269, 113695.

Jonnalagadda, A., Kulkarni, S., Rodhiya, A., Kolla, H., & Aditya, K. (2023). A co-kurtosis based dimensionality reduction method for combustion datasets, Combustion and Flame, 250, 112635.

Rodhiya, A., Aditya, K., Gruber, A., & Chen, J. H. (2021). Simulations of flame structure in a reheat burner: pressure scaling. In AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2021 Forum (p. 3448).

Selected Talks

78th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Nov 2025

Rodhiya, A., Sajeev, S., Donzis, D. A., Keyes, D. E., & Sreenivasan, K. R. (2025). The Asymptotic State of Decaying Turbulence. Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 66.

74th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Nov 2021

Rodhiya, A., Gruber, A., Chen, J.,& Aditya, K. (2021). Effect of fuel-blend ratio in methane-hydrogen reheat flames. Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 66.

73th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Nov 2020

Rodhiya, A., Aditya, K., Gruber, A., & Chen, J. (2020).. Effect of fuel-blend ratio in methane-hydrogen reheat flames. Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 66.

Past Projects

Relative accuracy of turbulence simulations using pseudo-spectral and finite difference solvers

While spectral solvers are theoretically more accurate for a single timestep, our research demonstrated that both methods yield nearly identical results for long-term turbulence simulations. By simulating forced hydrodynamic turbulence on a $256^3$ grid across a range of Reynolds numbers ($965$ to $1994$), we showed that the total energy, flow profiles, and energy flux remained consistent. We propose that within a turbulence attractor, numerical errors tend to cancel out rather than accumulate, leading to converged results across different numerical schemes.

Effect of fuel-blend ratio in methane-hydrogen reheat flames

To facilitate the transition to carbon-neutral fuels in gas turbines, We investigated the combustion characteristics of various $CH_4-H_2$ blends. Using 2D simulations of a reheat burner at 5 bar, I analyzed three fuel-blend ratios ($0.5:0.5$, $0.3:0.7$, and pure $H_2$ by volume) to understand how hydrogen concentration shifts flame structure and stability.

Pressure scaling of reheat flame structure

This project utilized DNS to explore the effects of pressure (1, 5, and 10 bar) on reheat flame structures. I employed Chemical Explosive Mode Analysis (CEMA) to quantify the distribution of fuel consumption rates across different combustion modes, providing insights into how high-pressure environments alter chemical heat release.

Engineering Design & Prototyping

Thermal Energy Storage: Designed a PCM-based battery storage system. I utilized STAR CCM+ to optimize heat exchanger geometry and validated the design using a custom experimental setup.
Laser Cooling Systems: Developed a high-efficiency vapor chamber and pin-fin heat sink for air-cooling lasers, optimizing for strict dimensional and heat flux constraints.
Sustainable Engineering: Developed a gym-powered Reverse Osmosis (RO) purifier that utilizes mechanical energy from exercise equipment to drive the filtration process.

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