Dr Prasad Potluri

Prasad Potluri obtained first degree in Mechanical Engineering from VNIT (Nagpur) in 1882, masters in Mechanical Design Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1984. He then joined Suzuki Motor's Indian subsidiary as a design executive, subsequently promoted to senior design executive, and headed suspension design group until 1990. He was awarded a PhD in 1995 for his work on robotic testing of flexible materials in the department of mechanical engineering, in collaboration with textiles. Prasad Potluri joined the department of textiles at UMIST in 1993 as a visiting lecturer, in 1994 as a lecturer and subsequently promoted as senior lecturer in 2004. His research interests include: textile preforming with 3D braiding and weaving, mechanics of flexible fibre assemblies, mechanics of textile composites and applied robotics. He has research collaborations in UK, India and USA.

In 2000, he established TEXTILE COMPOSITES GROUP to focus his research activities towards this area.

• Textile Preforming: Orthogonal and bias stitched sandwich structures with hard foam, computer controlled braiding, novel lap-joints for radomes, through-thickness reinforcement with 3D weaving, nonwoven composite performs.
• Dry fabric mechanics: uniaxial/biaxial tensile, transverse compression, bending and shear behaviour of woven fabrics. Kinematic draping of fabrics on double curvature surfaces.
• Micromechanics of textile composites: orthogonal and non-orthogonal models
• Smart composites
• High throughput testing of fabrics for low-stress mechanical and tactile properties.

• T Sagar and P Potluri, Computation of bending behaviour of woven structures using optimisation techniques, Textile Research Journal, 74(10), 2004, 879-886.
• P Potluri, V S Thammandra, R B Ramgulam, Modelling Tow Compression in Textile Preforms during Composites Processing, Proceedings of 2004 ASME: International Mechanical Engineering Congress and RD&D Expo, November 13-19, 2004, California: Paper No: IMECE2004-61470.
• RB Ramgulam, P Potluri, Tensile load deformation behaviour of woven fabrics, Proceedings of 2004 ASME: International Mechanical Engineering Congress and RD&D Expo, November 13-19, 2004, California: Paper No: IMECE2004-61589.
• P Potluri, RB Ramgulam. Further work on composite forming simulations based on differential geometry, 7th ESAFORM conference, Trondheim, Norway, April 2004.
• P Potluri and A Manan, Geometrical and micro-mechanical modelling of braided composite tubes, CD ROM Proceedings of ICCM 14, paper 1097(pages1-11), San Diego, July 14-18 2003, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, USA.
• T Sagar, P Potluri and JWS Hearle, Mesoscale modelling of interlaced fibre assemblies using energy method, Computational Material Science, 28(1), 2003, 49-62.
• P Potluri, A Rawal , M Rivaldi and I Porat, Geometrical modelling and control of a triaxial braiding machine for producing 3D preforms, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, 34(6), 2003, 481-492.
• P Potluri, J Atkinson, Automated manufacture of composites: handling, measurement of properties and lay-up simulations, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, 34(6), 2003, 493-501.
• P. Potluri, E. Kusak and T. Y. Reddy, Novel stitch-bonded sandwich composite structures, Composite Structures, 59(2), 2003, 251-259.
• P Potluri, E Kusak and A J Cumellas, Structural performance of orthogonal and bias stitched sandwich structures with rigid close- cellular foams , Proceedings of 44th AIAA/ASME/ ASCE/AHS Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 11th AIAA/ASME/ AHS Adaptive Structures Conference, 2003, paper: AIAA 2003-1949(pages:1-7) AIAA Publications, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
• P Potluri, W D Cooke, A Lora Lamia and E Corral Ortega, Designing the carbon-polyester braids for Ligaments, Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and Management, 3(2), 2003, 1-12.