Home Page of Prasanth B. Nair

Dr. Nair is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering Sciences at the University of Southampton. He is affiliated to the Computational Engineering and Design and Bioengineering Sciences research groups. He is a member of the Rolls Royce University Technology Centre for Computational Engineering. He is the Admissions Tutor for the Mechanical Engineering undergraduate degree programme.

Dr. Nair's research interests lie in three main areas:
(1) computational modelling of deterministic and stochastic systems governed by partial differential equations, (2) optimisation algorithms for design, control and parameter estimation of complex systems, and (3) greedy algorithms and Bayesian methods for function approximation problems in machine learning and solution of operator equations. His research lies at the interface between the fields of computational mechanics, aerodynamics, biomedical engineering, optimisation theory, numerical linear algebra, probability theory, and machine learning.

Selected Publications

R. Bryan, P. B. Nair and M. Taylor, ''Use of a statistical model of the whole femur in a large scale, multi-model study of femoral neck fracture risk,'' Journal of Biomechanics, 42(13), 2009, pp. 2171-2176. DOI:0.1016/j.jbiomech.2009.05.038

P. S. Mohan, P. B. Nair and A. J. Keane, ''Inexact Picard iterative scheme for steady-state nonlinear diffusion in random heterogeneous media,'' Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics 79, 046706, 2009 DOI:10.1103/PhysRevE.79.046706 .

Y. S. Ong, P. B. Nair and K. Y. Lum, ``Max-Min surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm for robust aerodynamic design,'' IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2006, pp. 392-404. DOI:10.1109/TEVC.2005.859464

A. J. Keane and P. B. Nair, ``Computational Approaches for Aerospace Design,'' John-Wiley and Sons, 602 pages, June 2005. DOI: 10.1002/0470855487.

P. B. Nair, ``Projection schemes in stochastic finite element analysis,'' Chapter 21 in CRC Engineering Design Reliability Handbook, editors: E. Nikolaidis, D.M. Ghiocel and S. Singhal, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2004.

P. B. Nair and A. J. Keane, ``Stochastic reduced basis methods,'' AIAA Journal, Vol. 40, No. 8, 2002, pp. 1653-1664. DOI:10.2514/2.1837.

P. B. Nair, A. Choudhury and A. J. Keane, ``Some greedy algorithms for sparse regression and classification with Mercer kernels,'' Journal of Machine Learning Research, Vol. 3, 2002, pp. 781-801.

Complete listing

Research Highlights

Computational Stochastic Mechanics

Ongoing work in this area is focusing on

  • numerical methods for large-scale linear and nonlinear random algebraic equations arising from semi-discretization of stochastic PDEs.
  • projection schemes for the algebraic random eigenvalue problem
  • numerical methods for parameterized operator equations
  • software development and interfacing with deterministic finite element tools

Collaborators: Par Hakansson, Christophe Audouze, Ivan Voutchkov, Neeraj Cherukunnath, Florian De Vuyst, Andy J. Keane

Recent Publications

  1. P. B. Nair, ''Stochastic subspace projection schemes for dynamic analysis of uncertain systems,'' Proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium on Vibration Analysis of Strucures with Uncertanties, 5-9 July 2009, St. Petersburg.

  2. C. Audouze, F. De Vuyst and P. B. Nair, ''Reduced-order modeling of parameterized PDEs using time-space-parameter principal component analysis,'' International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Vol. 80, No. 8, 2009, pp. 1025-1057. DOI:10.1002/nme.2540.

  3. P. S. Mohan, P. B. Nair and A. J. Keane, ''Uncertainty in thermal analysis of gas turbine blades'', Proceedings of the 11th AIAA Non-deterministic Approaches Conference, AIAA Paper No. 2009-2262, Palm Springs, California, 2009.

  4. P. S. Mohan, P. B. Nair and A. J. Keane, ''Inexact Picard iterative scheme for steady-state nonlinear diffusion in random heterogeneous media,'' Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics 79, 046706, 2009. DOI:10.1103/PhysRevE.79.046706

  5. P. S. Mohan, P. B. Nair and A. J. Keane, ``Multi-element stochastic reduced basis methods,'' Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Vol. 197, No. 17-18, 2008, pp. 1495-1506. DOI:doi:10.1016/j.cma.2007.11.021

       

Biomedical Engineering

Ongoing research is focusing on:

  • Statistical shape and intensity modeling of the human femur and knee using ensemble computer tomography data
  • Multi-patient simulations of the intact and implanted human femur and knee
  • Computational and experimental investigations into robustness of cementless total hip replacements
  • Real-time prediction tools for total hip arthoplasty

Collaborators: Rebecca Bryan, Hatice Ozturk, Francis Galloway, Mamadou T. Bah, Christophe Audouze, Martin Browne, Mark Taylor

Recent Publications

  1. R. Bryan, P. B. Nair and M. Taylor, "An automated, large-scale finite element study into the influence of femoral head resurfacing on load transfer in the proximal femur,'' submitted for review.

  2. R. Bryan, P. S. Mohan, A. Hopkins, M. Taylor, P. B. Nair, ''Statistical modelling of the whole human femur incorporating geometric and material properties, Medical Engineering and Physics, 2009, in press.

  3. M. T. Bah, P. B. Nair and M. Browne, ''Mesh morphing for finite element analysis of implant positioning in cementless total hip replacements,'' Medical Engineering and Physics, 2009, in press. DOI:10.1016/j.medengphy.2009.08.001

  4. R. Bryan, P. B. Nair and M. Taylor, ''Use of a statistical model of the whole femur in a large scale, multi-model study of femoral neck fracture risk,'' Journal of Biomechanics, Vol. 42, No. 13, 2009, pp. 2171--2176. DOI:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2009.05.038

Generalized Function Approximation

Work in this area is focusing on

  1. adaptive function decomposition schemes for high-dimensional problems
  2. deterministic and randomized greedy algorithms
  3. numerical solution of partial differential equations using radial basis functions
  4. Bayesian methods for function approximation and solution of operator equations

Selected Publications
  1. P. Chinchapatnam, K. S. Rhode, M. Ginks, P. B. Nair, R. Razavi, S. R. Arridge, M. Sermesant, ''Voxel based adaptive meshless method for cardiac electrophysiology simulation,'' Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Functional Imaging and Modeling of the Heart (FIHM), 3-5 June, Nice, France, 2009, pp. 182-190. DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-01932-6_20.

  2. P. P. Chinchapatnam, K. Djidjeli, P. B. Nair and M. Tan, ''A compact RBF-FD based meshless method for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations,'' Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part M: Journal of Engineering for the Maritime Environment, Vol. 223, No. 3, 2009, pp. 275--290. DOI:10.1243/14750902JEME151

  3. P. P. Chinchapatnam, K. Djidjeli, and P. B. Nair, ``Radial basis function meshless method for the steady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations,'' International Journal of Computer Mathematics, Vol. 84, 2007, pp. 1509-1526. DOI:10.1080/00207160701308309

  4. P. B. Nair, "Greedy unsymmetric collocation,'' ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Meshless Methods, Lisbon, July 11-14, 2005. Download Paper.

  5. P. B. Nair, A. Choudhury and A. J. Keane, ``Some greedy learning algorithms for sparse regression and classification with Mercer kernels,'' Journal of Machine Learning Research, Vol. 3, 2002, pp. 781-801. [Download Paper]
Design Optimization

The focus of ongoing research is on efficient surrogate-assisted optimization algorithms for robust design of engineering systems in the presence of uncertainty. I am also involved in work on statistical modeling of engineering components using noisy and sparse measurement data.

Selected Publications

  1. A. Kumar, P. B. Nair, A. J. Keane and S. Shahpar, ``Robust design using Bayesian Monte Carlo,'' International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Vol. 73, No. 11, 2008, pp. 1497-1517. DOI:10.1002/nme.2126
  2. Y. S. Ong, P. B. Nair, K. Y. Lum, and Z. K. Zhang, ``Hybrid evolutionary algorithm for aerodynamic design using Hermite radial basis interpolants,'' Computational Optimization and Applications, Vol. 39, 2008, pp. 97-119. DOI: 10.1007/s10589-007-9065-5

  3. A. Kumar, A. J. Keane, P. B. Nair and S. Shahpar, ``Robust design of compressor fan blades against erosion,'' ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 128, No. 4, 2006, pp. 864-873. doi:10.1115/1.2202886

  4. Y. S. Ong, P. B. Nair and K. Y. Lum, ``Max-Min surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm for robust aerodynamic design,'' IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2006, pp. 392-404. doi:10.1109/TEVC.2005.859464

  5. Z. Zhou, Y. S. Ong, P. B. Nair, A. J. Keane and K. Y. Lum, ``Combining global and local surrogate models to accelerate evolutionary optimization,'' IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics, Part C, Vol. 36, No. 6, 2006, pp. 814-823. 10.1109/TSMCC.2005.855506

  6. Y. S. Ong, P. B. Nair, and A. J. Keane, ``Evolutionary optimization of computationally expensive problems via surrogate modeling,'' AIAA Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2003, pp. 687-696.