About

Ranga Pitchumani is the George R. Goodson Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, with a research focus on energy systems, the water-energy nexus, electric grid integration of renewable energy, materials processing and manufacturing, uncertainty quantification, and large-scale optimization. His research interests also include micro- and nanoscale technologies, advanced materials, and energy harvesting. He is based at the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington, VA, and has been a faculty member at Virginia Tech since 2009, previously serving as the John R. Jones III Professor in the same department. Dr. Pitchumani's professional history includes positions at the University of Connecticut, where he was a Professor and Distinguished Professor, and a sabbatical at Sandia National Laboratories. His educational background includes a Ph.D. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and a B.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology. His notable awards include the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Bombay, the Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Faculty Award at the University of Connecticut, and the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. His contributions span research in advanced manufacturing, bioinspired innovation, robotics, autonomous systems, and energy materials, with numerous publications and leadership roles in his field.

Research topics

• Composite material
• Thermodynamics
• Engineering
• Materials science
• Computer Science
• Process engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Business
• Environmental science
• Mechanics
• Mechanical engineering
• Metallurgy

Selected publications

• Analysis and design of a particle heat exchanger for falling particle concentrating solar power

  Chemical Engineering Journal · 2025-10-23

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Effects of thermally grown oxides on erosion wear of surfaces at high temperature for falling particle concentrating solar power

  Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells · 2025-07-03 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Automated Dual-Path Glaucoma Detection using Convolutional Neural Networks and Optic Cup-to-Disc Ratio Analysis from Fundus Images

  2025-09-10

  article

  Glaucoma remains one of the major causes of irreversible blindness in the world, which begins silently until a later age. Timely screening and expanded screening would hence be essential thus this paper implements an automated framework of glaucoma-detection that utilises deep learning augmented with clinically significant biomarkers that are identified within fundus images. The system begins by involving the use of an attentionguided U-Net to obtain accurate segmentation of the optic disc and cup. The second calculation is made by the model by calculating two well-known clinical parameters such as vertical and areabased Cup-to-Disc Ratios (vCDR and aCDR). A dual-path classification strategy then couples handcrafted CDR features with deep features extracted by a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), boosting diagnostic precision for both clear and borderline cases. The model was evaluated on standard publicly available datasets such as Drishti-GS, ORIGA, and RIM-ONE, ultimately achieving a classification accuracy of $97 \%$ and a macro-averaged F1-score of 0.964. These findings indicate its strength, generalizability, and prospective as mass screening of glaucoma, especially in low-resource areas.

  PublisherDOI

• High-performance multilayer cobalt-nickel oxide solar absorber coatings for next generation concentrated solar thermal systems

  Energy Conversion and Management · 2025-10-07

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  • m-CNO coatings achieve high solar absorptance (∼0.99) and low emittance (∼0.55). • Coatings remain stable up to 800 °C in air with minimal optical degradation. • Isothermal efficiency of 92 % retained after 750 h at 750 °C. • Electrodeposited multilayer structure is scalable and cost-effective. • Outperforms Pyromark across current and next-generation CSP temperature ranges. This study presents the development and evaluation of novel multilayer cobalt–nickel oxide (m-CNO) coatings for high-temperature concentrated solar thermal applications. Prepared via industrially prevalent and scalable electrodeposition process, the coatings achieved exceptional solar absorptance of ∼0.99 and low infrared emittance of ∼0.50. Prolonged thermal exposure to temperatures between 550 °C and 800 °C demonstrated the coatings’ superior thermal stability and optical properties across a broad temperature range of interest to solar thermal applications. Owing to their high solar absorptance with a concomitant low infrared emittance, m-CNO coatings demonstrated an efficiency of 96.5 % at the current operational temperature of 600 °C, well surpassing the state-of-the-art Pyromark coatings, and maintained an efficiency exceeding 91 % at 800 °C, where Pyromark coatings are not viable. The m-CNO coating maintained a high isothermal solar-thermal efficiency of 92 % even after prolonged heat treatment in air at 750 °C for 750 h. Overall, the developed m-CNO coatings provide an unprecedented combination of excellent thermal endurance, spectral selectivity, and operational stability for enabling cost-effective concentrating solar thermal technologies.

  PublisherDOI

• A state-of-the-art review on numerical investigations of liquid-cooled battery thermal management systems for lithium-ion batteries of electric vehicles

  Journal of Energy Storage · 2024-09-28 · 25 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  In recent decades, the electric vehicle (EV) industry has expanded at a quicker rate due to its numerous environmental and economic advantages. The battery thermal management system (BTMS) is an essential part of an EV that keeps the lithium-ion batteries (LIB) in the desired temperature range. Amongst the different types of BTMS, the liquid-cooled BTMS (LC-BTMS) has superior cooling performance and is, therefore, used in many commercial vehicles. Considerable ongoing research is underway to improve the performance of LC-BTMS, with most of the focus on numerical simulations. In view of this, the present article conducts a comparative assessment of the numerical simulation methodologies adopted for the analysis of LC-BTMS and systematically reviews the recent investigations of the design, operational, and performance aspects of LC-BTMS designs. The recently studied designs of LC-BTMS for both cylindrical and prismatic batteries are considered and further classified on the basis of main design attributes. Based on the existing literature, challenges with the current LC-BTMS technologies are analyzed, and areas of further development are identified. The review will serve as the basis for guiding future numerical simulations and the advancement of LC-BTMS technologies.

  PublisherDOI

• Influence of corrosion-resistant coatings on the post-corrosion thermal stability and fouling of molten salts for high temperature thermal energy storage

  Journal of Energy Storage · 2024-05-29 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Novel Nonwetting Surfaces for Enhanced Condenser Performance in Thermal Power Plants

  2024-01-01

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  paGE 2 | power plant Cooling and associated impacts W ater withdrawals for thermoelectric power generation were estimated in 2005 to be 201 billion gallons per day-the highest use of any industry.Most of that water is used for cooling.Power plants boil water to produce steam, which is used to spin the turbines that generate electricity.Then, staggering volumes of water are withdrawn from nearby rivers, lakes, and oceans to cool the steam back into water so it can be used to produce more electricity.The three basic types of cooling systems-once-through, closed-cycle, and dry cooling-differ dramatically in their water usage, with once-through cooling being the most water-intensive and environmentally harmful method.The use of once-through cooling systems causes severe environmental impacts, killing billions of fish, degrading aquatic ecosystems, and increasing the temperature of our rivers, lakes, and ocean waters.Power plants utilizing once-through cooling also are subject to increased incidences of shutdowns or curtailments during times of drought and extreme heat.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of issuing standards for the use of cooling water at existing U.S. power plants.A clear, consistent national policy is needed to ensure that the U.S. electricity sector is moving toward a cleaner and more water-smart future by replacing antiquated and environmentally destructive once-through cooling systems with modern, less water-intensive technologies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Analysis and mitigation of erosion wear of transfer ducts in a falling particle CSP system

  Wear · 2024-11-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Stochastic economic dispatch of wind power under uncertainty using clustering-based extreme scenarios

  Electric Power Systems Research · 2024-01-24 · 24 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bimetallic cobalt-nickel oxide textured coatings for high-temperature concentrated solar power

  Journal of Alloys and Compounds · 2024-12-20 · 2 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Investigations on Transport Phenomena Governing Replication of Electroforming Micromolds for Fabrication of High Aspect Ratio Microstructures

  NSF · $268k · 2009–2011

• Investigations on Transport Phenomena Governing Fabrication of Microstructures via Microcasting of Nanoparticulate Slurry

  NSF · $324k · 2005–2009

Frequent coauthors

• Karthik Nithyanandam

  27 shared

• Karunesh Kant

  Virginia Tech

  22 shared

• Sandeep Hatte

  Virginia Tech

  13 shared

• A. Mawardi

  Siliwangi University

  13 shared

• Atul Verma

  11 shared

• R.J. Johnson

  7 shared

• Fei Yang

  7 shared

• Fuyuan Yang

  Tsinghua University

  7 shared

Awards & honors

• Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology,…
• Distinguished Professor of Engineering, University of Connec…
• Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Faculty Award, University…
• Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, School of Engineering, Uni…
• Young Investigator Award, Office of Naval Research (1996)