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This Pall Corp. researcher with experince in filtration technology discusses the future of aerospace fluid systems.
Puliyur Madhavan: The quick file
Puliyur Madhavan is currently a vice president in the Scientific and Laboratory Services department at Pall Corp. in Port Washington, N.Y. He's responsible for global scientific and technology support for filtration applications in the aerospace and defense, transportation and mobile equipment and industrial manufacturing markets. Primary application areas include filtration for fluid systems such as hydraulic, lube, pneumatic and fuel systems, onboard aircraft ano vehicles, in industrial inplant machinery, turbomachinery and power-generation fluid systems, as well as pulp and paper, mining, primary metals and offshore subsea areas.
Puliyur has more than 23 years of experience working in filtration technology specializing in aerospace fluid systems, especially power and propulsion fluid systems. He's a member of several technical and standards development organizations, including STLE, SAE AE-5 Committee (Aerospace Fuel, Lube and Oxidizer Systems), SAE E-34 Committee (Aerospace Propulsion Lubricants) and has worked on programs with the IATA Fuels Group. In addition, he's published numerous articles and technical papers relating to contamination control in aerospace fluid systems, and he is the author of several SAE standards related to filter performance evaluation and filter debris monitoring.
He received his doctorate in chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1982 and did post-doctoral research work at Brookhaven National Laboratory and SUNY at Stony Brook.
TLT: How were you introduced to tribology as a work area?
Madhavan: During my graduate and post-doctoral work, my priman' research area focused on theoretical surface chemistry as it applies to modeling chemisorption on transition metal surfaces. As I progressed in my post-doctoral work, my inclination moved toward more practical applications of surface chemistry.
When 1 began working in industry in the filtration technology area, I wanted to combine surface chemistry of filtration media and contaminant removal. However, one of the first programs 1 became involved in was surface wear of hydraulic and lubrication system components, related to solid contamination and the impact of fine filtration in reducing component wear. Coincidentally, this was my first introduction to tribology applied to such fluid systems, and I found the discipline to be fascinating.
Subsequently, I moved into filtration applications in the...