Research & Engineering
Combustion, propulsion, simulation, and technical work that can stand as public research artifacts.
Research Engineer · Poet · Builder
Lalit Patidar
I work on combustion, propulsion, and system simulation — and I'm drawn to a wider landscape: AI, climate, agriculture, education, philosophy, and poetry.
Worlds I operate in
Writing & Ideas
Essays, longform pieces, and technical writing across engineering and interdisciplinary topics.
Interactive Labs
Visual and interactive artifacts — solvers, simulations, math explainers, and experiments.
Poetry & Philosophy
Hindi poetry, philosophical reflections, and the inner landscape alongside the technical one.
Learning Trails
Notes, reading lists, and working ideas from ongoing exploration across many fields.
Series & Courses
Multi-part explorations and structured learning sequences for deep study.
Latest writing
View all →750× Faster: Making Detailed Chemical Kinetics Usable in Engine Simulation
Detailed reaction mechanisms are physically accurate but computationally intractable in engineering simulation. This is the story of two methods — tabulated chemistry and machine learning tabulation — that recover that accuracy at engineering speeds, and what they enable for engine design and emissions prediction.
Series: energetic-materials-research
What Happens in the First Microseconds: Using Quantum Mechanics to Map How RDX and HMX Begin to Decompose
Before you can model or predict the combustion of an energetic material, you have to know what actually happens at the molecular level when it starts to break down. This is the story of using quantum mechanics calculations to answer that question for RDX and HMX — two of the most important explosives and propellant ingredients in use today.
Series: energetic-materials-research
From Molecule to Flame: Building a Complete Combustion Model for HMX
Starting from quantum mechanics calculations of individual bond-breaking events and ending with a model that correctly predicts burn rates across pressures — this is the story of assembling a first-principles combustion model for HMX, and what it took to make the pieces fit together.
Projects & labs
View all →Maati AI
A WhatsApp-first AI assistant for Indian farmers — answering questions on fertilizers, mandi prices, weather, and crop health in their own language, where they already are.
Problem
India's 150 million smallholder farmers lack timely, personalized agronomic advice in their own language. Extension services are thinly spread, most agri-apps assume smartphone literacy and English, and mandi price information passes through layers of middlemen.
Outcome
A WhatsApp-native AI assistant that speaks the farmer's language, gives real-time answers on crops, inputs, market prices, and weather — meeting farmers on the platform they already use every day.
CodeCraft Academy
An AI-powered Python learning web app with an in-browser code editor and a conversational AI tutor that generates lessons and explanations on-demand — built so beginners can learn by doing and asking, not by watching.
Problem
Standard Python courses are passive and non-adaptive — video lectures and static exercises leave beginners stuck without anyone to ask. A motivated learner with a specific question has to wade through documentation or wait for a forum reply.
Outcome
A web app where you write Python in the browser, ask the AI tutor anything mid-session, and get a direct explanation or a mini-lesson on-demand — turning learning into a live conversation rather than a fixed curriculum.
Recent notes
View all →From the desk of research engineer
Stiffness and Implicit Integration — Working Notes
Field notes on why combustion ODE systems are stiff, what stiffness actually means numerically, and how implicit integrators handle it in practice.
From the desk of lifelong learner
Magnesium and the Lightweighting Path to Decarbonization
Transportation is ~30% of global emissions. One underappreciated lever is lightweighting — and magnesium, the lightest structural metal, is getting a second look as seawater-based production makes clean manufacturing feasible for the first time.
From the desk of lifelong learner
Matching Energy Storage to Application: The Ragone Perspective
Not all storage technologies are interchangeable. The Ragone plot — power density vs energy density — reveals why capacitors, electrochemical batteries, and chemical/mechanical storage occupy distinct niches, and why mismatching technology to application is expensive.
Now
A live snapshot of what currently has my attention across engineering, building, AI-assisted work, and the wider questions I'm trying to think through in public.
See current focus →