Suhas Patankar

Suhas V. Patankar (born February 22, 1941) is an Indian mechanical engineer. He is a pioneer in the field of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and Finite volume method. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He is also president of Innovative Research, Inc. Patankar was born in Pune, Maharashtra, India. Patankar received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune in 1962 and his Masters of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 1964. In 1967 he received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Imperial College, University of London.

Patankar's most important contribution to the field of CFD is the SIMPLE algorithm that he developed along with his colleagues at Imperial College. Patankar is the author of a book in computational fluid dynamics titled Numerical Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow which was first published in 1980. This book has since been considered one of the groundbreaking contributions to computational fluid dynamics due to its emphasis on physical understanding and insight into the fluid flow and heat transfer phenomena. He is also one of the most cited authors in science and engineering.