News and Events, NAL, Bangalore

Infovision 2007

Infovision: 2007 was a conference for the Information Technology and Content Management Community, especially for those in the Social Networking industry.

The two day knowledge summit was organised by International School of Information Management at Mumbai during 17-18 December 2007. The broad themes for discussion were, Social Networks, Knowledge Discovery and Innovation. The first theme examined network theories and models, which are the foundation of the hyperlinked graph i.e. the Internet. The second theme focused on Semantic web (web 2.0) movement and how it promises to enable exciting new applications that leverage the potential of the interest beyond what is happening today. The third theme focused on the Social Web, namely web enabled software that facilitates communication between people.

The summit in general examined the ways in which Social Networks, blogs etc., could improve communication and thus impact the culture of an organisation. For example, if there is a terrorist attack in a certain part of the city, social networks and blogs could be quickly mined to determine the likely victims, their contacts, and possible reasons for being in the vicinity. In corporate settings, similar analysis but on different data could lead to business leads and feed back useful in business development. Ultimately all of us belong to a number of online social networks, either explicitly or implicitly.

Mr C V GiriRaj, Ms Gomathy Sankaran and Mr P Kannan of KTMD, attended the conference.

New DGSIR visits NAL

Prof S K Brahmachari, the new Director General of CSIR was at NAL on 22 December 2007. He met all the Heads of Divisions and some young scientists at a meeting organized in his honour. Prof Brahmachari in his address said that he wishes to introduce new management priniciples, private public partnerships and improved effectiveness and efficiency. He added that he was also very keen to involve the younger scientists in decision making. Dr A R Upadhya Director, NAL assured DG full support and co-operation in this direction.

Best paper award

The 34th National Conference on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power was held at BIT, Mesra, Ranchi during 10-12 December 2007. The technical paper titled “Effect of diffuser blade setting angle on centrifugal compressor stage” by R Rajendran, S Ramamurthy and P Mohanan has been adjoined as best paper of the conference.

MoU with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham

An MoU has been entered on 8 December 2007 between Council of Scientific and Industrial Research represented by National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham , Ettimadai, Coimbatore for co-operative programme in training and research in areas to be mutually decided by both the parties.

Dr M R Madhava appointed Head, ACD

Dr M R Madhava, has taken over as Head of ACD from Mr M Subba Rao who laid down office on superannuation and Mr H N Sudheendra will function as Deputy Head from 1 January 2008.

Global convention of Alumni Association of NIT-K

The alumni of National Institute of Technology(NIT) (formerly Karnataka Regional Engineering College) Surathkal organized a Global Alumini convention on 29 December 2007. Dr A.R. Upadhya, Director, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore, was invited to deliver the inaugural address at the NITK Alumni Global Convention 2007 at NITK, Suratkhal near Mangalore. Dr. Upadhya said that engineering education was at the crossroads after economic liberalisation. Avenues of employment had multiplied and competition prevailed in all sectors. Authorities of educational institutes should introspect if they were imparting education to suit the needs of the market. He said alumni associations should act as a link or bond between the Alma Mater and alumni. They should generate ideas to create brand value to institutions in which they studied. Those who had passed out should become role models to youngsters to create wealth for society, he said.

Click here - Global convention of Alumni Association of NIT-K-Engineering education is at the crossroads

RMIT University’s leadership in the aerospace and aviation sector has been boosted by a key partnership with India’s National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL).

Under the agreement, RMIT’s commercial aerospace arm, the Sir Lawrence Wackett Aerospace Centre, will for the first time process type certification for an aircraft.

The Wackett Centre has previously provided certification only for aircraft modifications and repairs.

The Centre’s Director of Aerospace and Aviation, Associate Professor Arvind Sinha, said the first aircraft to be certified would be India’s locally designed Hansa, an all-composite, two-seat pilot trainer developed by NAL.

Professor Sinha, who recently visited India to cement the Indo-Australian agreement, said RMIT was the only Australian university able to process certification as a designated authority under the Civil Aviation Regulations of the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).

RMIT has worked previously on the re-design and manufacture of the Hansa’s landing gear from steel to composite.

That aircraft made its debut in the static and flying display at the Australian International Airshow at Avalon this year.

The next step, compliance, and testing validation of the Hansa for full certification under JAL-VLA – the airworthiness regulations for very light aircraft – will take place at the Latrobe Valley airport.

Operational and maintenance support will be provided by Gippsland Aeronautics (GA) under an agreement between GA and RMIT.

“This development is the result of considerable work in forming industry partnerships,” said Professor Sinha.

“RMIT’s Wackett Centre has been working with NAL and the aerospace group of Mahindra Engineering on future aircraft development.

“Here we have been working with the City of Melbourne and Gippsland Aeronautics on the Hansa aircraft program.

“These are the kinds of industry alliances RMIT’s Wackett Centre has to involve itself in to demonstrate our international aerospace collaborations in design and development of new aircraft.”

Professor Sinha said that while in India he discussed the next stage of the partnership, under which RMIT and NAL will work together on a general-purpose version of the Hansa.

“The potential joint tasking on a general-purpose version of Hansa will involve NAL and the Wackett Centre as research centres from India and Australia, and Gippsland Aeronautics, GKN Aerospace Engineering Services and Mahindra Engineering as key industry components of the joint venture,” he said.

During the formative days of the project, the Victorian Government (through the Industry Capability Network) and GKN AES provided key industrial advice and support to the Wackett Centre in developing a proposal for the general-purpose version of the Hansa for submission to NAL.

Extension of service for Dr M R Nayak

Congratulations to our colleague Dr M R Nayak, Scientist G, Adv.(M&A), Head ALD, for extension in service for a period of two years beyond 31.12.07.

Dr K C Gupta, Scientist Group IV(6) has been appointed Acting Director for Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, for a period of six months. Dr Gupta has assumed charge from 15 November 2007.

NTAF recently acquired two units of Twin Roll Model Support Systems (TRMS) as a part of an augmentation program for the 1.2m wind tunnel. As the new support system had higher blockage compared to the previous ones, it became necessary to assess the effect of blockage on aerodynamic characteristics. Hence this evaluation program was carried out. The first objective was to evaluate the primary of the Twin roll system as a replacement to the existing model support pod and the second objective was to evaluate the Twin roll (primary + secondary) against the support systems used earlier so that TRMS could be used for future tests.

The primary investigation was carried out using a long slender body model and a 1:20 scale model of a typical combat aircraft configuration in the Mach number range of 0.5 to 1.2. Results of this investigation indicate that the primary could replace the old support pod without any penalty to aerodynamic characteristics of the model.

The Twin roll evaluation was carried out using two identical models of a typical combat aircraft configuration, one of 1:20 scale and the other of 1:15 scale in a Mach number range of 0.5 to 1.8. Twin roll system appears to produce a slightly different upstream effect in relation to the support systems used earlier, which is difficult to correct by simple methods. However, incremental effects due to control surface deflections are picked up well and repeatability is found to be good. The data with Twin roll system is closer to CALSPAN (USA) wind tunnel data on the same configuration. Hence it is recommended to adopt TRMS for future tests on aircraft type of models.

The Seventh Asian Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Conference (ACFD7) was held from November 26th to November 30th, 2007 at the National Science Seminar Complex (NSSC), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The conference was jointly organized by NAL, IISc, C-DAC Pune, IIT Bombay and the CFD Division of the Aeronautical Society of India.

The Asian CFD (ACFD) Conference, first held at Hong Kong in 1995, has become a very popular and useful event for the CFD researchers and practitioners, and provides an international forum for the exchange of new ideas in CFD. This prestigious conference is held once every two years in an Asian country and the six previous conferences have been held in Hong Kong, Japan, India, China, Korea and Taiwan respectively.

ACFD7 attracted a very good response, with 165 papers from 14 countries submitted for presentation. After review, 111 papers were selected for presentation in 34 technical sessions. In addition to these contributed papers, there were 7 keynote presentations in important areas of CFD by renowned experts from India, Germany, Korea, China, Taiwan, Russia and USA along with 20 invited talks by experts from India, Japan, Korea, USA and UK. The total number of registrants for ACFD7 was about 220 with around 30 foreign participants from Korea, Japan, Singapore, China, Taiwan, UK, USA, Italy, Germany, Sweden and Austria.

The Inaugural Function was held in the J. N. Tata Auditorium, NSSC on 26th November 2007. Dr. A. R. Upadhya, Director, NAL and Chairman, National Advisory Committee, ACFD7, presided over the function, with Prof. R. Narasimha, Chairman, Engineering Mechanics Unit, JNCASR as the Chief Guest. Prof. Jaw-Yen Yang, National Taiwan University and Chairman ACFD6, and Dr. T. S. Prahlad, Former Director and Distinguished Scientist, NAL and Consultant, C-CADD, were the Guests of Honour.

The papers presented in ACFD7 covered a wide spectrum of topics ranging from mathematical models and algorithms to a variety of CFD applications for real-life problems with multiple physical and geometrical complexities. The invited papers addressed novel concepts in flow solution algorithms, advanced turbulence modeling, multidisciplinary optimization, efficient grid-free methods for aerospace applications, CFD analyses of reacting flow in IC engines, flow through turbo-machinery components, wind turbine design, naval hydrodynamics and high performance computing for scientific problems. The conference proved to be a professionally rewarding and intellectually stimulating experience for the participants.

‘CSIR Programme on Youth for Leadership in Science’

The inaugural function of ‘CSIR Programme on Youth for Leadership in Science’ was organised at the S R Valluri Auditorium on 4 Dec 2007. The primary objective of this programme is to build a scientific attitude in students at an impressionable age and instill in them a sense of pride in the achievements of Indian science. For the past few years NAL has been inviting school toppers for a two-day programme featuring special lectures by NAL scientists on science related subjects, visits to NAL’s major R&D facilities and interactive sessions. The idea is to tempt talented youngsters to choose a career in science.

Dr N Sathyanaraya, Jt. Head, KTMD, welcomed the gathering and gave a brief introduction about the CPYLS programme.

Dr A R Upadhya introduced the chief guest Prof N V Madhusudhana, Raman Research Institute, as a distinguished scientist and a great academician. In his opening remarks Dr A R Upadhya said, that a country’s esteem increased with their advancement in Science and Technology (S&T). He advised the young achievers to take S &T to greater heights by looking at what the nation needed and work on those projects relentlessly.

Prof Madhusudhana gave a very inspiring lecture on Liquid crystals: fluids with direction dependent properties. He introduced the students to the basic concepts of Liquid crystals in a simple manner with good visuals, that the students were able to comprehend and absorb. He concluded his lecture stating, “Life is possible because of the formation of structures which are flexible and can evolve. This is neither possible in the highly disorganised isotropic liquid, nor in the rigid lattice of a crystal. Liquid crystals which have soft structures are essential for life processes”.

Dr M N Sathyanaraya compered the function and Ms Gomathy Sankaran proposed the vote of thanks.

Dr V Shubha, Scientist, Material Science Division spoke on “Thermoelectricity- Science and Technology” and Dr H N V Dutt, J.t Head,C-CADD spoke on “Basics of Flight Aerodynamics”

The valedictory function of CPYLS was arranged on 5 Dec 2007 at the S R Valluri Auditorium. The session was interactive where students and parents shared their experience about the programme. The students thanked the management for providing them the opportunity to see some of the Asia’s best facilities.

Gangan Prathap is the new CUSAT Vice-Chancellor

Dr Gangan Prathap, Head of the CSIR Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, (CMMACS) Bangalore, has been appointed the 11th Vice Chancellor of Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) Dr Prathap was a Senior Scientist at the Structures Division NAL before joining CMMACS.

His contribution to the field of science and engineering brought him one of the most prestigious awards for scientific research in the country, the S.S.Bhatnagar Award, in 1990.

He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and Distinguished Alumnus of IIT, Madras. Dr. Prathap, has published more than 300 research papers, including the book “Finite Element in Structural Mechanics,” published by Kluwer in 1993. He is also member of the editorial boards of many scientific journals.

Dr. Prathap did his schooling in Singapore. Later he joined IIT Madras after passing the entrance examination with first rank and graduated from the institution in Aero Engineering, again as a topper in1974. He was awarded a Doctorate by the institution in 1978.

‘Structures Division’ and ‘Structural Integrity Division’ have been merged into one division titled “STructural Technologies Division (STTD)".

Mr D V Venkatasubramanyam, will be the Head of STTD. He will continue to hold the additional charge of the Fibre Reinforced Plastics Division . Dr S Sridhara Murthy will be the Joint Head of STTD and will continue as Head, CNSU. Dr C M Manjunatha, has been nominated as the Coordinator for the activities that were being carried out in the Structural Integrity Division.

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