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Weekly reports of meetings at NAL, snippets of R&D activity, conference announcements and other features of popular interest
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News and Events #IP 931 26 Jul - 1 Aug 2010
That’s why the creation of the National Civilian Aircraft Committee (NCAD) has generated so much excitement. All stakeholders in Indian civil aeronautics are represented on the Committee and – better still – NCAD, chaired by Mr G Madhavan Nair, is an ‘empowered’ committee; so the agencies involved will not have to go running to Delhi every week to get approvals! “This is an extraordinary step in Indian aeronautics. We couldn’t have asked for more!” exclaimed Prof Narasimha, who is himself a member of NCAD and, at 77, is probably the ‘wise old man’ on the committee. I speak figuratively of course because, although he has always been wise, it is hard to think of Prof Roddam Narasimha (RN) as someone old. The years are rolling by, but there’s hardly anything RN can do about that. But what he can do is continue showing the same infectious enthusiasm, and unbridled optimism, for India and Indian aeronautics. We saw glimpses of that enthusiasm and optimism as RN turned up to deliver his ‘birthday lecture’ at NAL on 28 July 2010 on NCAD: The Next Major Challenge for NAL. This birthday lecture programme was initiated by Dr U N Sinha over 15 years ago and is now inextricably wound into NAL’s fabric. “I was hoping that after Sinha retires from NAL this lecture business would end”, he remarked, “but that doesn’t seem to be happening!” It won’t, because this lecture programme is an occasion for all RN admirers to assemble; and marvel at the wit and wisdom of this exceptional engineer and philosopher. You don’t squander such opportunities! It was therefore no surprise that NAL’s S R Valluri Auditorium was overflowing long before the lecture commenced. RN began by pointing out that, being the country’s only national civil lab in aeronautics, NCAD would become the biggest game-changer for NAL. “It’s going to be an extraordinary challenge for NAL … they must learn how to make and ride this approaching wave.” He then proceeded to list NCAD and NAL’s many formidable challenges ahead: different ball park (“and very different from the defence projects NAL is used to”), huge stakes (need to compete internationally), seek commercial success (to sell, the new aircraft must be perceived as having international quality), work with private industry (and exploit public-private partnerships in a radical restructuring), grapple with manufacture, operations, certification (“manufacturing in huge numbers is a completely different ball game”), understand finance (“aircraft are not sold just by performance, but also by attractive financial terms”), change staffing patterns (“we must find new methods for hiring”) … and achieve all this without destroying NAL’s basic R&D culture and fabric. To most this might seem an insurmountable task, and a bridge too far. But RN doesn’t think so. “All major aircraft development programmes were born in R&D labs, because knowledge basically resides here”, he reminded the audience, “but then they moved away.” And RN continued: “Just see our advantages. We have low cost RD&D, a large market, an incredible human resource pool … there is something special about Indians; we don’t realize this ourselves, but the rest of the world sees it clearly!” And then RN got excited by the R&D challenge. “Should we go for a turboprop or a turbojet? People think propellers are old-fashioned, but so much has happened in the last two decades. Could an ultra-modern turboprop be the answer? It is such a wonderful opportunity to regain the R&D advantage India enjoyed a decade ago when LCA-related technologies bloomed. We’ve conceded ground in the last decade, but we could bounce back!” Seeing the good professor’s passion and fervour took me back by two decades and more. I can still visualize a 55-year old RN showing charts and curves to assert that Indian civil aviation is poised to explode (no one quite believed him then, but see what’s happened today), talking to MDB, Russia, about collaborating on a light transport aircraft (but then the Soviet Union collapsed), being bullish on composites, barely curbing his exultation when Rustom Damania’s team flew the LCRA … and, a decade later, foreseeing India’s approaching aeronautical boom (but warning that we’ll miss the bus if we don’t play it right … and we didn’t!). Srinivas Bhogle Science, Rationality and Intuition
Congratulations Mr Rajeev Mr Rajeev G, Scientist, NTAF Division has been awarded MSc (Engg) by Research (Faculty of Mechanical Engg.) from VTU, Belgaum. for his thesis entitled Design of a high axial force five component integral strain gage balance.
July 18 , 2010 - DNA - Saving yoga from copyright-mongers- Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia / DNA July 21, 2010 - Navbharat Times (Hindi) - डिजिटल लाइब्रेरी ने बचाए 200 करोड रुपये#IP 930 19 -25 Jul 2010 Workshop on “Recent Progress in Heat and Fluid Flow Research”A Workshop on “Recent Progress in Heat and Fluid Flow Research” was organised in the S. R. Valluri Auditorium, NAL, during 15 – 16 July 2010. This Workshop was organised to celebrate the 70th Birthday of Prof. K. N. Seetharamu by his former students and colleagues, and was partly sponsored by CSIR-NAL, ADA, and the CFD Division of the Aeronautical Society of India. The primary initiative for the Workshop was taken by Prof. P. Nithiarasu from Swansea University, UK, and Dr. C. Ranganayakulu from ADA. Prof. Seetharamu is a world renowned expert in the finite element method applied to heat transfer problems. He was a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, and subsequently taught in Universiti Sains Malaysia. He has supervised a large number of Doctoral and Masters students in both India and Malaysia, has co-authored many books and has an impressive record of technical publications in journals and conferences. Presently, he is a Professor in the PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore. The Inaugural Session of the Workshop was Chaired by Dr. A. R. Upadhya, Director NAL. The Chief Guest for the function was Prof. A. Ramachandran, a pioneer in heat transfer research in India. Prof. Ramachandran has held many important positions during his career including Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, Director General of CSIR, Secretary Department of Science & Technology, and Director of IIT Chennai. Prof. Seetharamu was felicitated in the traditional manner by Prof. Ramachandran and Dr. Upadhya, and Prof. Nithiarasu made a brief presentation on the achievements of Prof. Seetharamu during his long career. In his remarks, Dr. Upadhya discussed the importance of heat transfer in all areas of engineering, with special emphasis on applications in aerospace engineering. Subsequently, he also described NAL's research activities on heat transfer. Prof. Ramachandran, in his excellent address to the delegates, first outlined the history of heat transfer research activities in the country and then eloquently discussed some of the major challenges facing the country in the future in providing affordable food, shelter and energy to all. These are national challenges where extensive efforts in science & technology development are required. The Workshop consisted of invited presentations in the area of heat transfer and fluid flow and covered a very wide range of research areas, emphasising the wide-ranging importance and applications of this area. Prof. N. Siva Prasad, IIT Chennai, described the finite element modelling of arc welding, while Prof. Pradip Dutta, IISc Bangalore, discussed the modelling of binary alloy dendritic growth. Prof. C. C. B. Sobhan, NIT Calicut, delivered an interesting talk on heat transfer in micro- and nano-channels, and Prof. Anantha Suresh of IISc Bangalore talked about electro-thermal micro-actuators. Atmospheric applications were covered by Prof. C. Balaji, IIT Chennai, who talked about rainfall modelling. Applications to aerospace were described by Dr. K. P. Singh, ADA, who gave examples from the Tejas programme, and Dr. V. Krishnamoorthy, NAL (Retd.), who described the work done at NAL on heat transfer in cooling passages of turbomachinery. The second day of the Workshop saw presentations on control of bluff body flows by Prof. B. S. V. Prasad Patnaik, IIT Chennai. The extremely complex area of bio-medical simulations and the challenges there-in were described by Prof. P. Nithiarasu, Swansea University, UK. Mr. S. L. Beh, a faculty member in the Multimedia University Malaysia, delivered a talk on his Doctoral research programme in the simulation of micro-channel heat sinks. The final invited talk in the Workshop, by Dr. C. Ranganayakulu, ADA, described the development of heat transfer coefficient and friction factor correlations for offset fins using simulation techniques. The Workshop concluded at lunchtime on the second day. The Workshop was attended by a large number of former students and colleagues of Prof. Seetharamu, including a few from Malaysia, and gave them a unique opportunity to interact and discuss their research activities. There were also some participants from NAL and ADA, who took advantage of this unique opportunity to listen to the distinguished speakers. All of the participants appreciated the initiative taken by Prof. Nithiarasu and Dr. Ranganayakulu and the excellent arrangements for the Workshop organised by Mrs. Gomathy Sankaran and her team from KTMD Division, NAL. J S Mathur
#IP 929 12 - 18 Jul 2010 Recognition of NAL’s Contribution in the Area of Nanostructured Coatings The ever increasing importance of nanoscience and nanotechnology in recent years has led to the exploration of nanomaterials, which exhibit exotic properties when compared to the conventional engineering materials. Nanostructured coatings constitute a major area of nanoscience and nanotechnology, wherein surface modification of engineering materials is carried out at nanometric scale.
CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, USA has published on June 24, 2010 three volume book set titled “Handbook of Nanostructured Thin Films and Coatings” to bring out the state-of-the-art in the field of nanostructured thin coatings. Volume 1 consists of the mechanical properties of thin films and coatings, including processing, properties, and performance, as well as a detailed analysis of theories and size effect. Volume 2 focuses on functional properties of nanomaterials and Volume 3 addresses the processing and properties of organic thin films, devices and coatings for clean energy applications. These 3 volume books have been written by eminent experts from USA, UK, The Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, Belgium, China, India, etc. and have been edited by Prof. Sam Zhang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
As a significant amount of work on nanostructured thin coatings has been carried out at SED in the past 10 years, CRC press invited the SED group to contribute a comprehensive review article in the field of nanostructured thin films and coatings. The review article entitled “Transition Metal Nitride-Based Nanolayered Multilayer Coatings and Nanocomposite Coatings as Novel Superhard Materials” by Harish C. Barshilia, B. Deepthi and K. S. Rajam has appeared as one of the chapters of the book entitled “Nanostructured Thin Films and Coatings: Mechanical Properties”. This book will be available in the libraries shortly. #IP 928 5 - 11 Jul 2010 Cabinet nod for AcSIRSetting up of an Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research by CSIR approved The Union Cabinet approved the proposal of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for setting up of an Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) as an institution for imparting instruction and awarding degrees in frontier areas of science and technology. The Bill to set up the Academy will be introduced in the ensuing session of Parliament. DG's Address on Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) Source : www.csir.res.in
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