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#IP 819 26 May - 1 June 2008

Handing over of Composite Components / assemblies to HAL

The Advanced Composites Division (ACD) of National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) has developed a number of composite airframe structural components / Assemblies for TEJAS (LCA). A function was organized on 7th May 2008 at ACD’s premises to mark the occasion of completing the supply of the last consignment of all composite components / assemblies to HAL to meet the requirements of Limited Series Production (LSP) aircraft programme developed by ACD, NAL for TEJAS.

The function was graced by Mr. Ashok Nayak, Managing Director, (BC), HAL as the Chief Guest who received the documents from Dr A R Upadhya, Director, NAL in respect of Fin and Wing Spars for LSP 8 aircraft. Mr P S Subramanyam, Proj. Director (CA) & Director – ADA was also present and addressed the gathering. Mr Subramanyam thanked NAL for the timely supply and support of the composite components. He also congratulated NAL for being pioneers in the field of Advanced Composites and taking up the challenging tasks of development of composite components. Dr. A R Upadhya, Director, NAL gave a report on the various R & D programmes handled by ACD in the past and also about the current programmes for LCA. Dr M R Madhava, Head, ACD in his welcome address gave an exhaustive account of all the research and development activities undertaken by the division since its formation and highlighted the technological achievements made in these programmes. Mr H N Sudheendra, Dy. Head, ACD and Co-ordinator for LCA projects proposed the vote of thanks and thanked all the participants who have contributed in one way or the other for the success of this programme.

H N Sudheendra

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NTAF celebrates 41st birthday

NTAF set up in 1967 had its first blowdown on 29 May 1967. After four decades, on 29 May 2008 NTAF successfully completed 36,000 blowdowns. Dr A R Upadhya, Director, NAL who was present on this memorable occasion at NTAF complemented the NTAF Team for their untiring and excellent service throughout these years.

Congratulations Team NTAF for completing 41 years of service to the nation.

Congratulations Arpit

Master Arpit Jain son of Dr Anjana Jain, Scientist, Material Science Division has obtained 96.2% in the recently held Class X (March 2008) Central Board of Secondary School Examination (CBSE). He has scored 99% in science, 91% in maths and 100% in social studies.

#IP 818 13- 25 May 2008

Recently Granted Patents

Patent no 215684 was granted to Panda P K, V A Jallel, T S Kannan of Material Science Division by Indian Patent Office for their patent application “AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF BOEHMITE / A ALUMINA OR MIXTURE THEREOF” on 21st March 2008.

Patent no 216783 was granted to R M V G K RAO, C Pragalathan, S S Desai of Fibre Reinforced Plastic Division by Indian Patent Office for their patent application “A PROCESS FOR SHAPING THERMOPLASTIC SHEETS FOR WIND SHIELDS / WINDOWS FOR VEHICLES USING AN UNIQUE VACUUM TECHNIQUE” on 28th March 2008.

Patent no 216788 was granted to Pourassamy A, Rajam K S, Kumar K S P of Surface Engineering Division by Indian Patent Office for their patent application “A CHEMICAL MILLING PLANT” on 28th March 2008.
Patent no 216819 was granted to S Ramamurthy, Murugeshan, Shankarnarayanan, Rajendran of Propulsion Division by Indian Patent Office for their patent application “A PROTECTIVE DEVICE FOR CONTROLLING STALL AND SURGE IN CENTRIFUGAL COMPRESSORS” on 28th March 2008.

Patent no 217563 was granted to Panda P K, Jallel V A, T S Kannan of Material Science Division by Indian Patent Office for their patent application “AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR THE HYDROTHRMAL SYNTHESIS OF BOEHMITE, ALPHA ALUMINA OR THEIR MIXTURES IN DOPED FORM” on 11th April 2008.
Patent no 217572 was granted to Verma R S, Nair J S of Advanced Composite Division by Indian Patent Office for their patent application “MODIFIED CHAIN STITCH PROCESS FOR STITCHING STIFF AND LARGE SIZE COMPOSITE MATERIALS” on 11th April 2008.

Patent no 217586 was granted to Panda P K, Jallel V A, T S Kannan of Material Science Division by Indian Patent Office for their patent application “AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF LOW APPARENT DENSITY AND BRIGHT WHITE ALUMINA TRIHYDRATE” on 11th April 2008.

#IP 817 12-18 May 2008

Arms and the man

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, in his autobiography Wings of Fire, recalls the painting displayed in the lobby of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in which a battle scene is depicted with rockets flying in the air. The scene, it turned out, was played out right in our neighbourhood in the late 18th century. It was that of Tipu Sultan’s army fighting the British. Prof. Roddam Narasimha in a NIAS Report, “Science, Technology and Society: A Tale about Rocket Development During 1750-1850,” gives a brief and charming account of the early history of rocketry (In fact, the material for this has been extracted from his earlier report, “Rockets in Mysore and Britain, 1750-1850 AD,” which is an NAL Project Document (PD DU 8503)!). An interesting aspect highlighted by Prof. Narasimha is that behind the success of Tipu’s rockets was materials technology. The superior quality and strength of iron used for making the casing “permitted the propellant (gunpowder) to be packed to greater densities” which resulted in its better performance. This technology was taken and further developed by the Englishman Sir William Congreve, and the rest, as they say, is postcolonial history.

Listening to the NAL Technology Day lecture about indigenization of rockets, among other things, one couldn’t help feeling that we have come around a full circle.

Mr. Surendra Kumar, Outstanding Scientist, and Director, Armament Research and Development Establishment, Pune in his lecture, “Advances in Armament Technology” gave a glimpse of the path taken by the country to reclaim that technological high ground. He highlighted the achievements of the armament development efforts of the country in general and ARDE in particular. He also pointed to the trends and challenges. Interestingly, and perhaps not so surprisingly, materials technology still remains an aspect that drives the performance of these systems. This, in addition to advances in miniaturization, control and guidance. He emphasized that since the nature of warfare itself is undergoing a major transformation towards an increasingly electronic, digital and network-centric framework, it is imperative that the armament technology is also developed to fit within this.

As Dr. Upadhya pointed in his welcome address, we are in an age where technology, economics and politics are inextricably linked. Armament especially being a “big-ticket” commodity in terms of international trade, and a fulcrum on which geopolitics turns, it is important that we safeguard our position of strength and independence.

GM Kamath

Workshop on ‘Enhanced and Synthetic Vision for Transport Aircraft’

A two-day workshop on ‘Enhanced and Synthetic Vision for Transport Aircraft’ was organized by the Multi Sensor Data Fusion group, Flight Mechanics and Control Division (FMCD) at the KTMD Seminar Hall on 25th and 26th April 2008. The regional transport aircraft (RTA-70) proposed to be developed at NAL is expected to have the capability of reliable and safe operation from airports with minimal infrastructure and instrumentation facility under all-weather conditions. Enhanced and Synthetic Vision (ESV) technology aided by satellite navigation has the potential to meet this requirement. The main objective of the workshop was to examine the state of art and identify gaps in technology/knowledge base in this area and chalk out a plan of action for ESV development at NAL.

In his welcome address at the inaugural session, Dr. A R Upadhya, Director, NAL deliberated on the need for ESV technology development for RTA. He iterated that the lectures and ensuing discussions at the workshop would benefit the scientific group initiating this technology activity at NAL and hoped that it would provide the necessary network of organizations to carry out the work. Dr. Kota Harinarayana, Raja Ramanna Fellow, NAL in his inaugural address brought out the role of reliable, dependable air connectivity independent of costly ground infrastructure as a driver for accelerated economic development of the interior regions of our country. He emphasized that the RTA program aims to achieve this air connectivity by building in the capability to land at airports with minimal ground infrastructure under all weather conditions using ESV integrated with GPS/WAAS/LAAS at 25% lower costs in terms of acquisition and operation and 50% lower maintenance cost.

In his keynote address Dr Kibe described the role of space and ground based augmentation system for Integrated Enhanced Vision System. He said that GPS integrated with WAAS and ADS-B can provide the increased navigational accuracies required for landing. He identified the need to perfect the technology for proper registration or accurate overlay of Synthetic Vision with Sensor images lest it lead to “Hazardously Misleading Information”.

The two-day workshop had fourteen invited lectures delivered by scientists and technologists from India and abroad who shared their work experience in related technology areas and thoughts on its use for ESV development. There were six thematic sessions. In the first session, Dr. Jharna Majumdar, Professor, East Point College of Engineering, Bangalore with her vast experience in development of “Image exploitation system for unmanned aerial vehicle”, brought out the research areas in image processing that need to be addressed for ESV and some aspects of video geo registration. Prof. B.N. Chatterji, IIT Kharagpur covered issues related to content based image retreival. In the second session on “Visual Cues for pilots/Human Machine Interface” Sqn Ldr. J. Sreeram, ASTE, Bangalore gave an insight into the flight test perspective on display concepts for synthetic vision followed by Wg. Cdr. Renganathan, Coral Technologies, Bangalore who gave an overview of computer graphics for modern cockpits and cockpit procedure trainers. This was followed by presentation of the activities at FMCD in the areas of synthetic vision and image fusion.

On second day, Dr. Ronald Kruk, Chief Scientist, CAE, Canada in his very lucid and informative presentation brought out the role of laboratory, simulator and flight test components in ESV development, as part of the third session. Dr. Dinesh Ramegowda, Honeywell Technology Solutions, Bangalore covered the multi spectral enhanced vision system development at Honeywell. The fourth session included two lectures on issues and solutions for image fusion by Dr. S.C. Jain, DEAL Dehradun and Dr. Subrata Rakshit, CAIR, Bangalore. In the fifth session on “Sensor Technologies”, Dr. S.S. Negi, IRDE, Dehradun detailed the latest developments in infrared sensor technology while Dr. Nilesh M. Desai of ISAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad covered the microwave remote sensing and synthetic aperture radar. Dr. PP Mohanlal, VSSC, Trivandrum discussed the GPS aided INS for space capsule recovery experiments and launch vehicle systems.

The workshop concluded with a 90 minute brain storming panel discussion by the panel members consisting of eminent scientists and transport aircraft pilots. Issues related to system requirement, sensors, pilot interface and system certification were discussed. The workshop provided a platform for the experts from various organizations to come together to arrive at a road-map for ESV development for RTA.

Girija Gopalratnam and N. Shanthakumar

Dr R A Mashelkar

Dr R A Mashelkar, former Director General CSIR is honoured with the prestigious Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering Foreign Fellowship. Dr Mashelkar received this honour on the 28th of April 2008 during a special ceremony held at Canberra, Australia. Dr Mashelkar happens to be the first Indian to receive this. Dr Mashelkar joins 13 other distinguished scientists and technologists as Foreign Fellows.

Sanjay N, son of Poornima Narayan, Deputy Head, ICAST has obtained 97.92% in the recently held SSLC Examination (March 2008) of the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board. He has scored 98% in maths, 100% in science and 99% in social studies.

The 117th Dr B R Ambedkar Birthday was celebrated at the S R Valluri Auditorium, NAL on 24 April 2008.

The function commenced with an invocation rendered by Ms Savita and Ms Geeta. Dr A R Upadhya, Director of NAL in his welcome address said that it was a great honour for NAL, to celebrate Dr B R Ambedkar’s birthday. He was a devoted son of Mother India. Dr Ambedkar, a multifaceted personality was a jurist, educator, journalist, revolutionary thinker, leader, social reformer and the architect of Indian Constitution. Dr Upadhya, formally welcomed Mr Shankar Bidari, IPS, Additional Director of Police (Law and Order), State Police Headquarters, Government of Karnataka and introduced him to the audience as a dedicated and brave Indian Police Service Officer who has been recipient of several medals.

Mr Shankar Bidari lit the ceremonial lamp and delivered the Dr B R Ambedkar Birthday Lecture on Legacy of Dr B R Ambedkar. In his opening remarks he said that Dr Ambedkar could no longer be considered as a human being, he had joined the ranks of Mahatma, Buddha, Sankaracharya, Basaveshwara, etc. and he had attained this status because of his sacrifice, service, conduct, character and concern for people. He briefly touched on the division of Hindu society and collapse of traditional caste system and emergence of new values. Dr Ambedkar had a deep understanding of Indian philosophy and worked for removing the stigma attached to oppressed classes. He wanted a new society based on liberty, equality and fraternity. He was a firm believer in democracy and human rights. Mr Bidari concluded his lecture stating the remedy to all ills in the society was education.

The function concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Mr R Rajendran, President NAL SC/ST Employees Welfare Association. Dr M N Sathyanarayana, Jt Head, KTMD, compered the programme.

The meritorious SC/ST students and awardees of Dr B R Ambedkar’s Birthday Celebrations visited NAL during 22-23 April 2008. The visit was co-ordinated by Mr A Somnarayan, KTMD, Mr Ananda, Propulsion Divison and P Sankaradoss, STTD.

Dr Ranjan Moodithaya, Head KTMD welcomed the delegation and gave a brief idea of diverse activities at NAL. Mr A Tarasov was keen to visit the wind tunnel. Mr Filatov and Mr Ogarkov were interested in the composite facility.

They were interested in the HANSA, SARAS and 70 seater aircraft. Dr Ranjan answered all their queries regarding the cost, weight and test results especially pertaining to humidity, temperature, impact damage and validation studies. They also wanted to know what changes were expected 20 years from now. Mr. M K Sridhar, Head, Materials Science Division said that the parts have been designed primarily at NAL in collaboration with Aeronautical Development Agency.

The delegation then visited 4ft Trisonic Wind Tunnel and Advanced Composites Division.