Information Pasteboard
Weekly reports of meetings at NAL, snippets of R&D activity, conference announcements and other features of popular interest
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Information Pasteboard |
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News and Events #IP 923 31 May - 6 Jun 2010 KTM - The world needs people like you!!!
Madhavan was more a friend than a colleague and our friendship goes back a long way - nearly 30 years. Going down memory lane would obviously make me stop at many points to re-live my happier moments in the company of this gentleman scientist. The nostalgia of the official and personal trips that we shared, our professional interactions and successes, the trials and tribulations as co-workers working in an emerging field of research are vivid in my mind. Our small and similar families too shared a mutual cordiality. Being the first born of a large traditional family from a little known village in northern Kerala, Madhavan’s academic and professional success is a typical story of hard work and perseverance against odds. He has rarely referred to his share of the knocks in life with acerbity, preferring to put a humourous spin on them. His endearing personality and sense of humour lets him freely make friends from generations both older and younger than him. In his long innings at NAL, he has accumulated a collection of hilarious and often picturesque incidents, episodes, anecdotes and stories going back to the early days of the then evolving NAL and its cross section of employees and personalities which he would narrate to keep us in splits and at the same time give us a glimpse of the foot steps of the present NAL. He has endured a good amount of ribbing and teasing from his friends with genuine sense of humour. I can vividly remember the day when a group of us teased, coaxed and wangled a snack party from him for a thief having been sighted entering his house and leaving without any booty!!!!!! We also made him get us Kerala halwa for looking younger when he indulged a rare sense of vanity by dyeing his hair! Dr.KTM is intelligent, well read and in any general conversation with him you can always find him quoting from Omar Quayyam poems to English classics and Indian epics. He can comfortably hold a conversation in proper Telugu, having done his post graduation at REC Warangal, as also in kannada and tamil. In the words of Dr. Venkat that KTM belongs to the vanishing breed of NAL scientists who can hold a informative and interesting conversation (other than their technical areas) in any general topics like literature, philosophy, economics…. etc – which is indicative of an urbane and sophisticated intellectual. I fully agree. It is my pleasure and privilege to be associated with him and I can only wish him and his family all the best in life. Don’t change Maddy!!!. The world needs people like you!!! Ramesh G #IP 922 24 - 30 May 2010 NAL develops Cost effective Wear resistant Ni-SiC composite coatings
Dr A P Mitra Memorial First Shuttle Badminton and Anusandhan Basketball Tournament Dr A P Mitra Memorial First Shuttle Badminton and Anusandhan Basketball Tournament was held at CCMB, Hyderabad from 14 - 16 May 2010. Mr V Ravi, Director’s office, NAL won the runners up trophy of CSIR ‘B’ in the First Dr A P Mitra Memorial Shuttle Badminton Tournament. Congratulations Ravi! In the Anusandhan Basketball tournament held at CCMB Hyderabad, the runners up CSIR ‘A’ Basket ball Team was coached by Mr K Narsimhaiah, NAL.
#IP 921 17 - 23 May 2010 High level Russian Delegation at NAL On an invitation from DG CSIR, an MDB design team from Russia will be in NAL from 17th May 2010, for four weeks for discussion on SARAS aircraft development. The team consists of Dr. Alexander Bruk, Chief Designer, Dr. Alexander Arkhipov, Deputy Chief Designer, Dr. Victor Frolovskiy, Department of Design, Dr. Eduard Abramenko, Chief Specialist on Flight Dynamics, Dr. Vladimir Vinogadov, Engineer Designer on Control System.
Centre for Societal Missions and Special Technologies at NAL A new Division named “Centre for Societal Missions and Special Technologies (CSMST) is created by merging Wind Energy Divisions, Fibre Reinforced Plastics Divisions and Smart Structures and Autoclave Development Group of ACD. Dr G N Dayananda, the present Deputy Head of Advanced Composites Division will be heading the New Division CSMST. Dr Ramesh Sundaram, is designated to function as Deputy Head, ACD. The following scientist have been promoted from Sc Gr IV(4) to Sc Gr IV(5)
#IP 920 10 -16 May 2010 Inauguration of Carbon Fiber Production Plant at M/s. Kemrock Limited, Vadodara
Carbon fiber is a high strength and low weight material, used in extensively in aircrafts, missiles, launch vehicles and satellites. It is also an important raw material in many other industrial applications, wind energy off shore structures and transportation being the more important ones. Research and development activities aimed at developing manufacturing technology for carbon fibers has been carried out at NAL as a multi institutional effort; CSIR, DRDO and ISRO being the principal partners in this effort. A pilot plant for developing the technology has been established at NAL. Processed technologies for the manufacture of carbon fibers have been developed using the pilot plant facility. Following successful development of carbon fiber technology CSIR-NAL has transferred the know-how for commercialization purposes to M/s. Kemrock Industries & Exports Limited, Vadodara, an industry engaged in the manufacture of light weight composite products. The partner for commercialization was identified through a CSIR-NAL Industry Meet. Based on the know-how transferred by NAL, M/s. Kemrock Limited has established a 400 tonnes per annum carbon fiber production plant. Apart from providing basic know-how, NAL has actively contributed to the design of special equipments and machines for the production plant. The 400 tonnes per annum carbon fiber production plant was inaugurated on 9th May 2010 by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Former President of India in the presence of DG, CSIR and Secretary, DSIR, Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri, Secretary, Dept. of Defense Research, Mr. Nitin Bhai Patel, Minister of Gujarat State for Water Resources and Urban Development and Director, NAL. Inaugurating the plant Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam appreciated the efforts of CSIR-NAL in developing the technology and complimented M/s. Kemrock Limited for deciding to commercializing the technology. Similar sentiments were expressed by the other speakers. M K Sridhar
#IP 919 3 - 9 May 2010 High-power committee on National Civilian Aircraft Development met at NAL A high-power committee on National Civilian Aircraft Development met at NAL on 8 May 2010 to kick start the project of building India’s indigenous civil aircraft. The programme aimed at providing to the country’s need of having a series of aircraft for feeder services connecting towns and two-tier cities to propel the civil aviation industry in India. The committee was chaired by former chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Dr G Madhavan Nair. The 14-member panel also comprises director general of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Prof Samir K Brahmachari – Co-chairman The other members present at the meeting were : Mr K M Chandrasekhar, Cabinet Secretary, Dr K Radhakrishnan, Chairman ,ISRO, Prof R Narasimha, FRS, JNCASR Mr Ashok Nayak, Chairman , HAL, Mr S V Ranganath, Chief Secretary ,Govt of Karnataka, Dr V Sumantran, Executive Vice Chairman , Hinduja Automotive , Chennai, Dr A R Upadhya, Director , NAL, Mr Y P Kumar, Sr Adv(BDC), ISTAD, Mr Soundararjan, Director, CP, HAL, Mr N C Agarwal, Director, D & D, HAL, Mr M S Chindananda, Head, C-CADD, Dr Satish Chandra, Scientist, NAL, Dr V K Aatre, Former SA to RM The committee recommended to begin, a feasibility study for designing and developing a prototype of the civil transport aircraft at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore for a 90/100 seat aircraft. Only nine members met on 8 May 2010. The full team plans to meet on May 27 2010, to chalk out the modalities, including the type of aircraft to be developed (turbo prop or jet) and the infrastructure required for large-scale production.
Dr Thirumalachari Ramasami has received an extension of two years in his tenure as Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Science and Technology. Congratulations Sir.
Mrudul M U son of Mr M I Unnikrishnan, KTMD secured 1st Rank and Five Gold Medals/Cash Prize in the B.E. Mech. Engg. Exam - June 2008, UVCE, Bangalore University. At the 45th Annual Convocation held on 30 April 2010 Mrudul received the award from His Excellency, Governor of Karnataka Dr. H.R. Bhardwaj, Chancellor of Bangalore University. Mrudul was guided by Prof Sarala Upadhya, the then Chairman of Mechanical Engineering Department, UVCE and Project work guided by Dr(smt) K S Rajam, NAL. Mrudul had earlier topped the X and XII examinations at KV NAL.
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Dr. K. T. Madhavan fondly called KTM by his friends, superannuated on 31st May 2010 after 35 years of service at NAL. He joined the Boundary Layer tunnel group of the erstwhile Aerodynamics division under the leadership of Dr. K. S. Yajnik. Madhavan being a physicist by training, Dr.KSY chose him to lead the experiments in the then emerging laser based flow measurement techniques in particular the Laser Doppler Velocimetry. In the next few years Dr.KTM was actively involved in the experiments using LDV. His early work with Dr. B. S Adiga in developing a counter processor for LDV was a significant step in this direction. He has made a mark for himself and for NAL in this area that culminated with the awards he received from Aeronautical Research and Development Board in 1996. He also initiated the experiments of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) in NAL and these two techniques have put now NAL in global map in these areas. In the last few years Dr.KTM pioneered the activities in the area of Active flow control.
A National mission project towards the indigenization of rotary Wankel engine for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was initiated in Jan 2004. The consortia involving ADE, NAL and VRDE Ahmadnagar planned to develop 55hp, single rotor, liquid cooled engine 
with ADE as the end user for the NISHANT UAV. DRDO entrusted the project on design and development of the 55 hp core engine to Propulsion Division, NAL. Al-Si alloy castings are used for functional requirements of the trochoid (rotor housing). This alloy possesses poor wear resistance. Surface Engineering Division (SED) had taken up the activity of developing wear resistant NALNISIC coating by simple and cost effective method of electrodeposition. The challenges involved in this activity have been: obtaining an adherent coating on Al-Si alloy which is a difficult-to-plate material, uniform distribution of SiC particles on the bore of the trochoid and the microhardness of the coating above 450Hv. All the challenges have been successfully met and the coated trochoid housing was fitted in the indigenous proto type rotary engine. Ground level evaluation tests were carried out by Propulsion Division and ADE, Bangalore. Finally, the provisional flight clearance was given by the certifying agency RCMA. An abandoned World War II runway at a village near Kolar was used for the first ever flight of an indigenous rotary engine powered the NISHANT UAV. The flight took off on 31st March 2009 morning and climbed to an altitude of 1.8 km before cruising for duration of 35 minutes and was recovered safely at the desired location.
Dr Thirumalachari Ramasami DST Secretary gets extension 
