#IP 1009 23 - 29 Jan 2012
IP this week - NALSUN 27th  Licence to M/s Akoni Tech Private Limited, Hyderabad | Second Joint Venture Committee | Thermax Team in Search of Solar Selective Coating at CSIR-NAL | Republic Day function at NAL | A decade ago

NALSUN 27th  Licence to M/s Akoni Tech Private Limited, Hyderabad

CSIR-NAL and M/s Akoni Tech Private Limited, Hyderabad signed a license agreement on January 23, 2012 for the transfer of Knowhow Process on Room temperature Black Chromium Plating Bath Formulation (famous NALSUN Technology). Mr.T.Jagan Mohana Rao, Chief Executive Officer, M/s Akoni Tech Private Limited represented from the company for signing of agreement becoming the 27th  Industry availing the NALSUN license from CSIR-NAL.

After the signing of agreement, AKONI team had detailed technical discussions on NALSUN bath preparation and optical properties with Head, SED. The team was satisfied with various aspects of NALSUN coating. M/s Akoni is confident of starting the commercial production of NALSUN coated films at the earliest with their infrastructure in place.

Second Joint Venture Committee

The Second Joint Venture Committee of National Civil Aircraft was convened on January 27, 2012 at the Director’s Conference Hall. Dr V Kelkar, Former Finance Secretary, Govt. of India, Dr Anil Firodia, Chairman, Kinetic Engineering Ltd. and Mr N R Mohanty, Former Chairman, HAL attended the meeting.

Thermax Team in Search of Solar Selective Coating at CSIR-NAL

A technical team led by Dr. R. R. Sonde, CTO and EVP, Thermax Pvt. Ltd., Pune visited CSIR-NAL on January 25, 2012 for licensing of solar selective coating technology for their concentrated solar power plants. Mr Shyam Chetty,  Acting Director, NAL welcomed the team and assured the necessary support from CSIR-NAL to meet Thermax requirements. Dr R. R. Sonde, made a brief presentation about their company’s on-going work in field of solar energy indicating their requirements for solar selective coating more particularly NALSUN Technology. Mr. William Grips, Head, SED made a brief presentation on NALSUN Technology highlighting main features. Dr Harish Barshilia made a presentation on Sputtering Technology suitable for high temperature applications in the solar thermal power generation.

The NAL team had extensive discussions about NALSUN Technology with the visitors.  Thermax team appreciated NAL expertise in NALSUN and Sputtering Technology.

The financial terms and conditions are being worked out for the transfer of relevant technology.

Republic Day function at NAL

Mr Shyam Chetty, Acting Director, NAL hoisted the National Flag and inspected the guard of honour given by NAL security at the NAL Republic Day function on January 26, 2012. He wished everybody a Happy Republic Day-Long Live the republic.

Tiny tots from NAL nursery school sang patriotic songs and filled the air with patriotism.

“We celebrate the Republic Day in the memory of the reunion and restructuring of states in India that happened on 26 January, 1950 when constitution of India came into force and India became a truly sovereign country” said Ms Jyothi of KTMD in her republic day address highlighting the importance of the day. Her message was “Let us strive to make this 63rd year of our Republic … a corruption free… pollution free and environmental friendly year, and also vow to carry it forward”.

The programme concluded with distribution of sweets to all who participated in the function.

#IP 1008 16 -22 Jan 2012

Training Programme on ‘MS-Project Professional  2010’

When it comes to managing projects, a project manager/leader has to manage dozens of functions and hundreds of tasks. He must also stay on budget, meet deadlines, and keep everyone from team members to stakeholders informed along the way. In addition, charts and schedules shall be made, milestones reached, and progress monitored. Microsoft Project is a project management software program, developed by Microsoft, which is a tool designed to assist a project manager/leader  in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.

Realizing the need of  efficient management of  multiple and complex projects at CSIR-NAL, a three-day intensive training program on ‘MS-Project Professional 2010’ was organised during 16-18 January, 2012, at the Digital Training Room of ICAST, Kodihalli. The objective of the training programme was to provide hands on experience on using MS-Project Professional 2010 software. About 30 scientists/officials from various Divisions underwent the three-day training programme. Mr.Jayakumar from TeamLease Services Private Ltd., imparted the training to all the participants.

The three day training programme covered the various topics of the MS project starting with introduction to Project and Project Management, Microsoft project, creating new project, defining  tasks and work breakdown structures, setting-up task, defining resources and allocation, setting base line and tracking project progress, formatting project details and generating reports. In a MS Project plan, the start date and the end date of the task are specified by using a calendar utility available in MS Project. This schedule is arrived at based on the past history data available for a project activity of a similar nature. Project managers can get to see the graphical representation of the resources allocated to each task and the completion of each task by making use of the Gantt chart view available in MS Project. Based on these graphs, project managers can know the load carried by individual resources and see if any resources have been overloaded. In that case, the project manager can do resource leveling. Case studies from SARAS and NPMASS projects were also taken-up to develop a project plan during the last day of the training.

Microsoft has released both Windows and Mac versions of the MS Project software. The most current version available in the market is MS Project 2010, which is compatible with the most current versions of Windows such as Windows Vista and Windows 7. This software is available in different modes, based on the requirement of the user. There is a client only mode, where MS Project client runs on one PC and there is a server mode where both the client and the server run in the same system and can be accessed from others. All the information that has been entered in the client front-end interface is stored in one server database. This will be useful when the data in the server database is being shared by multiple MS Project clients running simultaneously on multiple personal computers.

At the concluding day, Dr.Sridhara Murthy, Head, KTMD while addressing the trainees reiterated that MS Project is an effective tool for the project managers/leaders to plan and manage their projects. He also stated that considering the number of present and future projects/programmes and their complexities, it is the need of the hour to manage these projects effectively through MS Project. Dr.C.Divakar, Jt.Head, KTMD agreeing to the views Head, KTMD  stressed the need of implementation of MS Project at CSIR-NAL and  thanked TeamLease Services Private Ltd., and participants for  the success of the training programme. 

R Venkatesh

#IP 1007 9 - 15 Jan 2012

Indo-US Workshop on Integrated Vehicle Health Management and Aviation Safety - WIAS

The first Indo-US Workshop on Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) and Aviation Safety – WIAS   was organized by CSIR-NAL with participation of NASA Scientists in Bangalore during January 9-10, 2012 at The Oberoi Hotels, MG Road, Bangalore – India. NASA and CSIR-NAL have received the award to jointly organize the Workshop sponsored by Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF). NPMaSS (National Program on Micro and Smart Systems is also one of the major sponsors.

Leading US academic institutions including Georgia Tech and Auburn Universities,  US Industries including GM, GE, Honeywell, MEGGITT and other agencies like FAA, SRI International and CALCE (Centre for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering), University of Maryland, USA and  European organizations viz. IVHM Center, Cranfield, UK, LMS International, Belgium and  Top Indian Academia like IITs, IISc, University of Hyderabad etc., Indian R&D institutions - ADA , ADE, RCI, GTRE, CGCRI, Public Sector institutions - HAL Korwa, HAL AR&DC, Bangalore, Industry including HCL, TCS, INFOSYS, Boeing, NI, Cassidian, Mathworks, etc., and Armed Forces (4BRD, IAF Kanpur) participated in this Workshop. Indian airlines also participated in the event. Participation by an LCA & Airline pilot added value to the proceedings. This is the first attempt to bring all the stakeholders under one roof on the theme in the country. NAL participated in a big way in addition to the organisation of the workshop.

The purpose of the Workshop was to deliberate, discuss and evolve the state of the art aerospace systems health management strategies, identify opportunities for collaboration between US & Indian Institutions, prepare a road map of IVHM in the Indian and global context involving Indian counterparts from academic, R&D and Industrial institutions  and  initiate right IVHM concepts in the design of next gen civil aircraft. It was recommended that a core group of IVHM professionals in the country must be formed by drawing strengths from various organizations (comprising academia, R&D and manufacturing etc.,) and efforts to create a Center of excellence must be initiated which will cater not only to aerospace but also in other areas, e.g., Industrial and automotive health.

This Centre would also strive for training engineers and scientists and bring out PG & Ph.D programs.

A number of collaborations from US Academia, R&D institutions and Industry have been proposed to take the Indian IVHM Mission under NAL initiative. Notable among them are aircraft Electrical Power systems health management by Honeywell, Landing gear health management by MEGGITT, Industrial systems and software health management including formal methods  by Georgia Tech, electronics prognosis & battery health management by Auburn University and CALCE, University of Maryland. Collaborations in the areas of Avionics and Structures have also been proposed by the visiting experts.

A Tutorial was also arranged at CSIR-NAL on 11th January for the benefit of Students from various engineering colleges, and others from different R&D institutions, public sector undertakings, Defence and corporate establishments. Participation of a large number of faculty from various academic institutions have ensured that the importance of IVHM is spread among the next generation engineers and researchers. A lecture by Prof George Vachtsevanos of Georgiatech USA, a pioneer of Prognostics and Health Management was arranged by KTMD for the benefit of those from NAL who could not attend the workshop.

The workshop and the tutorial were a  runaway success.

Dr V Upendranath

#IP 1006 2 - 8 Jan 2012

  New Year Speech

‘To succeed in all our programmes, numerous projects and future plans, this lab and its Director need conviction, hard work, commitment, love and total support from each and every one of you’ Mr Shyam Chetty, Acting Director, NAL said in his first New Year address as the Acting Director on Jan 2, 2012 .

Mr Shyam Chetty in his speech mentioned about the major events & achievements of CSIR during the year 2011 in general and NAL in particular. He proudly announced CSIR-NAL was felicitated by the Hon’ble Union Minister for Civil Aviation in recognition of major contributions of CSIR-NAL for the growth of Civil Aviation and Aeronautics in the country during the Centenary Celebrations of Civil aviation in India on February 18, 2011 at New Delhi. He added it was a great moment when the LCA-Tejas fighter variant got its IOC in January 2011; CSIR-NAL has made significant contributions to this programme, including Control law and airdata algorithm development, extensive wind tunnel tests, supply of 13 critical CFC components and flight validation and update of the aerodynamic database.

Mr Shyam Chetty presented briefly the progress and highlights of various divisions in NAL. He congratulated all his colleagues who received laurels during the year.

He concluded his speech by mentioning NAL’s future plans and projects proposed in the 12th Five Year Plan.

Prof P Seshu, Scientist-in-Charge, CSIR CMMACS presented briefly the achievements of C-MMACS during the year and thanked NAL for all the support extended.

“Puzzling experimental results, do not throw them away”! said Dr Rama Govindarajan while talking to 11th and 12th standard students under the CSIR Program On Youth For Leadership In Science (CPYLS) conducted at the S R Valluri Auditorium, NAL on 26th December 2011. Dr Rama Govindarajan, Engineering Mechanics Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore was the guest speaker and Dr G N Dayananda, Head CSMST was the speaker from NAL.

Dr Rama Govindarajan spoke about Fluid mechanics – From Astro to nano. She started by recalling Leonardo da Vinci as an early fluid mechanician, narrated many examples of fluid mechanics - the dimples on the golf ball which make the golf ball to travel longer distances, the polyurethane swimming suit which was responsible for improvement in the swimming record in aquatics championships in 2009 etc. She said our galaxy can be considered as a fluid with stars and planets distributed in it. She spoke about the instabilities - the great red spot in Jupiter, storms, cyclones and their effect on the earth’s weather, formation of vortex for example when cyclone approaches land. She drove home the importance of vertical flows for example aircraft trailing vortices which lead to congestion at airports as smaller planes cannot take off immediately after a bigger plane. She also elucidated the importance of fluid mechanics for the design of Micro Air Vehicles taking cue from insect and bird flights. Talking about fluid mechanics, she mentioned that Equations are known, but computing power is insufficient. There have been great advances in the parallel processing and mentioned about the contributions made by NAL.

Talking about the positives of Life in research she mentioned that there is a big opportunity in pure sciences as a number of research institutions have been started, can travel, teach, write and the joy when your paper is accepted for publication etc. Talking about the negatives, she mentioned about the despair when scooped (when somebody else publishes results of similar work and one has to start all over again), the disappointment when your paper is rejected for publication.

Dr G N Dayananda, Head, Centre for Societal Missions and Special Technologies spoke about Wind Energy. He started by saying ‘Wind Energy has everything to do with fluid mechanics’. He went 500 years back in history and explained about Vasco Da Gama’s Journey to India with illustrations of how he was guided by trade winds. “Wind” he said “is an indirect form of Solar Energy”. He explained equatorial Doldrums as the regions where the rising air creates calm (the ships may not be able to move out of this region) in the equatorial region and the trade winds as the steady northeast/southwest winds. Vasco Da Gama reached India by taking up a devious route avoiding the doldrums. Speaking about the migratory birds he mentioned the bird Arctic tern’s extraordinary pole-to-pole migration using the trade winds( the total distance travelled is 70,900km).

He said “Wind Energy is clean energy and is going to play a very important role for India”. He briefly mentioned about NAL-Sangeeth 300 kW wind turbine prototype blades and said they are undergoing trials at the Kethanur wind farm, near Coimbatore.

He pointed out the issues involved in wind power management stating “Wind speeds vary from season to season. In India, the peak wind season coincides with the monsoon season (April to Sep). During this time winds can reach speeds of around 15 – 18 m/s and other seasons it can drop to speeds of 1 - 3m/s. With the variable nature of renewable sources, it is important to balance these sources of power with other base reserves such as hydel, thermal etc”. He said “The solution would be to have smart grids. A smart grid is a digitally enabled electrical grid that gathers, distributes, and acts on information about the behavior of all participants (suppliers and consumers) in order to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of electricity services. Smart grid can manage the sources by continuously switching between the variable sources along with the base power to improve the stability of grid”.

Mr Shyam Chetty, Acting Director, NAL in his presidential remarks said “We are standing at the cross roads where the whole world is moving so fast, if we run we remain static, if we don’t sprint we will be left behind, because technology is galloping. Technology has also reduced in size, we are having lab on a chip today”. His advice to the students “Technology is changing very fast, be innovative, don’t take things for granted, think out of the box, question everything you see, be different, remain focused for the exciting times ahead”.

A valedictory function was arranged in the evening. The students and parents expressed happiness over the conduct of the programme. Some students in their feedback form indicated that, had they participated in this kind of a programme earlier they would have continued in the science stream. Mr Shyam Chetty, Director, CSIR-NAL distributed prizes to the students who won prizes in the science quiz competition conducted earlier.

Dr Sridhara Murthy, Head KTMD welcomed the gathering and introduced the guest speaker. Dr C Divakar, Jt. Head, KTMD proposed the vote of thanks and Ms Gomathy Sankaran anchored the programme.

Adieu
TEAM NAL wishes our colleagues a very happy, healthy and productive life after superannuation on 31 Dec 2011.

Mr Srinivasa C, FSU

Mr Gowrishankar M, ELK

Mr Ratna Swamy, S ENK