Annual Report 2006-2007

Engineering Sciences

The broad programme objectives of Engineering Sciences cover support to research efforts in a wide range of disciplines within engineering sciences such as Civil, Chemical, Electrical, Computer, Material, Mining & Mineral, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics and Automation,. The individual research programmes may address one or more sectors namely, health, bio-medical, transportation, automotive, water resources management, structural engineering, building technologies, manufacturing and process industry related technologies etc. However off late few proposals under this programme do reflect the inter-disciplinary nature that research activities are now taking. In addition few major proposals have been received for setting up of Engineering Research Centres in academic Institutions.

During 2006-2007, support to both basic and applied research was continued. 35 new research projects have been initiated. PAC also monitored the progress made in ongoing projects on a regular basis. A brief highlights of scientific achievements of activities initiated under individual engineering science programmes, is given below:

Chemical Engineering

• Indigenous photo resist resin has been developed. Monitoring method for photo curing polymer reactions has been established. Among the synthesized photosensitive polymers, DVA-Epoxy polymer requires very minimum amount of PAG for undergoing photo curing in the presence of UV light. DVA-Epoxy polymer undergoes fast photo curing compared to other photosensitive polymers. Viscosity of polymer solution with photo-initiators remain constant during storage without exposure to light.
• Designed & completed development of an extended Kolman filter for pulp digestor model, which infers measurements much better. Preliminary studies for determining optimal profile completed using offline dynamic programming for a simple polymerization reactor. The research related to the project has resulted in 2 journal papers and 6 conference papers.
• Work done to understand various parameters on arsenic removal by electrocoagulation. Magnetite found to have good adsorption capacity for As and is more stable to avoid chances of leaching. EC process found capable of achieving residual arsenic of less than 10 ppb (Mg/l). Phosphate, silicate and fluoride ions compete with As ions for sorption sites and substantially reduce As removal.
• Work on stabilization of tubulin, used for design of drugs for cancer & parkinson disease, for improving the shelf life for better utility. Use of superporous hydrophobic "H-Celbeads" (patent filed) for one-step isolation of tubulin from tissue homogenate. Use of glycerol for efficient & complete polymerization and solubilization of resultant polymer. Development of polymerization assay for bioactivity of tubulin.
• Work on propagation of lateral and vertical fronts through model and experiments to study film formation and cracking mechanism. Shown that maximum capillary pressure is lower than theoretical value by an order of magnitude. Two distinct regimes found to determine critical cracking thickness, which was confirmed by experiments (first time reported). Findings useful for formulations of paints in designing crack free coatings.
• A new protocol/model of protein expression by Pichia Pastoris is developed, tested and experimentally verified. A microbubble generator assembly fabricated and four fold increase in oxygen transfer rate obtained to the fermentation media. Biological activity of hCG protein found to be linked to the rate of protein production. A methanol sensor (monitoring & control of methanol levels) is also developed.
• Theoretical work has been done on Brownian Dynamics Code and Direct Numerical Simulation Code for turbulent flow in absence of particles and incorporating particle motion. Work has just started on comparing the results of the two codes in appropriate parameter regimes. Experimental set-up is in the final stages and test runs have been carried out using PIV to measure velocity fluctuations.
• Numerical techniques and computer implementation of models have been thoroughly debugged and tested with available experimental data. Software developed is currently in beta testing, an evaluation copy given to HPCL, Nagothane for various polyolefin co-monomers. Software will be given to other academic institutions /industries for testing and improvements will be incorporated based on feedback.

Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering

• Developed a new paradigm for FPV called Design Intent Coverage. This is a radically new approach where verification results at the unit level are leveraged to formally prove properties of integrated designs at a level that cannot be handled by existing FPV tools. This work was partnered by the Chipset Design Group of Intel, Folsom, USA and by the FPV Group of Intel at Haifa. Papers were published in DATE, ICCAD and IEEE Trans. on CAD. Developed a new style of coverage analysis for formal property specifications, which works by verifying the consistency of a formal specification in the presence of a fault. This technology was jointly developed by Intel and is currently being used by Intel. The work has been published in ICCAD and VLSI Design. Developed new formal methods for property driven intelligent test generation that is able to drive the simulation to complex corner case scenarios where specific critical properties need to be checked. This research has generated considerable interest in the design validation community and has been published in ASPDAC and DAC. The research related to the project has resulted in 1 book, 2 journal papers and 18 conference papers.
• Novel algorithms for video and audio indexing are being developed. The prototype database is being implemented in MSSQL Server 2000 and GUI's for data entry and query processing are also being developed. Echocardiogram shot detection and view classification algorithms depending on transducer placement have been developed. For video indexing, a novel approach based on "Sweep M mode" analysis has been developed to identify cardiac states. This approach generates number of M - modes along the transverse direction of cardiac wall movements. These M-modes are subsequently used for tracking various feature points and performing measurements on expansion and contraction of cavity walls. Finally, the temporal variation of these measurements provides the necessary state information of the cardiac cycle. Based on this work, 3 papers have recently been accepted for publication in conferences and journals.
• A three-level inverter topology for open-end winding induction motor drive and a SVPWM scheme for the same are developed for common-mode voltage elimination. The proposed scheme produces voltage space phasor combinations similar to a conventional 3-level inverter.
• First time study of 4 H/3C SiC HBT and design & analysis of a PN Junction-less Schottky gate Bipolar Mode Field Effect Transistor on SiC. Work resulting in building knowledge base/expertise in the area of SiC device. SiC SBMEFT developed is an innovative device relevant to power switching applications. Purely simulation work, practical realisation of these devices may form a follow-up project. The research related to the project has resulted in 4 journal papers and 4 conference papers.
• Work on word spelling standardization and language tokenization for IR algorithms to address multiple character encodings in Indian languages. Most of the algorithms/modules built as language independent as possible. Findings likely to enhance search capabilities of research engines for Indian languages. The research related to the project has resulted in 7 conference papers.
• Work on developing a scheme for parsing news video, identifying perpetually prominent objects, ontology language for multimedia, automatic semantic description and view synthesis scheme using calibrated views. Techniques developed have been experimentally validated and results found encouraging. The research related to the project has resulted in 2 journal papers and 6 conference papers.
• Developed a model of cardiac synchronization. Performed theoretical analysis and found that bistable nature of Gap Junction dynamics may be related to cardiac Memory effect. Findings may be useful to design intelligent pacemaking protocols.
• Developed computationally efficient simulation based stochastic approximation algorithms for optimization/control of Markov chains. Algorithms were tested on various network settings for problems of flow and congestion control in ABR service in ATM networks and also for RED flow control in TCP/ IP networks. Algorithms were found to show superior performance over existing well known algorithms in literature. Developed simulation based algorithms for discrete parameter optimization and studied their applications to admission control in communication networks in particular for bursty traffic. These are seen to efficiently compute optimal policies in scenarios where analytically obtaining such policies is not possible. The research related to the project has resulted in 8 journal papers and 11 conference papers.

Material, Mining & Mineral Engineering

Research efforts supported during the period include the following:

• Development of new novel titanium alloys with improved tribological properties
• Development of high strength ultra fine grained alloys through cryorolling
• Development of nanocrystalline coating by combined Plasma Assisted Implantation & Deposition (PAID)
• Development of lead free nano ferroelectric and dielectric materials by mechanically activated synthesis
• Thermomechanical characterization of ceramic coatings for turbine blade materials
• Micromechanical characterization of hydroxyapatite coated metallic implants
• Electrical characterization of nano-composites for use as novel dielectrics
• Green nano composites from renewable resources: biopolymer - silica hybrid materials

Highlights of results accruing from research efforts initiated during preceding years:

• Bio-grade Calcium hydroxyapatite (HAp) powder with particle size 150 to 250 µm was prepared by chemical route from Calcium Hydroxide and Phosphoric Acid at CGCRI, Kolkata. It was characterized by chemical analysis, x-ray diffraction and infrared spectra. The single phase HAp powder remains thermally stable upto 1250°C and shows good biocompatibility and also has no toxicity. These Biograde Calcium hydroxyapatite (HAp) powder can be successfully coated on various substrates of desired configuration like plates, femur joints etc. of stipulated materials viz: stainless steel, Co-Cr alloy and Ti alloy by plasma spraying. This is a superior, replacement for polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) bone cement which is widely used to fix hip prosthesis and other prosthetic implants in orthopaedic surgery despite its several inherent problems such as nonadhesiveness with bone, high heat generation during its polymerization and relatively low mechanical strength resulting in loosening of the device causing need for revision surgery.
• Detailed studies were conducted at CGCRI, Calcutta for development of Transparent Photocatalytic Titania Films on Glass for Antifogging and self-Cleaning applications. Crystalline and transparent TiO2 coatings on soda-lime-silica glass have been prepared via two different approaches. In the first approach (polymeric sol), titania sol has been prepared via hydrolysis and polymerization of titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) complexed with acetyl acetone. In the second approach (colloidal sol) crystalline nano titania has been prepared via hydrolysis of TTIP and subsequent peptization of the TiOx(OH)4-x in aqueous solution of inorganic acids namely, HCl and HNO3 varying the H+/Ti mole ratio and wt % TiO2. Both polymeric and colloidal titania sols developed in this project have been found to be suitable for obtaining TiO2 coatings on glass for photocatalytic applications with superhydrophilic property. The TiO2 coated glasses can be used for antifogging application inside windows of vehicles, mirrors of bathroom and dresser, road mirror, refrigerated show case etc., for self-cleaning application at the exterior tiles of the house, windows, traffic sign, reflector on road, headlights etc. and cleaning application in tunnel lighting glasses and tiles in the kitchen, showcases etc.
• A joint project for development of toughened zirconia composites for tribological applications was completed at IIT, Kanpur & NML, Jamshedpur. The influence of ZrO2 matrix composition (Y2O3 content) and different pre-sintering temperature on the densification, microstructure and mechanical properties of the sinter-HIPed (Hot Isosatic Pressing) composites were investigated. The present project demonstrated that ZrO2-ZrB2 composites with high hardness and indentation toughness can be obtained, through optimization of sintering parameters and yttria content, via pressure less sintering and subsequent HIPing. Additionally, the HIPed composites exhibit superior wear resistance. Thus a tougher, stronger and harder ceramics of ZrO2-ZrB2 composites were successfully developed for tribiological applications.
• The effect of processing parameters on structure property relationship of new generation interstitial free steel sheets is being investigated at NML, Jamshedpur.
• Number of master alloys (Al-3Ti, Al-3B, Al-5Ti-1B and Al-1 Ti-3B) have been prepared indigenously by the reaction of the molten aluminum with halide salts like K2 TiF6 and KBF4 in an induction furnace at B.V.V.S. Basaveshwar Engineering College, Bagalkot, Karnataka. These indigenously developed master alloys have been used for the grain refinement studies of Al-5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 Si alloys. Improvements in mechanical properties were obtained by the addition of grain refiner and modifier compared to the individual addition of grain refiner or modifier alone. Hypoeutectic Al-Si alloys exhibit good castability, high strength to weight ratio, better corrosion resistance, good weld ability and better machinability. Because of these excellent properties, these alloys find widespread applications in the aerospace, marine, defence and automotive sectors where they are use for cylinder blocks, piston heads, switch boxes, water cooled manifolds, jackets and other engine body castings.
• After the successful development of asbestos free brake pad material for small cars, new combinations of non-asbestos, low metallic fiber reinforced friction materials are being developed for multi utility vehicle at IIT, Delhi.

An advanced laboratory is also being set up to study the tribological properties of friction materials at Industrial Tribological Machine Dynamics and Maintenance Engineering Centre (ITMMEC), IIT, Delhi Various advanced equipments such as thermal conductivity analysis, special mixer for mixing the ingredients, brake test rig and tribo test rig were fabricated/procured and commissioned under this project.

• Silicon carbide particulate reinforced aluminum alloys, MML materials have been successfully prepared for use as brake disc automobiles at IISc, Bangalore. Tribological properties of these MMCs compare favourably with that of commercially available brake discs of Volvo and Maruti cars.
• Heavy metal speciation from tailing, ore and mine waste at the site of Chitradurga copper mines (Hutti Gold Mine), Malanjkhand mines (Hindustan Copper Limited) and Zawar mines (Hindustan Zinc Limited) is being investigated at IISc, Bangalore. In addition detailed studies for isolation of autotrophs and heterotrophs, and characterization of the strains and their growth kinetics are in progress.

Special mixer for Friction Material	Thermal Conductivity Analyser

A detailed study is under progress for thermal plasma graphitization of calcined petroleum coke at RRL, Bhubaneswar.

• A two-step process for transformation of plant precursors to SiC based ceramics and composites is being developed at CGCRI and Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Processing of SiC material from naturally grown plant precursors provides a cheap and advantageous alternative to conventional ways of preparing the same from synthetic powders. Further studies are under progress.
• Detail study on wear behaviour of diamond reinforced composite is under progress at NML, Jamshedpur.

Mechanical, Civil Engineering and Robotics

Research efforts supported support during the period include the following:

• A Parametric Study of Performance of a Coriolis Mass Flow Rate Meter.
• Development of Phenomenological Models to Proportion Controlled Low Strength Materials.
• Optimizing Surfacing and Cladding Through Dilution Control Using Indigenously Developed Advanced Gas Metal Arc Welding.
• Development of a Planter for Dibbling Cotton on Ridges.
• Design and Development of Small Hydraulic Tractor.
• Effectiveness of FRP bars in seismic strengthening of RC Frames with brick masonry infill walls.
• Process modeling of twin wire welding system, aims to develop model for twin wire welding process through parametric study and validate it experimentally to optimize the process parameters in order to maximize deposition rate and minimize residual stress in weld joint.
• Investigations on direct ceramic inkjet printing of multilayered ceramic components using a dispensing platform, project aims to design a dispensing system and investigate the possibilities of depositing ceramic inks on different materials.

Special mixer for Friction Material Thermal Conductivity Analyser

• Enhancement if surface finish of electrochemically drilled deep hole, with objectives to design, develop and fabricate ECM set up with rotating electrodes and optimize process parameters for ECM drilling.
• Development of a method for early evaluation of environmental impact of Engineering Designs for all stages for their life cycle including distribution, usage and after-use states.
• Automated modular fixture planning for minimum tolerances, aims to develop an Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES)/ Standard for Exchange of Product model data (STEP) decoder and reconstruction module to use neutral format files as an input to the automated fixture planning system and validate the same through experimentation.
• Effect of low frequency vibration of human comfort, The main objective of this work is to quantify the effect of discomfort in human body and develop a model that predicts ride comfort when it is subjected to low frequency vibration in various postures under controlled temperatures and humidity and noise conditions.
• Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of laminar and turbulent flow through rectangular and square ducts having transverse ribs and wire coil inserts, project aims to study experimentally the physics, heat transfer, pressure drop characteristics of complicated laminar, turbulent flow of air water and servotherm medium oil through various geometrical shaped ducts having axial and transverse corrugations, twisted-tape inserts with, without oblique teeth in wide range of Prandtl number.
• Lattice boltzmann method based simulations for a row of stationary and moving cylinders, The objective of the project is to understand existence of low-dimensional chaos in an open system by studying behavior of fluid flow passing round bluff bodies placed side by side. It also aims to understand the phenomena of merging of jets behind the cylinders and develop a suitable solution strategy for moving cylinders.
• Development of high performance robotic welding system using TIME twin process integration. - 2nd Phase, Based on the proven success in Phase I, the next phase aimed at robot integrated TIME twin welding system and its application in Indian industries has been supported with 50% support from WRI/ BHEL.
• Prediction of defects in rolled sheet metal and their effect on the quality of formed sheet metal parts, The project aims to develop a tool to predict the defects in the rolled sheet metal and their effect on the acceptance of formed critical sheet metal parts.

Apart from the above the PAC also supported organizing a workshop on "Mechanical Micro-Machining (M3)" as a pre-cursor to a major proposal entitled "Investigations into Mechanical Micro-Machining of Metals and Non-Metals"., and a workshop on

Highlights of results accruing from research efforts initiated during the preceding years:

• An alternative cost effective process for manufacturing automotive component has been developed by powder forging.
• An advanced gas metal arc welding (MIG/CO2) technique namely "Time Twin Welding" has been adapted for the Indian conditions at Welding Research Institute (WRI), BHEL, Tiruchirappalli. The next phase of the project has been sanctioned with a Robot to use the technique for welding complex components.
• Study of coal pulvariser in power plants is progressing well at IISc in collaboration with BHEL (R&D). The study includes effect of grinding media mass on grinding efficiency power consumption and media wear in coal pulverization.
• A dam beach flood analysis model to determine the stage and discharge hydrograph at different stations from the dam as a function of time is being studied.
• A numerical model for estimation of unsaturated soil parameters using inverse procedure is developed.

Numerical modeling of railway tracks on compacted subgrade soil is being carried out with different materials of ballast, subballast, subgrade soils, etc.