WORKSHOP ON FLUID MECHANICS

A ten day “Main workshop on Fluid Mechanics” was conducted by IIT Kharagpur from 20th May to 30th May 2014 under the aegis of National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, MHRD, Govt of India. Senior IIT Professors of Fluid Mechanics Department, Prof. Sankar Kumar Som, Prof. Suman Chakraborty and Prof. Sandipan Ghosh Moulic were the Course coordinators. Ms. Sushila Mishra, Asst. Prof. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida was the Workshop Coordinator. Thirty Two faculty including seven from NIET, Sharda University, IILM attended the workshop.

The workshop started on 20th May 2014 at 9:30 am with inauguration and introductory concepts by Prof. Suman Chakraborty. He explained very cogently the perspective of Fluid Mechanics which is basically the behavior of liquids and gases in rest or in motion. He emphasized that many intriguing curiosities can be easily explained on the basis of fundamental concepts of fluid mechanics. Simple questions like, how does an airplane fly, design and shape of a car, flying of insects, blood flowing arteries and veins, pumping of human heart, ocean current etc. can be answered very convincingly with the help of fluidics. Rest of the session was conducted by Prof. Suman Chakraborty and Prof. S. K Som. They further explained the fundamentals of macroscopic and microscopic principals of continuum. The last session from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm was given to tutorials on introductory concepts.

On 21st May, lectures were conducted on Fluid Statics and Fluid Elements under rigid body motion. The resource person was Prof. S. C. Maulik. Stress distribution of fluids was explained with mathematical functions. Forces on submerged bodies and curved surfaces were also dealt with. The afternoon session was devoted to Fluid Statics. Likewise topics on Kinematics of Fluid Flow, Dynamics of Inviscid Flow, Reynolds Transport Theorem, Dynamics of Viscous Flow, Pipe Flows, Potential Flow and Fluid Machines were dealt with from 22nd May to 30th May 2014.

The uniqueness of the course was that every day there was a question and answer session by the host team with all the centers as per the selection. Dronacharya Group of Institutions participated very vigorously and visibly in these sessions. The session was a great platform for clarification of fundamental queries. Every day, in the concluding session assignment work was given to the candidates which were to be submitted to the coordinators the next day.

On 29th May 2014 offline test was conducted for all the centers from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm. For our center, online test was conducted on 29th May 2014 from 5:55 pm to 6:15 pm.

On 30th May 2014, the first half was taken up for introduction to Fluid Machines wherein turbines, pumps, draft tubes and related systems were analyzed in detail. The 2nd half was the concluding session and the valedictory address. Prof. P.P. Chakraborti, Director IIT Kharagpur spoke on the conduct of workshop and thanked all the centres for the active participation. He stressed centres to continue the interaction with IIT Kharagpur. Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Prof. S. K. Som, Prof. Sandipan Ghosh Moulic narrated their experiences of conducting the course.

Prof. Raja Dutta, Principal Investigator thanked the faculty members for their untiring efforts devoted to teaching of the subject. Prof. Deepak Phatak, IIT Bombay, the brain behind NME-ICE thanked the entire staff of IIT Kharagpur for conduction of the course. Lastly, Prof. S. Sen Gupta rendered the vote of thanks.