Watch out, its coming.....

Costal areas all over the world are prone to attack. Most of the time the attack comes from the sea and in the form of storms. Whether it is India or America, they natural destruction stories remain the same. These monster attackers are named differently all over the world in America it is called Hurricane, in Japan and China it is called Typhoon, In south and south east Asia it is called cyclone. However, all of them form following a similar mechanism. Warm air flowing over the sea suck water as vapour, because the temperature of the air would be as high as 80 oC, these water vapour cools down at higher altitude and releases heat which results in more heated air which is light, this air gains a speed of 200 miles per hour and due to earth rotation the air starts whirling around an eye, this is how it looks.

Red part of the hurricane contains water. These tropical cyclones travels 300-500 km a day,

they loses strength but very slowly and before it tames it hits the costal life. This monster has three weapons. First is of course storm, which hits at a speed of 200 km/hr. it is followed by heavy downpour, much more than that of any low pressure cloud pouring. It has got a disguise also. Once the eye crosses the land the rain and storm stops, it is an warning which people often misses, the storm comes from the opposite direction. It is huge and deadly. The devastation has just started. Almost 90% of the casualties come from the surge of water, the third weapon of hurricane. The sea levels go up by 10 to 30 ft. and in extreme cases it reaches 40 ft.! The surge of water we saw in New Orleans is actually due to this. The storm carries through the coast and may travel till 1000 miles! Slowly loses its pace and die down. The devastation is always quite tragic. It affects the flora and fauna immensely. Moreover, geophysical changes are also come along with them. Discovery.com has posted some before and after Katrina photograph in their web page.
Typhoons and Hurricanes are normally named, although “Katrina” rocked USA, it is not the deadliest ones world has witnessed till now. In India in the year 1999 there was a cyclone hit. Actually there was couple of cyclones that hit costal Orissa. First one hit Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal and the second one without warning hit Orissa and India saw the one of the worst cyclone hit. The Cyclone lasted for 2 days and whole state was out of the world. It was said the wind speed reached 310 km/hr with an water surge of 20-30 ft. It completely destroyed the state; there was no account of the death toll as well as the homeless. A huge part of the coast beacame a barren land, with all the trees uprooted. The economy and life was affected such a way that still people are recovering from it.
Science has progressed so much that following the Hurricane is possible from its birth hence it is possible to do the necessary evacuation. Computer simulations following the satellite imaging have done a real miracle, but researches are on in this topic. One big topic is the effect of pollution like global warming in the frequency of the storm. Recently there was an article on hurricane on a work by a group from university of Tennessee in Knoxville. They are studying the Pine trees in coastal US and it was claimed that these trees bear signs of Hurricane, so the frequency of it can be identified at least for last 100 years! We don’t know whether these are signals of destructions that are coming or passing by!

Hurricane
Orissa Cyclone
Hurricane mark in Pine trees.

Segregation

If you search segregation in google, first few hits will be about racial segregation; strictly speaking I am not going to talk about it. It’s the segregation in materials world is my cup of tea. While working with oxide ceramics defects are something that never left me and now I say I love defects! There are classic effects you get to see due to presence of point and line defects in the materials, whether its semiconductor or any structural applications. Segregation is a results caused by point defects. It has been exploited in many ways. Optoelectronic, Transistor, structural ceramics, there are numerous occasions when segregation is the key. In the ionic solids, the Schottky defects causes ions to go to the interfaces, primarily they require a lattice discontinuity, so this place may be a surface, a grain boundary or any interface. Thus there is a local charge builds up there and a potential difference between the bulk and the surface is generated. The magnitude depends on the defect concentration, temperature. Like colloids there exists an isoelectric point where surface charge becomes zero and then with an increase in temperature or defect concentration it reverses. Segregation is a subject of interest of the structural community as this process retards grain growth. The space charge which forms at the boundary actually pins the grain boundary mobility. Sounds interesting? It has more effects; when you reduce the grain size that is in the nanometer range lot of material properties in oxide ceramics is controlled by segregation, hope you didn’t believe it! Segregation captures a huge part in grain boundary engineering. Si3N4 brittle in nature but it is toughened by adding some dopants, but how it helps was not known till very recently. Last year a paper in nature showed experimentally evidences of La segregation in La doped Si3N4, La actually segregates to the boundary and helps in forming elongated grains which in turn toughens the material. Following figure is actually taken from the paper.

N. Shibata et al. Nature Vol. 428, pp730-33, 2004.

This is an STEM micrograph of a grain boundary in La doped Si3N4, bright fringe in the middle correspond to the amorphous film and the brighter spots in that are actually La. Segregation in YTZ is in discussion for a while and now it is said that nanocrystalline YTZ are more creep resistant that the submicron grain one because of Y+3 segregation. It is known that Y+3 play a role there but it is not understood which role it plays, so lots of questions. Sometimes segregation is detrimental, YTZ although has potential use as bone replacement, can not have an immediate use as Y segregation causes brittleness of the material. There are lots of interesting stuffs in this field and I am happy as I will have jobs in hand till the questions are answered. I really like defects.

A Night Club with difference!

Students from the Department of Metallurgy in IISc are extremely active, and those who work talk really little! It is reflected well for years through TMS night club talk series. Last Wednesday it was the 325th night club talk. In the campus, academic community knows about looking around, Sci forum and newly born CCS, which are perhaps much younger talk series compared to TMS night club talk series, its run by a TMS students’ chapter and apart from the invited talks, all night club talks are delivered by the students and believe me it is one of the longest running TMS Students Chapter in the whole world. We have our own world, we have our own prestigious talks, and we have our own discussions. In a faculty & staff driven institute it is really amazing that without any force (driving I meant) students volunteer to talk. The figure 325 is really huge; and it is an honour to speak in these occasions as they are the milestones for the series. Though I did no have the chance to speak in these occasions, but I have attended more that 150 talks! It covered all spectrums. From bacteria to self assembly, from ALE to casting, from NMR to DSC, from iron making to spintronix, from mobile phones to chips; we heard almost every field of material science. Technology changed, from OHP we shifted to digital projector and from the seminar hall we had shifted to Brahm Prakash Committee Room, but the character remained the same. A legacy we are carrying for a decade and it is like Prof. Ranganathan says(on some other context) “…it is in the memory of the department” . So join us at 9:30 p.m. in BPCR on Wednesday, we will share thoughts and “a cup of tea in the tea board”.

Materials, Mimicry and MEMS by Dr. Julia King

It’s all about fans! Prof. Julia King, from rolls royce today delivered really a fascinating talk on aero-engine in our prestigious faculty hall. When I first saw those real huge jet engines, I wondered how much science and technology must have been gone into it. She today talked about the physics, engineering and design of the fans and the engine as a whole!
Her talk started with the general concern on global warming and the contribution of aerospace industries to it. She showed a B-52 bombers emitting considerable amount of un-burnt hydrocarbon. According to her noise pollution due to high engine noise levels is also a cause of concern primarily in cities. So she addressed all the problems in sequence. Her presentation began with an animations on how an engine works. It was evident that materials design is the key for the turbines blades inside the engine! The material they use for the fans are Ni bases super alloys and there is a problem with the randomly oriented polycrystals. The grain boundaries parallel to the air flow is a bad news: they are the site where the fatigue crack initiates under cyclic loading so the blades were processed with oriented grains with boundaries perpendicular to the air flow. Final step towards this grain boundary engineering was to remove the grain boundaries, i.e. use of single crystals! No boundaries so no flaws. It is important to reduce the weight of the blades which is a new field of research and shape memory alloys and metallic foam appeared to be potential material for that. There was a job also for the combustion engineers but from the material scientist point of view it was necessary to talk about the chamber material. Composite materials were shown to have better run for that. When the discussion boiled down to noise she mentioned how the noise is generated from the engine, the solution for that was to have a turbulent mix of two kinds of air coming out of the jet, for that it was observed serrated outer wall of the jet instead of smooth wall is quite effective. The criteria was it should remain close while it is flying at low altitudes (high temp. region) and at high altitude they should open up . In a nice experiment she showed actually how shape memory alloys acts as an actuater under changing temperature; it was really a nice piece of experiment. There was an ineresting info: eagles can fly at a speed of 200 Mph and consume an energy equivalent to only 10% of its own weight. At the end of her talk she showed some video clippings of some testing on the fans. They were amazing! First one was under tremendous water flow, 2nd one was fans performance under cold condition (T= 233 K), 3rd one was what if a single blade breaks? And final one was what happens when birds hit the jet, I am not going to tell you what happens then, you have to listen to Dr. King. I could not put any of her slides which I would loved to post, may be some other day......

Game over!

Time to write some good things! It was really beautiful 4 seasons Yes! I am talking about cricket seasons. It was an opportunity I never thought I will get, but with my luck was shining at its best, I got the chance to play serious cricket after a gap of 4 years. People fall in love, so did I, with this great game called Cricket. I always felt happy when I stayed long in the crease. It won’t be wrong to say that destiny was grinning when I was batting last weekend. That was probably my last serious cricket match where I spend the longest time in the crease!
I met with cricket quite early age of my life. I had a friend called Santanu who had a proper kit; we used to play with cork balls which were extremely hard. We used to play wearing one pad, most of the players were Rightie so they used to tell me to tie the pad in the left leg, I was a natural leftie so it was the wrong leg for me so one ball one day came and straight away hit my front right leg’s sean bone, I was hurt on the my first cricket match and what a consequence, my last day was very similar, i had an injured hand; One day I had started playing it on the other day I left it. I had many friends into my life; some left me some I had left! But this is more than any pain I came accross. By this time if you are reading it you might have gave up on me but believe me its my soul speaking not me :D You had enough fun, leave me now the game is over!

The little angel

It happened……

Tear was about to fall, flow through her beautiful cheeks and drop on the ground. The big eyes were looking at the man on the bike. Her eyes were blank, there were no signs of grief, or happiness, it had only indifference; but still the tears were about to fall. Soft sun was falling on the asphalt road in front of the house, the road was empty and there were only two living creature on the street. Her lip was trembling, but she didn’t utter a single word, told lot of things. The guy on the bike was frozen and speechless, his mind was freaking, wanted to escape from the place as the damage was already done, but her eyes glued him to the place. He wished he could rebuild the car she was playing with, which is now laying smashed front of his bike. He was not able to understand why he should wait in the place; he tried to touch the girl with a nice tunic, but her body was stiff as if she is living in some other world. The guy was help less, she was not crying, so that he can console her. To his relief a lady came out of the house but was shocked to see the little girl on road. She rushed to her and was happy to see her untouched. The guy profusely apologized for what had happened was expecting an answer, the lady answered, “she can’t hear you, can’t reply to you; this car was her birthday gift, she received it yesterday,” The guy left the place; he had to reach his office before it’s too late.
It was becoming dark; the little girl was sitting in the small garden eagerly waiting for her mother to come. She was her only friend around and whole day she did not eat only to tell her how bad her birthday was. The car was still with her and she was trying to repair it. The road in front of their house remains deserted in these hours of the day also in the morning when she dared to go to the road. Light were slow coming up as the stars in the sky. She was quite involved with her car. She could not hear the bike coming towards her house. The same bike and the same guy approached the house. She was aware of him when she felt a cold hand on her shoulder, she turned and saw him. The whole memory came to life and this time she couldn’t hold herself, she was crying. The man was prepared, he took out a nice wrapped packet. She stopped crying and looked at it with apprehension, the packet was unwrapped and bright shinning car came out of it. The man handed it over to her. Her tear filled eyes became bright and in the whole day she smiled for the first time. The guy got his life back! Whole day he was under terrible guilt and now he felt relived and the little kid looked like an angel to him. He turned back and stared for home.

Jumpstart 2005: an evening with winners

It all started in a rain soaked evening in Gymkhana managing committee room, we were planning for a sports fest and at the end we decided it will be called “Jumpstart2005”. There was a whole spectrum of events held during this literary and sports festival of I.I.Sc Gymkhana. It was Santanu who was the initiator, motivator and supervisor of the show. The events included Chess, Carom, Athletics (the biggest), Swimming, and the literary events (Dumb charades and Quiz), Table tennis. We had clubbed the marathon event along with the freedom run around the campus.
The evening started with a Sharod recital, it was as usual a mesmerizing music! This was followed by a good show put up by “Rythmica” a part Gymkhana Music Club. They were also winners but on different field and different game. Our prize distribution ceremony started in the middle of the music programme. The Satish Dhawan auditorium was completely filled with people. Arjun Deviah an international athelit came as a chief guest for the occasion. The prize distribution started with ladies events. Although the female participation in field events was noticeably less the picture was different in literary events. In the male section in Athletics it was a keen contest, few performed exceptionally well, Hasta in the jumps in short distance races, Arun in short distance Run and Prakash again in jumps and short distance run. Prakash’s long jump of 5.7 m was really watch worthy. In the long distance run Claudy really dominated along with Rejin, Santosh and Sundar around, Kottada and his group came strong in relay. In throwing events Sachin was ahead of all; in discus, javelin, shot put he threw the max. In Swimming again it was “the big boy” Rejin who dominated, won 5 out of 6 swimming events, Anath also gave was a strong contender for him. In Carrom Debabrat won the singles also one doubles event, Atul, Tejaswini also performed well in doubles and in mixed doubles. Rahul played well enough to beat others in classic chess, Sachin kept his mark as a chess player along with a good athelit. Thomas outplayed others in rapid chess section. In TT Debraj showed his class and won the singles tournament, the doubles went to Kartikeyan and Ganesh. MRC lifted the departmental event by beating Physics in the finals. The last in the list were the marathoners; in the first Bangalore marathon held this year, almost 21 guys participated and we had decided to felicitate them on behalf of gymkhana, it was really a good achievement. The concluding part of the prize distribution ceremony was an inspiring speech by the chief guest. Rythmica took over the programme and it got over in an excellent note, as our ‘host’ Srini said all good things come to an end.
We had three category of prizes, first was the track suit upper, second one was t Shirt with Jumpstart logo and third one which I liked the most was the white coffee mug with gymkhana logo as well as jumpstart logo. I hope every recipient liked it!
A huge effort from Viswanath and Vivke for athletics and literary, respectively with Sushil in swimming made this big event a success, but the little man behind the screen has actually done something bigger, yes I am talking about Jackie (Santanu). I hope Jumpstart will not stop and will get some more face lifting next year. So JUMPSTART………

Freedom run

They ran, they ran in huge numbers. Cloudy morning in I. I. Sc. becomes slightly different this morning. This is Independence Day morning. I don’t know since when the freedom run has started in campus, but it is an annual event which is stored in the memory of the institute. “Freedom run” takes place on the occasion of Independence Day on 15th August. The whole spectrum of the strong 3000 community participates in this run, of course not all of them but significantly high in the no. This year the participation was nearly 250, believe me this is one of the highest participation in any athletic events in the campus. The run takes place in marathon format though the total stretch doesn’t match with marathon; the distance is just above 5 km. Starting from kids to senior faculties everyone participates in this run. The route will take you all through the tree covered campus. There was a stretch which literally passes through the jungle in the campus. The best timing was ~20 min and within 40 min. a bulk of the participant had finished their run. Today the weather was beautiful which helped a number of people to complete. The footsteps and the sweats of the great and greats in making made the streets a memorabilia.

The damned Mobile phones

I am an Engineer and I always marvel at the great technological creations of human civilizations, but not this one! I don’t know who got this idea of developing Mobile phone. This is an discovery, I put it in similar to an effect of Rutherford‘s experiments on atoms. The great soul never thought the research will lead to a killing of millions and will give the world a permanent threat. The highly misused mobile phones are of the same order, people who doesn’t need it carry it everywhere, some are real fools! Once in Rex we were watching a movie and one guy was on his phone continuously, so Guru politely requested the guy to go out of the theatre and talk. The first reply he got, “As because u don’t have cell, I cant stop using it!” and that followed with some moron (ish) acts. Even in the work places sometimes it’s a pain. God knows when human will make some more advancement and put a chip in their brains so that they’ll connect the satellite straight away and the majestical, irritating tones will ring inside their brains!

Eden gardens

Lash green out field with a 22 yard land lying bare. from the edge of the field the huge galleries have gone up to the sky. If you are in the middle you will feel like a gladiator and i can' t imagine how it will be when 1oo thousand people chant your name! It is one of my most cherished loacation on earth, I am talking about the world's one of the best cricket grounds: EDEN GARDENS.
The name Eden does not go to any mytholgy, its come from histroy. Legend is calcutta cricket club (CCC) which came to existence in the year 1792 has shifted to this place called parkland in the year 1864. This place was under the supervison of Governor Lord Auckland, and two of her family members called Eden sisters used to take care of this park and probaly from there the name "Eedn gardens" desended. The ambience of the ground was once mesmirising and heaven for the swing bowlers. The breeze from the higcourt end was nightmare for the batsmen.
Edengardens was not only a cricket ground but was a bit of football was played here also.
The first test cricket was played in 1926 at Eden gardens, between MCC vs. India and then on the ball stared rolling, from the Sobers outsanding catches to Salim Maliks devastation, Azhars golden batting and Lakshman 's epical batting, Eden is the dream ground of cricketers accross the world. The attraction is partly because of the crowd. Although breeze doesnot enter the ground still people come to watch then people.
If you happen to appear in front of the CAB office in Eden you may mistake it as the MCC office in London may be better. With the centinary museum coming up, Eden has starting from Indoor practice ground to ultra mordern Gym. Huges stands and Lights in the night. If you come to Kolkata dont miss Eden gardens, my cherished dream ground.

We the living

I read this novel by Ayn Rand recently, i thought the title of the book will be nice title to start with and i wrote something on the book..........

This novel by Ayn Rand like her previous novels conveys a unique philosophy towards life and her way of describing it is also unique. The novel gets its life in Leningrad (or Pterograd) in Russia and it flows into different corners of Leningrad. The story is around a girl called Kira Argounova, a very strong character with a vision in life. She spends the cream period of her life in a time of political and social turmoil in Russia during the year 1917-1930. After the Bolshevik revolution and demolition of imperialism, it was the time of reconstruction. It was the time when Kira arrives in Leningrad with a new social tag; she was a “burgoa”. With the proletariat government in power, Russia was under going a social change a fresh idealism which carried out by a true proletariat Andrei Taganov. and by Leo Kovalensky(s) a young man rebelling against the totalitarian system. Kira, a character with values, could see the death of values and lack of vision in the new born society; she eventually falls in love with Leo. Kira’s father who was a industrialist now found it difficult to get bread for living. Kira and Leo both were rebellion in their own way, Kira wanted to be in the system and then revolt when she had enough strength; on the other hand Leo was mocking the system by destrying himself. The best part of the novel is the interaction between Andrei Taganov and Kira. Two completely different ideologies meet each other with some common principles and then move on parallel. The consequences of this relation are far fetched. The characters evolved with time with changing social backdrops. Corruption was taking over the regime which was based on idealism. Proletarian were replaced by corrupt escapists. The pace of the novel is fantastic, though the change in the communist reign in Russia took a long time but this book actually describes why the change was necessary. Kira who aspired to become an engineer and built a bridge made of Aluminum continued her struggle but fails. Andrei who dreamt of a society where everyone will have equal rights to live finds himself giving berth to one which lacked everything he had once thought of. Leo who wanted to live life in his own way destroys all the values he lived for. The novel is about a philosophy and it leaves a strong impression about life on you.