The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Role of mechanical engineering stressed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 19, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Role of mechanical engineering stressed

Staff Reporter

``Aerospace sector has a good scope''

CHENNAI : Mechanical engineering played a pivotal role in various defence applications including development of missiles such as Akash, Arjun, Agni, Prithvi, Brahmos and Nag and in the development of supersonic manoeuvring Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, according to Prahlada, Chief Controller of Research and Development, Defence Research and Development Organisation

The fast growing aerospace sector would provide more opportunities to mechanical engineers in future as most of the defence systems dominantly succeeded thanks to the mechanical engineering which helped in shaping the product.

He was speaking after inaugurating ``ICAME 2006,'' an international three-day conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering at SRM University in Kattankulathur last week.

About 130 delegates from 11 countries presented technical papers. Dr. Prahlada said that mechanical engineering was widely used in non-missile applications such as designing of foldable bridge for Army for heavy vehicles to pass through.

Among other issues, he said the DRDO had decided to set apart 10 per cent of its total budget allocation to promote research in basic sciences and universities across the country.

``The proposal has to come from the universities for funding'', he said, adding the allocation was around Rs 500 crore, Dr. Prahlada said.

The SRM University would work with the DRDO to undertake research in select sectors and a proposal would be forwarded, T. R. Pachamuthu and P. Sathyanarayanan, Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor respectively, said.

M. Ponnavaikko, director, research and virtual education, presented a prize to final year mechanical engineering student B.Vinod for the best cover design for the conference proceedings.

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