NATIONAL PROPULSION CONFERENCE 2013

- By Seri Nirath Sanjana

The first meet of its kind for the brightest mind of the country who work in field of propulsion, The National Profulsion Conference (NPC) was held from 21st to 23rd February, 2013 at IIT Madras. NPC-2013 was organized by IIT Madras under the auspices of the Aeronautics Research & Development Board (AR&DB)—Propulsion Panel.

The conference commenced with the inaugural ceremony on 21st February  The invocation song “Vande matram” was rendered splendidly by our very own choir group. The Director of IIT Madras, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi delivered the presidential address followed by the words of the chief guest for the evening, Dr. V K Saraswat,  director General, DRDO and technical advisor to the Defense minister of India. Dr. Saraswat enlightened the audience about the modern difficulties in the field and expectations by the politicians from the scientist community. The director was impressed by the overwhelming number of people in the auditorium for the inauguration, not to forget his special praise for the singers of “Vande Matram”.

After a short tea break, a plenary session was organized with 2 speakers. The first was Mr. S. Ramakrishnan, Director, VSSC who with his speech, threw light on the current developments in space propulsion technologies. The second speaker was Dr. C. P. Ramanarayanan, Director, GTRE who took the listeners to a different dimension of underwater propulsion systems. This was followed by a presentation by Aeronautics Research & Development Board (AR&DB) and a veteran’s round table. The dinner brought an end to the day’s activities and also served as a platform for students to interact with the professionals from different sectors.

About 123 papers covering areas  related to engine technologies of aerospace propulsion and power: novel thermodynamic cycle analysis including the Second Law, chemical thermodynamics and kinetics of combustion, fuel injection, atomization and sprays, propellants, combustor design and development, intake and nozzle studies, turbomachinery, thrust vector control, heat transfer and thermal management, aerospace engine materials, thermo-structural/vibration analyses, ground and flight testing, advanced diagnostics and instrumentation, computational simulations and modelling, etc. were put up in a total of 28 sessions running for 2 days.

There were also invited talks by Prof Babu Viswanathan of IIT Madras on “Design of Scramjet combustor through CFD” and by Mr.Krishnaswami Sundar, Scientist at GE Aviation on the topic “Aviation Gas Turbine: Powering the next generation”.  One of the highlights of the second day was the banquet dinner at GRT Grand, Chennai. The students volunteering for the event had an unforgettable experience there! A vote of thanks was given to the 3 PhD scholars who made the event a success. Some improvements and changes were suggested by the delegates including the demand for a trip to the facilities on campus to let people know about the researches going on in the field at the institution. Special praise was given for the beautiful, clean and eco-friendly campus of IIT Madras.

After 3 days full of science and technology all around in air, the NPC 2013 finally came to an end on 23rd February with closing speech and vote of thanks by the two most important organizers without whom the event would have been impossible: Prof. Job Kurian and Prof S. R. Chakravarthy. The event was a grand success : it succeeded in attracting the professionals who shared the developments in their fields with each other, it succeeded in attracting the young students towards the field of propulsion and made them aware of the current developments and challenges in the field , and provided a platform of interaction between professionals and students.

The NPC is currently scheduled to happen bi-annually with a likely invitation to the foreign delegates from the next conference onwards. There is no doubt that all the people related to the challenging field of propulsion will be looking forward to the next NPC.