“
“Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of Cause and Effect.”
-Albert Einstein
From the Director’s Desk
Prof. S. R. Gandhi
I feel extremely elated at the activities carried out by the Research and Innovation Affairs Council (RIAC) of our institute. They have been very enthusiastic in doing their part of work. While there are the departments taking care of their respective research work, RIAC carries out the same at an institute level, making all the programs and events very general which is worth appreciation. The magazine and the website are great initiatives taken. The magazine gives a glimpse of the research works carried out by some selected students while the website gives a complete information about the research done by all the students of the institute which I believe will act as a fuel for encouraging the upcoming batches, which is the most significant benefit among the other benefits. I take advantage of this in making a very strong point that research should be done with an aim, which is the whole point of doing it. This leads to new innovations and ideas sooner or later. And also, its sustainability is very important. The legacy of this magazine started by the current RIAC is hoped to be continued by the upcoming council and also the website launched by them shall remain with updates each new year. In conclusion, I acknowledge such works carried out at the institute and in the future will continue to do so.
01 | Shaastra
Special !anks to: • Dr. V. H. Pradhan, Dean Student Welfare, SVNIT • Dr. A. A. Shaikh, Dean Research and Consultancy, SVNIT • Dr. Chetan M. Patel, Faculty Advisor, RIAC, SVNIT for supporting us in carrying out all the activities for the session 2019-2020 and for having been the backbone for Shaastra and the Research Scholars’ Portal.
• Mr. Mano Prakash P., Associate Software Engineer for contributing in developing the Research Scholars’ Portal. • Mr. Nithin Kumar Mengana, Freelance Designer, SVNIT for his contribution in the designing of the magazine. • Mr. Sachin V., Architect and Graphic Designer for his contribution in the designing of the magazine. • Mr. Aakash S. , Architect and Graphic Designer for his contribution in the designing of the magazine. • Ms. Shraddha Prasanth, Chief Designer, Renesa, SVNIT for designing the logo of RIAC.
The softwares used for designing and typesetting the magazine are Pages, Procreate, , Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
FoREWoRD
By Saravanan Ramesh, Research and Innovation Affairs Secretary
I
’m overwhelmed at spearheading this productive initiative of the Research and Innovation Affairs Council Members. Glad at such an unprecedented measure that would not only furnish the readers with the research potentials and extraordinary research work carried out by the students of SVNIT but also motivate and encourage the research enthusiasts about the plethora of research opportunities and simultaneously provide a flavour of vivid researches.
Saravanan Ramesh RIAS 2019-'20
I always wondered, as a fellow student, to have an opportunity to get to know about the researches being carried out by the students of our institution and to be inspired and invigorated by them. I have always felt that acknowledging the impeccable research works being carried out by our students and making a glimpse of such researches easily available to the fellow students shall have a profound effect in arousing the latent talents of the aspirers. This magazine is nothing but such an opportunity, which has now come to reality. There has been an indescribable amount of strenuous efforts poured in by the team to turn the vision into a reality. Heartfelt gratitude each and everyone who has been behind releasing this first edition of SVNIT’s Student Research Magazine – Shaastra!
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR “We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit which will recognise that we, as inheritors of a proud civilisation, are entitled to a rightful place on this planet” -Sir. C. V. Raman
Dear Reader, Welcome to the first edition of Shaastra, the Research and Innovation Affairs Council's (RIAC) new annual supplement designed to bring before you some of the exceptional research works done by the students of SVNIT. This magazine is the first of its kind at the institute, keeping in mind the fact that one can always look up for faculty research works in the newsletters of respective departments. Prefacing about our council, the RIAC is a council formed under the Research and Innovations Affairs Secretary, Mr. Saravanan Ramesh, of the Students' Council. As the name suggests, the council has never stepped back in encouraging research at the institute. It has done so by funding student projects, conducting workshops, and many more, about which it is mentioned in the magazine. Now, let me acknowledge the question ‘What should a reader expect from the magazine?’. The magazine has in it recent innovations, research, and innovative ideas that have taken place in India, activities at the institute in which the RIAC has involved itself, and last but not the least, in fact, the most significant part of the magazine, one student research article from each of the nine departments of our institute. Research is thought to be onerous by most which prevents from taking this path. But presently our nation needs more skilled researchers to come up with ingenious ideas to meet our crises. This magazine, up to some extent, can serve as a motivation to the young readers. This is just a glimpse of the research at SVNIT. I hope you bask in the contents of the first issue of this magazine.
Yours sincerely,
Tiyasa Kar (Editor-in-Chief)
Words of Nectar… Dr. Devesh C. Jinwala, Professor, Computer Engineering Department
“Research is a process that teaches us -the Engineers- to enjoy the journey towards discovery. The ancient scriptures say, keep working hard without being bothered about the fruits of your labor -research goes a step further and asks us to just keep enjoying the journey while working hard. Eventual destination in this journey may be the one that one faintly aimed at initially, it may be something that one did not anticipate, it may be one that a researcher least expected, it may even be one that one dreaded landing into - but if one is enjoying the journey, there will always be a detour, there will always be a solution, there will always be rich fruits to savour - hard work, persistence and patience is the key. Enjoy the journey, extend this approach to every process in life and one there will be no repentance.”
Dr. Rakesh Maurya, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department
“ The professional career is a long-distance race. Step by step and day by day, systematic planning is the only way to succeed. Although there are several interesting research areas in Science and Technology, a person cannot tackle all of the problems. Better to focus on one thing and pursue it with supreme effort and become the expert on that. Coming from a developing nation, where we lack easy access to modern scientific equipment and lack the enabling environment for cutting edge research, it was difficult for us to contemplate scientific innovation. Therefore, it is always advised to look inward to make use of what is around you to solve the problem created around you. It means “Think globally but act locally”. Presenting work publicly is something that we often find scary. We worry that others will find fault in our research. It is urged that not to be afraid of presenting research and to see the panel members as people who help to improve your research. Don’t be afraid to present your work. You know your research better than anyone else.”
Dr. Kamlesh N. Pathak, Professor, Applied Physics Department
“Research is a means to fulfil the never-ending hunger for knowledge.”
06 | Shaastra
Dr. Suresh Kumar, Associate Professor, Applied Chemistry Department
"Logic organic framework on nano materials leads to develop an ideal analytical approach for quantitative and qualitative analysis of organic and bio-molecules from various sample matrices."
Dr. Beena D. Baloni, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department
“Let us explore, the infinitism of technical world by taking a step towards research.”
Dr. J. E. M. Macwan, Professor, Civil Engineering Department
“Research is the product of perspiration and appreciation where the major role is played by researcher’s perspiration.”
Dr. V.N. Lad, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering Department “ Many things now proved scientifically were only imagined sometime.”
Shaastra | 07
Dr. Sushil Kumar, Associate Professor, Applied Mathematics Department “India is on the threshold of a new era of research and development. The central government has introduced many programs to support and encourage young minds in the field of research and innovation. I hope our science students will take this opportunity and help in achieving new heights. By their curiosity and pursuit of knowledge, I hope they contribute to attain new laurels for our Institute and our nation. As the Head of Applied Mathematics and Humanities department, I hope to see many young students join research and make a global impact by their innovative ideas.”
Dr. Pinalkumar J. Engineer, Assistant Professor, Electronics Engineering Department “ Research provides a valuable long-term perspective of day to day basis problems and innovation is the way to solve them with different approaches.”
Dr. Urvashi Kausal, Assistant Professor, English and Communication Skills
"Research is the process of extensive reading, critical thinking, attentive note making and intensive writing to present exclusive findings.”
08 | Shaastra
F R O M E D I T O R S
PHILOSOPHY PHYSICS AND REALITY -Ramkumar Radhakrishnan When we ask someone what the number one is, or what the symbol ‘1’ means, we get as a rule the answer “Why, a thing?”. If we go on to point out that proposition, the number one is a thing is not a definition, because it has a definite article on one side and an indefinite article on the other, or it will assign the number one to the class of things, without stating which thing it is, then we shall be invited to select something of ourselves. Quoting Henri Poincaré, a French mathematician and philosopher, “The very possibility of mathematical science seems an insoluble contradiction”, which means the mathematics we do conflicts the actual physical reality. Let me elaborate with an example, I draw a circle of radius 2cm on a black board with a chalk. I also draw a circle of radius 2cm on a white sheet of paper using a pen. Are these circles the same or different ? (Assume we draw both the circles in XY-plane with origin as its centre.) Mathematically speaking these circles are same as they have the same Mathematical equation x 2 + y 2 = 4. But physically, this is not the case as we see two different circles, one is drawn with a chalk and another with a pen. And, pen and chalk have no significance in the Mathematical equation which is written above. What is the reason for this? This is due to the concept of geometry in the representation of physical entities which makes it easy for us to represent a system, but it's not the reality. Let us now see the influence of geometry in Physics we already know. In order to provide a general theoretical frame work for the astronomical observation data from the study of planetary study of solar system, Newton unifies the works of Galileo and Kepler into a proper theoretical structure. These prominent gentlemen’s ideas were based on the Euclid’s theorem on geometry besides being supported by experimental facts. Newton’s works however faced a huge criticism notably from Berkeley, Poincaré, Mach, Popper and Duhem. So
10 | Shaastra
if the readers accept the concept of circles, mentioned above, they should be able to accept the fact that Newton’s works are correct geometrically, but it was not completely into physical reality. Let me quote you another example. Imagine yourself standing at a bus stop and you see a bus approaching you, for which it is possible to write Newton’s second law of motion. However, if you stand on the road, and a bus is approaching you, then it will gradually grow bigger according to our visual perception. How can this be defined through Newton’s second law of motion ? We cannot answer the above question through Newton’s second law. The use of geometry in Physics is an incorporation of western culture in science be- cause geometry originated through the ideas of famous mathematicians like Rene Descarté, Fermat, Newton, Leibniz, Riemann etc. and, they find their application in various top notch fields of Physics like General Relativity, Cosmology, Field theories, String theory etc. but is this into reality? Sadly from a philosopher’s point of view, it is not. A remedy of this could be, the Indian philosophy, the art of using numbers for representation, i.e., Arithmetic. If arithmetic comes into play in science it would change the whole basement in which modern Physics is built upon, the geometry. The above mentioned two examples have solutions if you replace the idea of geometry with numbers. Thus I conclude, by summarizing the fact that Philosophy is necessary for writing Physics and its combination would result in Physical reality. I would like to thank Dr. Abhishek Majhi faculty at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata who helped in some critical discussions regarding philosophical path for approaching Physics.
THE BIG PICTURE OF THE DIGITAL WORLD -Bhavya Jaiman
The internet has grown to be addictive as a multifunctional tool that brings us exceptionally close to an enormous amount of information at unprecedented speeds. Although there is a growing recognition of the problem, users are still not aware of exactly how digital technology is designed to facilitate addiction. It is simple: usage creates data, data sells ads, ubiquity creates demand, and demand sells devices. Digital technologies, such as social networks, online shopping, and games, use a set of persuasive and motivational techniques to keep users returning. These include “ scarcity ” (a snap or status is only temporarily available, encouraging you to get online quickly); “ social proof ” (25,000 users upvoted an article so you should read it); “ personalisation ” (your news feed is designed to filter and display news based on your interest); and “ reciprocity ” (invite more friends to get extra points, and once your friends are part of the network it becomes much more difficult for you or them to leave). According to NYU professor Adam Alter , the average millennial picks up their smartphone 150 times a day. In his book “ Irresistible ” , Dr. Alter writes about technology addiction, suggesting that 40% of people have some kind of internet-based addiction . Social networking sites have not created any new or fundamentally different styles of interaction between humans. Instead, they have
vastly amplified the speed and ease with which these interactions can occur, taking them to a higher speed, and scale. Technology is designed to utilise the basic human need to feel a sense of belonging and connection with others. S o, a fear of missing out, commonly known as FOMO , is at the heart of many features of social media design. It fulfils our natural human need for stimulation and interaction. This impacts the pleasure systems of the brain in ways similar to substances. It provides some of the same rewards that alcohol and other drugs might: it can be a boredom buster, a social lubricant, and an escape from reality. Studies have shown that brain scans of young people with Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) are similar to those of people with substance addictions to alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis. Technology can give students a false sense of relational security as they communicate with unseen individuals around the world. The speed with which technology moves makes everything a teen might be looking for available within seconds, which encourages an unhealthy desire for instant gratification . A slow internet connection or “ unplugging ” can promote irritability and anxiety for a teen otherwise used to constant connection through technology. Tristan Harris , the director and a co-founder of the Centre for Humane Technology, who earlier worked as a design ethicist at Google, in an interview said, “I brought Thich
Shaastra | 11
Nhat Hanh, who is a famous mindfulness teacher, to Google. He’s 92 years old. When he came to Google, he came because he was worried that this thing in our pocket was making it easier to run away from ourselves. I think we don’t have language for that. We say people check their phone 150 times a day and we don’t make the distinction between 150 calm, deep breath, conscious choices and then 150 anxiety-driven reactions. There’s a difference. ” Researchers at Ball State University in the US conducted a meta-analysis of studies featuring three different cognitive tasks. Their article in Addictive Behaviours shows that compared to healthy people, those with Internet Gaming Disorder are more likely to have impaired response inhibition. Isn’t that what games do? Improve hand-eye coordination, thinking capability and mental as well as physical resilience? Studies from the nonprofit group “Common Sense Media” show that teens average approximately nine hours per day with digital media, tweens spend six hours, and even our youngest — ages zero to 8 — are spending 2.5 hours daily in front of a screen. Johann Hari, a British journalist, on Your Undivided Attention Podcast stated that “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection. This is a society that is constantly transferring responsibility for all problems down onto the individual rather than thinking about them structurally. And I think what we’ve seen is a massive attempt to do that with both depression and addiction.” You try to be productive and focused in this chaotic world filled with useless information we don’t even need, you
12 | Shaastra
try to work without distractions, but end up lost in the infinite rabbit hole of social media, and this is what is common today. Author and psychologist Jean Twinge found that the psychological development of adolescents is slowing down and depression, anxiety, and loneliness, which she attributes to tech engagement, are on the rise. Multitasking, a behaviour that technology encourages and reinforces, is consistently correlated with poor cognitive and mental health outcomes. One preliminary study found that a group of teens who “hyper-texted” were 40% more likely to have used cigarettes and twice as likely to have used alcohol than students who were less frequent users of technology. Metacognition — the ability to be aware of, attend to, and use information about one’s cognitive processes — allows students to strengthen critical thinking across academic and artistic disciplines. Our constant interaction with the digital domain shapes the way we learn, the way we form relationships with others and ourselves. While technology can do incredible things for us in nearly every area of life, it is neither all good nor benign. It’s time to begin an informed conversation about how technology is impacting our mental health. In today’s world, the skill to use the tools at hand efficiently and responsibly is more important than ever. The manifestation of the idea that you have the power to control what is around you, is crucial. Don’t let tech companies use you for profits. Remember, if you are distracted, it’s not completely your fault, its just time to look at the big picture of the digital world!
MICIUS- THE FIRST QUANTUM SATELLITE -Heer Mehta
Entanglement, a phenomenon which Einstein called spooky action at a distance can be used as an efficient resource in Quantum communication and Quantum information. It is a phenomenon in which two entangled particles which share a relationship between them such that change in one would affect the other no matter how much they are spatially separated. This was what very efficiently used for the scientific study in Quantum information by China’s Quantum Experiment Space Satellite (QUESS). It was launched on August 16, 2017 and was a part of one of the scientific satellite programs in strategic priority program on space science, in Chinese Academy of Sciences. The satellite accomplished three major scientific goals which laid foundations for Quantum information computation and Quantum communication.
Quantum entanglement distribution Till 2016, entanglement distribution was only achieved at a physical separation up to 100 kilometres, due to photon loss in the channel (optical fibres are Terrestrial space) which would increase exponentially with the length of the channel. Thus the satellite and space space Technologies were unique solution for scaling up entanglement distribution. The transmission path which had almost zero absorption or decoherence up to 10 km above earth was key advantage of the solution.
For the same mission, Micius cooperating with 3 ground stations located in Delingha ∘ ∘ (37 22′ 44.43′′ N 97 43′ 37.01′′ E; a l t i t u d e 3 1 5 3 m ) i n Q i n g h a i , N a n s h a n (43∘ 28′ 31.66′′ N,87∘ 10′ 36.07′′ E; altitude 2028 m) in Urumqi, Xinjiang, and Gaomeigu Observatory (26∘ 41′ 38.15′′ N 100∘ 1′ 45.55′′ E; a l t i t u d e 3233 m) in Lijiang, Yunnan. The physical separation between Delingha and Lijiang (Nanshan) is 1203 km. The separation between the orbiting satellite and the stations varied from 500 kilometres to 2000 kilometre during the mission . Two photons of nearly 810 wavelength were entangled in polarisation close to form
| a12 > =
( | H1 > | V1 > + | H2 > | V2 > ) 2
where ‘H' and ‘V' denote horizontal and vertical polarisation respectively with subscription ‘1’ and ‘2’ denoting the two photons. One of the two entangled photons was sent to Delingha and one to Lijiang. The two photons were separately measured using | H > | V > and ( | H > ± | V > )/( 2) basis. It was observed after that the measured quantities were co related and two photon entanglement survived with a slight deviation in Bell’s inequality. Compared to previous entanglement distribution method by direct transmission of same two photons
Shaastra | 13
with best performance ( with a loss of 0.16 dB/km) commercial telecommunication fibres, this approach proved to have 12 orders of magnitude more efficiency. This work was a turning point in the field of quantum information and technology.
Ground to Satellite Quantum Teleportation To achieve ground to satellite quantum teleportation, one of the two entangled qubits were sent to one of the ground stations, Ngari, Tibet. A single qubit generated there was entangled with the qubit sent by the satellite. This resulted in loss of entanglement between the photons (one at ground and other at satellite). Also he state of the qubit that was generated and entangled was ‘teleported’ to one at the satellite. It significantly contributed in achieving advancement in quantum Communication.
Satellite to Ground key distribution There were two ground stations, Xinglong and Nanshan cooperating with satellite for quantum key distribution. In the quantum keys, two entangled photons were sent to the two ground stations.
14 | Shaastra
The measurement of signal of photons by an ‘Eve’ would have lead to change in state of photon , thus altering the information. Thus keys could only be encrypted and decrypted at two end stations. This lead to an advancement in the field of Quantum Cryptography. On August 2017, intercontinental secure video call between China and Austria was realised with the help of the satellite using same phenomenon. This was a great achievement in the field of key distribution and data security.
Conclusion This satellite based technology which harnesses the phenomenon of quantum entanglement has built up a new avenue to quantum information, computation, communication and cryptography. Further, entanglement based communication can be scaled up to a global level in efficient manner if we look forward to decrease noise in quantum channels used.
S T U D E N T S’
R E S E A R C H
Why is Off-grid Energy storage important? - Chintan Chauhan
E
nergy storage is one of the promising options in the management of future power. As we know investing in the development of renewable energy is becoming a key driver for the new energy system. A question arises why is it important? as it can be satisfying the energy need in wide aspects such as provide electricity used in countries and rural areas from mini-grid level to micro-grid level as well as supply energy in a future sustainable energy system. Off-grid Energy System is a system designed to supply power by utilising renewable energy. Such as off-grid electrification is an approach to access electricity used in countries and rural sustainable life without depending on public utilities. Off-grid Renewable energy system is not only needed to provide people with a source of electricity, but also in the development of the renewable-based grid. Furthermore, the declining cost for solar and wind, together with reduced costs for battery storage, make this option attractive for household and small communities to produce their own electricity. This technology will become more common in a few years. Electrical power can be generated on-site with renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, micro-hydro, geothermal; with conservation system which reserve fuel. The rural area where it is expensive to connect with the main power supply system is best suited to the off-grid energy system. This system is growing steadily in countries but there are only limited data available on their scope and extent. With proper knowledge in electricity storage, the off-grid renewable energy system could become an important part of our future. Many energy storage technologies exist. Among these different technologies, batteries have low-cost reduction potential at the moment. How do battery work? Battery is a combination of two or more cells. Each cell consists of two half cells connected in series by a conductive electrolyte. One-half cell consists of an electrolyte and negative electrode (anode) and the other half-cell consists of a positive electrode (cathode). The electrolyte allows for the movement of ions between the electrodes which allows current to flow. Some cell uses different electrolytes for
16 | Shaastra
Working of lithium ion ba1ery
each half cell due to which separator is also used to prevent mixing of electrolytes and allow ion to flow to complete the circuit means it is working on the principle of an electrochemical cell. The battery was first invented in 1748 by Benjamin Franklin. With time modifications were being done and now we have better battery technology. But the basic concept and structure are still the same. There are various types of batteries which are used nowadays either based on its capacity to store energy, material, safety, environmentally friendly, and low cost, etc. Nowadays, a lithium-ion battery is playing a vital role in powering the world because of the elemental properties such as the lightest of all metals, high electrochemical potential and provides the largest energy density by weight. Lithium-ion is a rechargeable battery with low maintenance, first proposed by Chemist M Stanley at Exxon. It is commonly used for portable electronics and electric vehicles and is growing in popularity for military and aerospace engineering. Despite its overall advantages, lithium-ion has its drawbacks. It is fragile and requires a protection circuit to maintain safe operation. They are built into the pack, to obtain high power to run an electric device. While the protection circuit limits the peak voltage of each cell during charge and prevents the cell voltage from dropping too low on discharge. The most economical lithium-ion battery in terms of the cost-to-energy ratio is the cylindrical 18650 (size is 18mm x 65.2mm). ACD
How to design battery pack? Larger lithium battery packs are made by combining individual lithium battery cells. By combining multiple cells, different voltages and capacities can be achieved. Individual lithium battery cells are usually 3.7V. This voltage can’t provide enough power; therefore, the cell is combined to form a battery pack. In a series connection, the positive terminal of one cell always connects to the negative terminal of the next cell to increase the voltage. As shown in the figure below.
The total voltage of cells in series = nominal voltage of a single cell × Number of cells in series A single 3.7 V nominal lithium-ion cell can be charged up to 4.2 V and discharged as low as 2.5 V. While Parallel connections are made by connecting the same terminals. As shown in the figure below.
The capacity of parallel cells = the of cells in parallel × capacity of a single cell Our battery pack consists of 16 series and 12 parallel connections which provide 57V and 28.8Ah. We used a total of 192 cells and form the battery pack in two blocks and connect in such a way that it gets flip and completes the circuit. To calculate the new voltage of the combined battery packs we just multiply the voltage of each cell by the number of cell groups in series. Precaution should be taken while connecting the cell to prevent short circuits. We began with designing of cell holder of battery on solid work software. Acrylic sheet was used as a material and a circle of 18.15mm diameter is cut with the help of laser cutting.After fitting the cell in sheet, we get a two-pack of a battery of 16s6p.
ACD
Battery Management System (BMS) is a circuit that can be added to protect the health of the individual cell in the battery. It helps to balance the current between the series connection because when the load is applied to multiple cells connection in series, all cells in the series chain will experience that load fairly equally. However, because the cells in the series aren’t connected at both terminals to each other, they can’t balance each other without BMS.
Battery pack connections
Through this internship, I get know that there are many ways to conserve energy. Battery Technology is one of them. Dr. Tejas Kusurkar is my supervisor throughout my internship. He was very helpful and supportive in every situation. So, I am very thankful to him for his valuable guidance Chintan Chauhan is currently in the fourth year of Integrated MSc. in Applied Chemistry. His field of interest is Electrochemical Processes. His goal is to gain knowledge and enough skills in his field so that he can develop new energy sources in the future.
Research group at SIIC-IIT Kanpur
Shaastra | 17
Flexible Electronics: The Next Ubiquitous Platform - Parth Thakkar Why Flexible Electronics? Electronics today is facing a disruptive evolution, advancing from heavy, bulky, and rigid devices to light-weight, soft and flexible appliances. Flexible electronics is an emerging and revolutionary technology of changing conventional electronics due to ease of recycling, low-cost, flexibility, lightweight, roll-to-roll and easy to use.
Flexible solar cells
Human Interac;vity
Deposition Techniques The mainly used deposition techniques to develop flexible devices are Screen printing, Ink-Jet printing, PhotoLithography, Soft Lithography, Doctor blading, Spin coating etc. The roll to roll process is use to fabricate such devices for large area and low cost.
Applications
OLED Display
Roll to roll process
Flexible electronics has applications in various societal sectors, including healthcare; the automotive industry; human-machine interfaces; mobile communications and computing platforms; embedded systems in both living and hostile environments; as well as market-specific applications, such as human-machine interactivity, e n e rg y s t o r a g e a n d g e n e r a t i o n , m o b i l e communications and networking. To enable all these applications, electronic devices have to become flexible, lightweight, transparent, conformable, stretchable, and even biocompatible and biodegradable. It is able to fulfil all these requirements and is thus becoming increasingly important to realise next-generation electronic device platforms.
Flexible Electron
Wearable Devices
18 | Shaastra
Page APD1
Photo Sensor Photo sensor is use to detect light radiation. I made photo sensors on various flexible substrates like Paper (300 GSM), Stone paper, Plastic visiting card, Jute. I used Chemical Bath Deposition(CBD) method to deposit PbS (Lead Sulphide) material on such substrates. I measured resistance of its in dark and light through which I calculated photosensitivity. Photosensitivity is defined as how much its resistance decreases while applying light source. I also tried various light source and in every different light source I got different photosensitivity.
Photo sensor
Strain Sensor Strain sensor is use to detect change in resistance while human interactivity. I also made this using PbS material and in this I made electrodes using Pencil. I made sample holder to measure change in resistance before strain and after strain.
Strain sensor’s sample holder
Gas Sensor Gas sensor is use to detect change in resistance while selective gas make contact. I made gas sensor using filter paper substrate and also developed a sample holder including gas chamber to measure change in resistance. I got 1000 times more sensitivity of gas sensor with filter paper substrate than glass substrate because of its porosity. Sweat Sensor Sweat sensor is use for real time health care monitoring. It can detect chemical parameters like PH, Glucose etc. I designed and developed PDMS microfluidic based sweat generation and collection system. Sweat generation I used flexible heater. Generated sweat will collect in sweat collection area, from where I can detect various chemical parameters using ISFET.
sample holder in sensor test chamber
Parth Thakkar is currently in the fourth year of Integrated MSc. in Applied Physics. His field of interest include Semiconductor Devices and Condensed Matter Physics. His goal is to enhance his knowledge and skills in experimental Physics in order to give new innovations to the society for the sake of its peace and harmony.
onics System
PDMS based microuidic sweat collec;on system
Acknowledgment
Optoelectronic Materials and Devices (OMD) Group, SVNIT
APD
Parth with Prof. Siddhartha Panda, IIT Kanpur and Na;onal Centre for Flexible Electronics, IIT
Shaastra | 192 Page
Sustainable Light Weight Plasticised Concrete - Dwij Pandya, Jeet Gajera, Sanskar Patel, Faizan Sakariyawala Objectives of the project: The detailed objectives of the research works are as follows: • To investigate detailed mechanical properties of the concrete. • To prepare various design and variations of the concrete with different types and batches of plastic waste. • To prepare plastic waste moulds size same as of coarse and fine aggregate. • To measure the compressive strength of all the variations and batches.
Recently, there was a very serious and threatening notice by the UN delegates quoting “CRITICAL POINT OF NO RETURN” by 2030. This meant that if sufficient efforts are not made till 2030 to reduce global warming, then all the efforts made after 2030 will be in vain. So there is an urgent need to reduce this as soon as possible. Plastic is one of the prime reasons for global warming. Plastic warms the earth twice as the aviation does. Plastic takes millions and millions of years to decompose, thus creating a huge problem for its disposal and it can’t be burnt as well. Thus plastic has to be used productively somewhere such that it does not reach the earth’s surface. Concrete is the most versatile man-made material and the second most consumed material after water. Concrete uses a lot of natural resources like fine aggregates, coarse aggregates, sand, etc. Because of the excessive requirement of concrete, these resources are depleting day by day. So, to overcome these major issues we made “SLWP concrete” (The Sustainable light weight plastic concrete). The natural resources like fine and coarse aggregate used in concrete were replaced by 3rd grade waste plastic like HDPE, LDPE, PP, PET in three different variations such as, first replacing coarse aggregate by waste plastic moulds of size 20mm down in two batches (i.e. 50% and 100% by volume). Then, secondly by replacing fine aggregate by waste plastic beads 4.75mm down in again two batches (i.e.50% and 100% by volume) and replacing both fine and coarse aggregate with same combinations. The compressive strength of SLWP concrete showed an increase in strength by 10% and 40% after 7 days and 28 days respectively compared to that of conventional concrete when coarse aggregate was fully replaced. Similar results were obtained when the experiment was repeated with batches of coarse aggregate and fine aggregate too.
20 | Shaastra
Methodology of the project: • Review of the relevant literature, defining problem statement. • Collection of the 3rd grade waste plastic and melting it and solidifying it into moulds of various shapes. • Replacing various natural resources with these plastic moulds one by one in the concrete composition in various proportions. • Preparing the concrete block with these materials. • Keeping the blocks under water for two different durations, i.e 7 days and 28 days. • Checking the strength of these blocks after 7 days and 28 days. • Report writing, publication in the referred journals and presentation in national/international seminars/ conferences. Review of the similar research in the subject The global construction industry will annually require 8 to 10 billion tonnes of natural aggregates after the year 2010, and India’s estimated demand of aggregates in 2011 is 0.8 billion tonnes which is clearly unmanageable in for the long term period (Dhir & Kevin, 2010). Also, India consumes an estimated 16.5 million tonnes, about 1.6 million truck full of plastic annually, as per this June 2018 report (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/ waste/breaching-the-threshold-60748) in Down to Earth that cites data provided by Plastic India Foundation (http://www.plastindia.org/) . Of this, 43% is plastic manufactured for single-use packaging material that will mostly find its way into garbage bins, the report said. In all, 80% of total plastic produced in India is discarded. At the same time, The management and recycling of E plastic waste is rapidly growing as it is a valuable resource of IT industries and it is very hazardous substances and with low recycling rate. The Utilization of e plastic waste materials is a partial to environmental and ecological problems. An experimental study is made on the utilisation of this waste plastic as a CHED
coarse and fine aggregates in the construction of concrete with a percentage replacement ranging from 0%, 20% to 30%i.e. (0%, 10%, 20% and 30%) on the strength criteria of M20 Concrete. Compressive strength, Tensile strength and Flexural strength and other properties solution were tested for three different periods of 7, 14 and 28 days. A comparison was made between the results of a laboratory investigation on various physical properties of concrete made with PAC (plastic aggregate concrete) with NAC (Natural Aggregate Concrete) and found that the results are encouraging to use concrete with waste plastic. It can be concluded that the use of waste plastic in place of natural aggregate in the concrete is not only economically feasible and environment friendly but also reduce the impact of non – biodegradable waste on the earth.
concrete mixtures were tested at room temperature. Seventy cubes were moulded for compressive strength and dry density tests, and 54 prisms were cast for flexural strength and toughness indices tests. Curing ages of 3, 7, 14, and 28 days for the concrete mixtures were applied in this work. The results proved the arrest of the propagation of micro cracks by introducing waste plastic of fabric form shapes to concrete mixtures. It ensures that reusing waste plastic as a sand-substitution aggregate in concrete gives a good approach to reduce the cost of materials and solve some of the solid waste problems posed by plastics.
National status: • Karnataka – In 2015, Ashwini Manjunath of Atria Institute of Technology used e-plastic waste in place of fine and coarse aggregates in the concrete with a percentage replacing ranging from 10 % to 30% on M20 Concrete. The compressive strength observed is 92%, 92% and 93% by 10% replacement in comparison to conventional one after 7, 14 and 28 days. • Bihar – In 2012, Baboo Rai of NIT Patna, studied the fresh and hardened properties of waste virgin plastic mix concrete. A number of concrete mixes were prepared in which sand was partially replaced by waste plastic flakes in varying percentages by volume. It was found that the reduction in workability and compressive strength, due to partially replacement of sand by waste plastic, is minimal and can be enhanced by addition of superplasticizer.
• Bangladesh - The availability of coarse aggregates in Bangladesh has also become a serious issue in the recent years. In Bangladesh, around 147 tons plastic waste is generated every day and most of the volume is Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) coming from different sizes and shapes of plastic bottles, toys, furniture and so on. These plastic wastes can be utilized under proper condition as an ingredient of concrete. Test results revealed that maximum reduction in compressive strength was 44% for 20% replacement of stone by recycled plastic. Tensile splitting strength and flexural strength of concrete were decreased with the increase of percentage of recycled plastic. Dry density was reduced by about 8% from reference concrete for 20% replacement of stone by recycled plastic. The result proved that the recycled plastic aggregates may be used up to 15% replacement of stone aggregates in concrete and may be used in nonload bearing structures where lightweight materials are recommended.
International Status: • Iraq - Industrial activities in Iraq are associated with significant amounts of non-biodegradable solid waste, waste plastic being among the most prominent. Thirty kilograms of waste plastic of fabric form shapes was used as a partial replacement for sand by 0%, 10%, 15%, and 20% with 800 kg of concrete mixtures. All of the
Dwij Pandya, Jeet Gajera, Sanskar Patel, and Faizan Sakariyawala are currently in the third year of B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering. Their field of interest is Material Science. Their goal is to create a sustainable environment by decreasing the amount of plasIc in the world.
Proposed outcome/Learning of the project • The outcome of the project will be effective and efficient utilization of the waste plastics. • It also reduces the dependence on limited natural aggregate available on the earth. • It also reduces the weight of the newly formed concrete as comparison to the conventional one.
CHED
Shaastra | 21
AIR-INK
AIR-INK is a brand of ink and ink-based art products made by condensing soot-based gaseous effluents generated by air pollution due to the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. Soot composed of 2.5-micrometer black carbon particles found in petrol or diesel carbon emissions is captured from the tailpipes of cars and diesel generators through a device called ‘Kaalink’ which is a cylindrical device that is retrofitted into diesel generators’ exhaust systems or exhaust pipes to collect the emissions.
GEGADYNE ENERGY
Gegadyne Energy’s battery consists of unique proprietary nano-material composites and advance battery architectures to enable quick charging batteries with high energy density similar to lithium-ion batteries. These batteries are free from lithium and cobalt electrodes, hence the cost to manufacture these batteries are 1.3X cheaper than lithium ion batteries. On the other hand the range of the batteries is similar to lithium ion.
India’s Revolut in the past
Can dash-charge from 0-100% in electric vehicles in 15 minutes Each 30-mL bottle of Air-Ink represents about 45 minutes worth of soot emissions.
PLASTIC MAN OF INDIA
Rajagopalan Vasudevan is an Indian scientist who has worked mainly in waste management. He developed an innovative method to reuse plastic waste to construct better, more durable and very cost-effective roads. His road construction method is now widely used to construct roads in rural India.
Roads have been constructed in 11 states covering more than 1,00,000 km
LECHAL SHOES
Based in India, the health tech company uses haptic feedbackbased footwear through slight vibrations, which help wearers navigate to their destination and stay fit, which improves its
Bluetooth enabled footwear
balance. With haptic feedback, wearers have the advantage of being able to continue to hear what’s going on Genome Information around them Individual Patient without audio distraction- the main disadvantage Key Generation of Google Maps.
SHIVOM
Shivom is a biotechnology data and analysis company optimizing the way healthcare and omics data is shared, secured and analyzed. They are powering the next era of genomics through #blockchain technology — protecting identity, personalizing healthcare, transforming lives. It has delivered a curated library of multi-omics analytical pipelines to COVID-19 researchers across the globe, playing its part in combating the disease. Public Key
How Shivom works
Private Key h007q_a445s-aoe;csm,adsd=f ildlwvv2c5zaxa
Encrypt
Decrypt Researcher
SPEECH TO LANGUAGE – BREATHING TRANSLATES TO SPOKEN COMMUNICATION
A 16 yr old Indian boy, Arsh Shah Dilbagi invented TALK, an AAC - augmentative and alternative communication device - that converts breaths into synthesized sentences or speak-out commands and phrases. This invention costs about a hundred times less than the sort of Augmentative and Alternative Communication device used by Stephen Hawking.
tionary Ideas t decade BEE SAVER BOT
A 12-year-old Kavya has developed a robot that safely removes honeybees without harming them or humans and relocates the bees to the bee farms. This helps us to save several bees from getting hurt and sustain the number of bee species in the world.
A quadcopter with 3D camera and sensor
REVOLUTIONARY CANCER MOLECULE INHIBITOR
In 2012, Sathees C Raghavan and his team developed a molecular inhibitor, SCR7 which would directly bind with cancer cells and inhibits the DNA repair pathway known as non-homologous end-joining. This offers a strategy toward the treatment of cancer and improvement of existing regimens. It has proven to impede tumor progression in mouse models.
Won the Google Science Fair in 2014
SOLAR WATER PURIFIER
The solar water purifier is developed by scientists at the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute at Phaltan in Maharashtra that neither requires electricity nor wastes water. It is made up of four tubular solar water heaters, attached to a manifold, which are like a thermos flask with vacuum between outer and inner tubes. Non-potable water is filled in the tubes after filtering with fourlayered cotton cloth. The water is heated in stagnation by solar energy making it potable.
Solar water purifier, developed in 2012
Graphical Abstract of SCR7
ADITYA - L1 :
ISRO in collaboration with various Indian research institutes is launching the first solar coronagraph spacecraft of India. The mission is to study the corona of the sun in visible and near infrared band and is planned to take place in April 2020. The spacecraft will be placed in the Lagrangian point 1 of the Earth-Sun system.
Deployed view
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON RC CORRODED BEAM - Jithu N Concrete is a highly versatile material used for construction. It is most widely used construction material in the world and the second most used substance on earth. The popularity of concrete in the construction industry is mainly due to the fact that it is economical, can be made from locally available materials and thus, will be able to satisfy the demands of a particular situation. Even though concrete is able to withstand a large amount of compressive force, it is very weak in handling tension. The low tensile strength of concrete causes its brittle failure in tension at about one tenth of its compressive strength and this led to the invention of reinforced concrete. Reinforcing of concrete enabled it to carry the tensile force as well. Since steel is strong in tension as well as compression it is introduced in the tension as well as the compression region. Forces are transferred to the steel embedded in concrete through the bond between the interfaces of the two materials. The combination of these two features provides concrete high utility and versatility. Reinforced concrete structures consist of a large percentage of buildings and bridges all over the world. These structural components get deteriorated with time due to several reasons. Among the environmental factors that affect the service life and seismic performance levels of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings, corrosion has a timedependent impact and cost on RC buildings. Durability is the ability of a structure to resist against environmental attacks without letting its performance drop below a minimum acceptable limit. Corrosion of steel reinforcement is the most critical durability aspect of RCC structures. It is considered to be the prime reason behind the reduced service-life and premature deterioration in reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Structures located along the coastal lines are highly exposed to corroding environment. The corrosion process has the ability to start in any environmental conditions and the rate of corrosion is determined by the harshness of the environment. The high alkaline environment of good quality concrete forms a passive film on the surface of the embedded steel that normally prevents the steel from corroding further. However, due to the penetration of chloride ions, the passive film is disrupted or destroyed and the steel corrodes. The corrosion products occupy a larger volume and these induce expansive stresses in the concrete surrounding reinforcement resulting
24 | Shaastra
in cracking, delamination and spalling. In addition, an RC member may undergo structural damage due to loss of bond between steel and concrete and also loss of rebar cross-sectional area. Corrosion of steel reinforcement is one of the main causes of deterioration of reinforced concrete structures. It is particularly prevalent in structures consistently exposed to aggressive environments where deterioration often progresses at a rapid phase, resulting in severe damage to reinforcement and its surrounding concrete. While the most obvious effect of corrosion is a reduction in crosssectional area of reinforcing bars, there are other associated effects caused by the build up of corrosion products at the interface between the reinforcing and surrounding concrete. These corrosion products are expansive in nature and so induce radial pressures on the surrounding concrete resulting in cracking and spalling. Furthermore, the build up of corrosion products affects the bonding between the steel reinforcing and surrounding concrete. The effect of corrosion on a structure is more detrimental when the reinforcing steel is the victim of corrosion. Reinforcing steel is normally passive in concrete due to high alkalinity of the concrete pore solution. However, the penetration of chlorides or carbonation in the concrete destroys this inhibitive property of the concrete and leads to corrosion. The corrosion in steel reinforcement is caused due to several factors; it may be imparted in the structure prior to its construction by use of prerusted steel, or due to exposure and loading conditions, that the structure is subjected to. The corrosion of steel is often accompanied by cracking and spalling of the concrete cover, which is caused due to the combined effect of chloride penetration, loads, and the hoop stress around the sides of the reinforcement caused due to the corroded residue. Corrosion imparts reduction and eventually loss of bond between concrete and corroding reinforcement, as well as reduction of crosssectional area of reinforcing steel. IMPRESSED CURRENT TECHNIQUE The corrosion of reinforcing steel is generally accelerated by means of the impressed current technique. This is done to induce a significant degree of corrosion of reinforcing bars embedded in concrete in limited available time. The impressed current technique has been frequently used to study the effect of reinforcement corrosion on the cracking of concrete cover, bond behaviour, and CED
load-bearing capacity of reinforced concrete structural members. For the present study, the impressed current technique was used because of its simplicity, and efficiency to corrode the reinforcement at a constant high rate. This technique can be realized in the laboratory by applying an electrochemical potential between the anode (reinforcing steel), and the cathode (a noble alloy such as stainless steel), immersed in a NaCl solution. By the impressed current method, it is possible to measure the amount of steel dissolving and forming oxides (rust), by converting the current flow to metal loss by means of Faraday’s lawFrom the Eqn(1), the time required to provide a certain level of mass loss can be computed as In RC members, the steel is surrounded by the cover concrete, which resists the corrosion mechanism. The resistance effect increases with increase in the quality of construction. Thus the time calculated by Eqn. (2) must be suitably modified by introducing a factor λ, to obtain the modified time.Here, λ is the constant which accounts for the presence of surrounding medium (i.e. λ equal to 1 for bare bars and higher than 1 for the bars embedded in concrete). OBJECTIVES •
To know corrosion mechanism, causes of corrosion, factors affecting corrosion and effect of corrosion
•
To understand various types of structural and durability repair of corroded structures
•
To study the flexural behaviour of RC beams containing varying degrees of corroded reinforcement (10%, 15%, and 20% mass loss of reinforcement), and to compare the results with the control beam (beam with non-corroded reinforcement).
•
To study the flexural behaviour of FRP jacketed RC beams containing varying degrees of corroded reinforcement (10%,
CED
15%, and 20% mass loss of reinforcement), and to compare the results with the respective non-retrofitted corroded beam, as well as with the control beam. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Reinforcement corrosion is one of the most challenging problems which civil engineers face. Corrosion in reinforced concrete structures is mainly due to the penetration of chloride ions, caused due to use of low strength concrete, poor control over the water-cement ratio, insufficient cover to reinforcement, poor quality of construction and unskilled labour. Chloride ion penetration is usually encountered in marine environments and coastal regions. India is a country which is surrounded by water on all three sides. Thus, the structures built here are threatened by the act of chloride ion penetration. Therefore, it is very much necessary to investigate the effect of corrosion in RC structures built in this locality. Due to seriousness of the issue, the present study aims to ascertain the degradation in load carrying capacity of RC Beams imparted due to corrosion. Retrofitting is the process of modifying an existing damaged structure, in order to meet the strength requirements posed due to increased load, deflection, or corrosion. Retrofitting strategies hold well in the onset of corrosion, and hence the scope of retrofitting a damaged structure was also studied. Most people in the construction sector are unaware of proper retrofitting strategies, as there are no local codal provisions for retrofitting a damaged structure. Jacketing is one of the best methods for retrofitting a damaged structure. There are different types of jacketing, such as RC jacketing, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) jacketing, Ferrocement jacketing, etc. The present study tests the viability of FRP jacketing for retrofitting a damaged RC Beam structure. Jithu N is currently in the second year of M.Tech. in Civil Engineering. His field of interest is Structural Design and his goal is to do something innovative in the infrastructure field.
Shaastra | 25
Similarity Analysis of Legal Documents -Aashka Trivedi and Anya Trivedi
Google.
We’ve all used it, almost on a daily basis, for either tutorial answers, cricket scores or to watch last minute test preparation videos. The whole process of googling is fairly intuitive; you input your query into the search bar, where each query consists of certain keywords that are vital to the information you have requested, and Google retrieves said information in the form of ranked pages. This is basically what is known as information retrieval- you are querying a database to obtain a group of documents which focus on the keywords (or, topics) inputted. Almost all real-world domains deal with what Google does- finding a group of documents that are similar to each other, and also to the inputted query. A particularly interesting domain is the legal domain, where information retrieval is a non-trivial task, considering the extensive nature of the legal document corpus. This task is extremely important in countries following what is known as the Common Law System; a system also followed by the Indian judiciary. In this type of judicial system, the judgement of a case at hand depends vitally on the judgements or verdicts given for previous similar legal cases. Thus, legal judgements are known to have precedence over the verdicts of other similar legal cases. A lawyer typically begins to prepare his argument of a case by manually finding legal documents or judgements that are similar to the case at hand, both to use as citations and as reasoning while preparing his defence. Thus, a system that retrieves similar legal documents is of vital importance. Dr. Rupa G. Mehta of the Computer Engineering Department has recognised the utility of a system that could identify groups of legal documents that described similar cases, and thus could be used by a legal practitioner to prepare his defence. Under her guidance, Ph.D Scholar Jenish Dhanani and our group of final year undergraduate students have been working to create such a system. Our ultimate goal is to analyse a corpus of case documents of the Indian Supreme Court and identify cases which are similar to each other, based on the topics they discuss. In order to convert a natural language document into a form that can be analysed by a machine, it needs to first be vectorised. Vectorization refers to the process of mapping the entire document to a vector space,
26 | Shaastra
where each dimension corresponds to a word in the vocabulary. Although the process of converting a document to a vector is common enough, a major issue in working with legal documents is their large length. This would increase the computational complexity of generating the vectorised forms of these documents. Another drawback of legal documents is their verbose nature, which often leads to the use of redundant words and phrases. Thus, the generated vectors would be large and would contain many redundant features, which would increase the space complexity of their storage and time complexity of their analysis. We propose a fairly simple solution to these problems, which can be understood by closely examining the structure of legal documents themselves. Prior to the 1970s, legal case documents in India were structured into meaningful components, one of which was known as the headnote. The headnote of a legal case acted as a brief summary of the case itself, and included the topics discussed, legal issues addressed, as well as other case details. Along with the headnote, the document was structured into evidence and judgement. Unfortunately, such a structure cannot be found in Indian Supreme Court Documents post the 1970s. We aim to build a system which identifies the paragraphs which act as a summary of the entire case, thereby eliminating the need for analysing (and vectorising) the complete, lengthy document. This can be done by building a classification model using supervised machine learning to classify paragraphs into those which contribute to the headnote or those which don’t. Similarity of two documents can then be determined by gauging the similarity of their “headnote paragraphs”, instead of the entire document as a whole. By acting on a compressed version of the document, we retain all important concepts of the original document, while also reducing the vocabulary size, time complexity of processing and space requirements for the vectorization process. Using the intuition that most headnotes are confined to the beginning of the legal case document, we reason that it would prove useful to scrutinize only the initial paragraphs of the document. Doc2vec representation is used for tagged paragraphs of the document, namely as headnote and non-headnote. Such a tagging can be found in pre-1970s case documents. We then pass this labelled dataset as training data into our Support Vector Machine classifier, which uses a COED
Radial Basis Function as its kernel. Testing on unseen data, i.e. non-labelled paragraphs showed promising results. The SVM could correctly identify the paragraph (or group of paragraphs) which would contribute to the headnote. We propose to quantify the similarity of two documents by identifying whether their headnotes speak about similar topics. This can be done using Topic Modelling. Topic Modelling methods, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), use statistical methods to determine the underlying topics of a textual document. According to LDA analysis, a topic is a set of words that occur together frequently, i.e., a topic is defined as a probability distribution over terms. Similarly, a document is viewed as a probability distribution over topics, wherein the probability signifies how likely it is that the document contains a specific topic. We propose using such an approach to identify the set
COED
of topics that the headnote of a case talks about. Similar cases would then be categorised as those which address overlapping topics. In this manner, we aim to automate the mechanism of finding similar legal documents given a large corpus of judgements in a legal database. Aashka Trivedi is in the fourth year of B.Tech. in Computer Engineering. Her fields field of interest are Natural Language Processing and Data Science. She looks forward to getting a Master's degree and pursue job in industrial sector. Anya Trivedi is in the fourth year of B.Tech. in Computer Engineering. Her fields of interest are Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. She looks forward to getting a Master's degree and PhD., and carrying on her research.
Shaastra | 27
Electrical Vehicle - Athul Vijay The concept of Electrical Vehicle is more than a 100 years old. The invention of internal combustion engine made electrical vehicles step out from the field. The exhaust emissions from the internal combustion engine created huge environmental issues, while a large simultaneous dependency on foreign crude oil import further shifted the world's focus to Electrical Vehicle in the late 1960s. The Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program, started in the 1990s made more research on the area of electrical vehicle. The carbon dioxide gas generated from the running vehicles are the primary offender in global warming. The rate of carbon dioxide gas emission is on an ever-increasing spree, polluting our environment. 93 percentage of automobiles that run today are petroleum based which will be exhausted within 50 to 100 years. Furthermore, most of the energy released from petroleum is wasted into the atmosphere and amounts to almost 75 percentage. The Electrical vehicle technology is quite promising as it avoids the harmful impact on the environment due to vehicle transportation, and especially considering the fuel issue that is to happen in the future.
Figure 1
History of Electrical Vehicles
Who invented the very first EV is uncertain as several inventors have been given credit. In 1828, Hungarian Ă nyos Jedlik invented a small-scale model car powered by an electric motor that he designed. Somewhere in between 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain), Robert Anderson of Scotland invented a crude electric-powered carriage. In 1835, another small-scale electric car was designed by Professor Stratingh of Groningen, Holland, and was built by his assistant Christopher Becker. In 1835, Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith from Brandon, Vermont, built a small-scale electric car. Davenport was also the inventor of the first
28 | Shaastra
American-built DC electric motor. More practical and successful electric road vehicles were invented by both Thomas Davenport and Scotsmen Robert Davidson around 1842. Both inventors were the first to use the newly invented but non-rechargeable electric cells or batteries. Frenchmen Gaston Plante invented a better storage battery in 1865 and his fellow countrymen Camille Faure further improved the storage battery in 1881. Better capacity storage batteries were needed for electric vehicles to become practical. In the late 1800s, France and Great Britain were the first nations to support the widespread development of electric vehicles. In 1899, a Belgian-built electric racing car called "La Jamais Contente" set a world record for land speed of 68 mph. It was designed by Camille Jnatzy. It was not until 1895 that Americans began to devote attention to electric vehicles after an electric tricycle was built by A.L. Ryker and a six-passenger wagon was built by William Morrison, both in 1891. Many innovations followed and interest in motor vehicles increased greatly in the late 1890s and early 1900s. In fact, William Morrison's design with room for passengers is often considered the first real and practical EV. In 1897, the first commercial EV application was established as a fleet of New York City taxis built by the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company of Philadelphia. By the turn of the century, America was prosperous and cars, now available in steam, electric or gasoline versions were becoming more popular. The years 1899 and 1900 were the high point of electric cars in America as they outsold all other types of cars. Later in 1916, Woods invented a hybrid car that had both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. Electric vehicles had many advantages over their competitors in the early 1900s. They did not have the vibration, smell and noise associated with gasoline-powered cars. Changing gears on gasoline cars was the most difficult part of driving while electric vehicles did not require gear changes. While steam-powered cars also had no gear shifting, they suffered from long startup times of up to 45 minutes on cold mornings. The steam cars had less range before needing water compared to an electric car's range on a single charge. The only good roads of the period were in town, which meant that most commutes were local, a perfect situation for electric vehicles since their range was limited. The electric vehicle was the preferred choice of many because it did not require manual effort to start, like with the hand crank on gasoline vehicles and there was no wrestling with a gear shifter. Electric vehicles EED
enjoyed success into the 1920s with production peaking in 1912.
Extinction of Electrical Vehicle
For the following reasons the electric car declined in popularity. It was several decades before there was a renewed interest. 1) By the 1920s, America had a better system of roads that now connected cities, bringing with it the need for longer-range vehicles. 2) The discovery of Texas crude oil reduced the price of gasoline so that it was affordable to the average consumer. 3) The invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering in 1912 eliminated the need for the hand crank. The initiation of mass production of internal combustion engine vehicles by Henry Ford made these vehicles widely available and affordable in the 500 dollar to 1000 dollar price range. By contrast, the price of the less efficiently produced electric vehicles continued to rise. In 1912, an electric roadster sold for 1750 dollars while a gasoline car sold for 650 dollars. Electric vehicles had all but disappeared by 1935. The years following until the 1960s were dead years for electric vehicle development and for their use as personal transportation.
Figure 2
Vehicle performance usually includes acceleration performance, evaluated by the time used to accelerate the vehicle from zero speed to a given speed (starting acceleration), or from a low speed to a given high speed (passing ability), evaluated by the maximum road grade that the vehicle can overcome at a given speed, and the maximum speed that the vehicle can reach. In electrical vehicle, only traction motor delivers torque to the driven wheels. Thus, the vehicle performance is completely determined by the torque speed or power-speed characteristic of the traction motor.
THE RETURN
The 60s and 70s saw a need for alternative-fuelled vehicles to reduce the problems of exhaust emissions from internal combustion engines and to reduce the dependency on imported foreign crude oil. Many attempts to produce practical electric vehicles occurred during the years from 1960 and beyond.
Basic Requirement for EV
1. High instant power and high-power density 2. High torque at low speed for starting and climbing 3. Very wide speed range with constant power region 4. High efficiency at constant torque and constant speed 5. High efficiency for regenerative braking 6. Lower moment of inertia Selection of component for electrical vehicle.
Figure 3 The Characteristics of Electrical Drive as shown above has the constant torque region and its constant power region above the base speed. A vehicle, in order to meet its operational requirement, such as the initial acceleration with
Characteristics of Vehicle
The extended speed operation for the Internal combustion Engine (ICE), is achieved by the multiple gear system, as shown in Figure 2. With the electrical vehicle, the same character can be achieved, without gear system using electrical motor drive.
Pininfarina Battista 1898PS of power and 2300Nm of torque, 0-100 kmph in less than two seconds and tops out at 350 kmph
EED
Shaastra | 29
Venturi Buckeye Bullet 3 World’s Fastest Electric Car 3000PS of power and Top-speed of 549.43 kmph
minimum power, operation entirely in constant power is needed. Operation entirely in constant power, however, is not possible for any practical vehicle. From the desired output characteristics of electric motor drives observed that, the electrical motor drive is expected to be capable of offering a high torque at low speed for starting and acceleration, and a high power at high speed for cruising for electric vehicles. At the same time, the speed range under constant power is desired as wide as possible. Ideally, eliminating the constant torque region would provide the minimum power rating of the motor, but this is not physically realisable. Under the normal mode of operation, the electric motor drive can provide constant rated torque up to its base or rated speed. At this speed, the motor reaches its rated power limit. The operation beyond the base speed up to the maximum speed is limited to this constant power region. The range of the constant power operation depends primarily on the particular motor type and its control strategy. The maximum available torque in the natural mode of operation decreases inversely with the square of the speed. Although the machine torque in the natural mode decreases inversely with the square of the speed, for some extremely high-speed motors the natural mode of operation is an appreciable part of its total power-speed profile. Inclusion of this natural mode for such motor drives may result in a reduction of the total power requirement. Thus, from the output characteristics of electric motor drives for electrical vehicle, the following valuable results can be concluded as follows-
C. D.
E.
F.
G.
power region ratio increases. This results in a larger motor size and volume. Passing performance (passing time and passing distance) suffers considerably as the constant power region ratio increases. Motors maximum speed has a pronounced effect on the required torque of the motor. Low speed motors with the extended constant power speed range have a much higher rated shaft torque. Consequently, they need more iron and copper to support this higher flux and torque. As motor power decreases (due to extending the range of constant power operation), the required torque is increasing. Therefore, although the converter power requirement (hence the converter cost) will decrease when increasing the constant power range, the motor size, volume, and the cost will increase. Increasing the maximum speed of the motor can reduce the motor size by allowing gearing to increase shaft torque. However, the motor maximum speed cannot be increased indefinitely without incurring more cost and transmission requirements. Thus, there is multitude of system level convicts when extending the constant power range. For constant power operation region, the speed is from base speed to the maximum speed, in this region there is no rapid acceleration, so torque may be reduced as long as resistance may be overcome. The motor power will be twice off the smallest power of the motor, if the vehicle runs in the constant power region at all time. Extending motor constant power region can reduce peak power of the motor under the same vehicle operation constraints. Extended speed constant power operation has a pronounced effect on the motor rated power to meet the vehicle acceleration requirement.
A. The power requirement (rated power) for acceleration performance (acceleration time and acceleration distance) decrease as constant power region ratio increases. B. Conversely, the torque requirement (rated torque) for acceleration increases as constant Athul Vijay is currently pursuing his PhD. in Electrical Engineering. His fields of interest include Power Electronics in Electrical Vehicles and Power Quality Issues. His goal is to carry on his research on electrical vehicles so that the world can minimise the use of fossil fuels as much as possible and aim for a greener environment.
30 | Shaastra
EED
Predicting the Timing of Laboratory Earthquakes using Deep Learning Methods - Vasu Eranki. Predicting when an earthquake will occur is an important task for the Earth Science community, due to the destructive nature of earthquakes. There are three main parameters used when forecasting an earthquake. Firstly, when will it occur, secondly, the magnitude of the earthquake and thirdly, where will it occur. For this manuscript, the focus was on the former, predicting the timing of an earthquake, to be more specific, the predictions are related to the time left before the next laboratory earthquake. The timing is based on a measure of fault strength. When a laboratory earthquake occurs this stress drops unambiguously.
The training and testing data are from a single experiment, to further add to this there is no overlap between the training and testing data. The testing data comprises of 2624 segments where each chunk contains 0.0375 seconds worth of data, sampled at 4MHz, hence in each chunk there are 150,000 entries. In the training dataset there are a total of 17 laboratory earthquakes, which gives a total of 629,145,480 entries in the training dataset.
The data used for this manuscript is from a laboratory setup where an experiment is conducted upon a rock in a double direct shear geometry subjected to bi-axial loading as seen in Fig 1.1. Two fault gouge layers are sheared simultaneously while subjected to a constant normal load and a prescribed shear velocity. The laboratory faults fail in repetitive cycles of stick and slip that is meant to mimic the cycle of loading and failure on tectonic faults. While the experiment is considerably simpler than a fault in the earth, it shares many physical characteristics which are shown in Fig. 1.2. The seismic data is recorded by a piezoceramic sensor which outputs an integer value of voltage. The sampling frequency is 4MHz and it records data in bins of 4096 samples. In between bins there is a gap of 12us gap.
Moving on to the dataset preparation, after selectively dropping certain laboratory earthquakes to make the training dataset’s distribution look much more like the testing data, the training dataset is then broken into chunks of 150,000 data points without any overlap, gaussian noise of mean 0 and width of 0.5 is added to each chunk and then the median of the chunk is removed. Once this is done, a 4th Order Daubechie wavelet is used to clean the chunk of high frequency noise. Once the dataset has been cleaned of high frequency noise, it is then used for generating features which are used for training. Initially, 69 features were extracted for the purpose of training the model; however, several features were correlated with each other which led to the model having poor performance. After removing several features, a total of 17 features were selected which were then used for training purposes. The models used are neural network based models which employed supervised learning to fit the input to the output. Having employed regression in the gradient boosted tree approach, the first neural
ECED
Shaastra | 31
network model developed was a fully dense connected model which can be said to employ regression to fit the input to the output. The fully dense model’s architecture can be seen in Figure. The second supervised learning model contained 3 sub models, this was made possible due to the availability of a MIMO (Multiple-Input MultipleOutput) based training in Keras. One of the submodules is made up entirely of GRU units; the second and third sub-module are a combination of GRU units and 1D Convolutional Layers. The architecture is shown in Fig 1.3. The first neural network based model which was a fully dense model with a batch size of 64 was used. The loss function used was L1 loss or otherwise known as Mean Absolute Error (MAE), with L2 regularization of 0.01 applied to prevent the model from overfitting. Batch Normalization was used at the beginning before any layer. The optimizer used was the Adam Optimizer with the learning rate left at its default value of 0.001. The total number of epochs defined for training was 10,000. Early stopping was used with a patience of 400 epochs. For the second neural network based model which had three sub models, the batch size used for training was 64. L1 loss was used as the loss function with L2 regularization of 0.01 applied to prevent the model from overfitting. CuDNN based GRU layer available in Keras were used as they are optimized for the purpose of training on a GPU. The activation layers used the tanh activation function and Batch Normalization layers were added to the model. In the 1D Convolutional layers, the kernel size used was 1 with a stride of 1. The optimizer used was the Adam optimizer, with the learning rate set to its default value of 0.001. The total number of epochs defined for training was 1,000. Early stopping was used with a patience of 400 epochs. For the third neural network based model, which is the same as the second model but with reduced
32 | Shaastra
Fig 1.3 Keras MIMO based model containing 3 sub models
number of parameters, most hyperparameters were kept constant, the only differences are that there are no activation layers used in this model and the total number of epochs used for training was reduced down to 200 from 1,000 and early stopping was disabled. All the models were trained on a GPU. All the results were generated on an Nvidia-GeForce 1070 (8GB GPU RAM), Octa-Core CPU with 31.4 GB RAM. Python 3.6.8 was used. The Python packages used were LightGBM 2.2.3, Keras 2.2.4-tf with Tensorflow in the backend, Numpy, Scipy, PyWavelets and Librosa. The MFCC coefficients were generated using the HTK method while using Librosa. Table 1 shows the comparison of the different DNN based models in terms of their obtained MAE values. The corresponding number of training parameters is also mentioned in Table.
ECED
Models Fully Dense
Number of Parameters
MAE values
43,637
3.43682
GRU
1,751,397
3.39659
GRU-Conv1D
1,050,497
2.64390
Conv1D-GRU (Without Batch Normalisation)
1,154,689
2.64607
At last I express my gratitude to Dr. Kishor P. Upla and Mr. Vishal Chudasama for supporting me throughout the project. Vasu Eranki is currently in the fourth year of B.Tech. in Electronics and Communication Engineering. His fields of interest include Machine Learning and Signal Processing. His goal is to use Deep Learning Neural Networks to predict the timing of laboratory earthquakes from the acoustic data.
ECED
Shaastra | 33
Can Pores Influence a Crack? - Saravanan Ramesh Research Opportunity 'If you encounter a problem in Research, you must be happy and thankful' ~ Prof. K. Ramesh. Those wise words dictated and moulded my vision towards research. I was honoured for my selection under INAE fellowship to pursue my research internship, at IIT Madras, under a pioneer in the field of Fracture Mechanics and Digital Photoelasticity - Prof. K.Ramesh. I was allowed to work as an independent researcher and worked relentlessly on understanding the influence of porosity on the propagational path of a crack. The main idea was to address the behavior of a crack in the vicinity of macroporosity in cast turbine and compressor blades of jet engines. I worked on Abaqus, using XFEM, to simulate the crack path and the validation of my FEA simulation by the experimentation added an extra zing to my quest to further simulate complex phenomenon of the same. As a next step, employing digital photoelasticity to study the stress field interactions between the crack tip and porosity would open the doorway for several conclusive findings. The main intention of this article is to provide a glimpse of a major work being carried out in this direction.
An Overview of the Project The detrimental effect of porosity in cast turbine and compressor blades has been a major issue since long. Though there has been extensive development in casting technology and the incorporation of advanced strategies to reduce the defects, the complete preclusion of porosity in the cast products has not been achieved. The influence of porosity on the path of propagation of a crack has been studied in this work. Quasi-static tensile simulation was performed on polymethyl methacrylate specimens, using Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM). This was done to observe the changes in the crack propagation path due to the presence of macro porosity. The XFEM results were validated by experimental tensile testing on the same specimens. This serves as a pilot study to understand and predict the path of crack propagation in cast components such as turbine/compressor blades with inherent porosity.
34 | Shaastra
Introduction One of the aerospace materials used as turbine/ compressor blades is Ti6Al4V, an ι+β type alloy. Investment Casting has been widely used for casting TiAl alloys. One of the most common issues associated with casting is porosity. The major factors contributing to porosity have often been either due to shrinkage or gas formation/ entrapment. There are several studies which have investigated the effects of porosity on cast materials. Ammar et al. have shown that the presence of porosity is detrimental to the mechanical properties of cast alloys as they lead to lower fatigue life, strength and ductility, and serve as crack initiation sites. The pores present after casting are highly random and vary in number and size. Anton du Plessis and Pierre Rossouw reported macro porosity as large as 2.7 mm in cast Ti6Al4V alloy. Cotton et al. have reported, in their work, about the existence of voids of the order of 10–20 mm in the cast titanium products. Though it is a common practice to subject the cast specimens to hot isostatic pressing (HIP) in order to eliminate or minimise the porosity, the ability of HIP to completely eliminate macro porosity is still under research. Zhang et al. made one such attempt to study the applicability of HIP for healing millimetre sized pores in cast Ni based alloys. The numerical simulation of crack propagation can be attempted by meshless methods, finite element (FE) method, boundary element method etc. However, finite element method has been extensively used for the simulation of fracture problems. The propagation of crack into arbitrary directions creates discontinuity in the displacement field which demands remeshing in finite element code, at every stage of crack propagation. Nevertheless, Extended Finite element method (XFEM) precludes the necessity of remeshing by incorporating enrichment functions into the code. The modelling of crack geometry is performed independent of the mesh and eliminates the need to remesh as the crack propagates. Singh et al. have shown that XFEM results were in good agreement with experimental as well as numerical remeshing solutions.
MED
The current study explores the behaviour of a crack in the presence of porosity. The influence of the pores in altering the crack trajectory due to the interaction of the stress fields is simulated using the XFEM module in Abaqus software and presented here.
Details on Finite element Analysis In this simulation, porosity is modelled as small holes of 3 mm diameter. An edge cracked polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is simulated for various configurations to study the influence of small holes in affecting the crack propagation path. The properties of the PMMA specimen used for the analysis is specified in Table 1. Table 1. PMMA properties used for the analysis Young’s Modulus
3 GPa
Poisson's ratio
0.33
Maximum Principal Stress
70 MPa
Fracture energy
240 N/m
Maximum principal stress criterion is used to determine the direction of crack growth which postulates the growth of the crack in the direction perpendicular to the maximum principal stress. While maximum principal stress determines the damage initiation, fracture energy is used as a criterion to predict the behaviour of the model once the damage is initiated and hence dictates the damage evolution of the specimen.
A rectangular specimen of 100 mm Ă— 40 mm is used for 2-dimensional XFEM analysis. An edge crack of 5 mm length is modelled in the specimen. The domain of the specimen is discretized using CPS4R, four node plane stress elements, in this analysis. A quasi static uniaxial tensile analysis is performed on the specimen by loading (displacement control = 1mm/min) the top edge and constraining the lower edge. The mesh is refined in the vicinity of the holes for accurate prediction of the crack path near the holes. The meshed specimen (meshed with 1377 CPS4R elements) with the loading and boundary conditions is shown in Fig. 1. Parametric study Effect of hole location and number of holes The simulation studied various configurations of the holes distributed in the vicinity of the crack path in a defined way. The configurations included no hole, 1 hole, 2 holes and 3 holes specimens as shown in Fig. 2. The perpendicular distances of the centre of the holes are selected at 3 mm below, 3 mm above and 2 mm below (with respect to the crack tip) for the first, second and third hole respectively. Prominent changes in the path of the crack due to the presence of porosity can be clearly seen from the results shown next. (All the images of the simulation shown only cover the portion of the crack in the vicinity of the holes. The simulation images are extracted at different instances during which the load is ramped in the analysis)
Displacement Control = 1mm/min
Figure 1. FE model of the specimen with three holes showing the load and boundary conditions
MED
Figure 2. Configurations of the simulated specimens, (a) no hole specimen, (b) 1-hole specimen, (c) 2-hole specimen, (d) 3-hole specimen
Shaastra | 35
1. For the specimen without any holes, the crack propagates undisturbed and perpendicular to the direction of loading throughout the test as shown in Fig. 3. 2. For the specimen with a single hole, the crack tip is initially influenced by the presence of the hole near it. The hole present below the crack kinks the crack towards the hole, but the crack doesn’t merge into the hole. This is because of the presence of hole at a perpendicular distance greater than the limiting distance (2.5 mm hereaccording to a prior simulation study). The crack reverts back to the perpendicular path due to the diminishing effect of the hole, after which it propagates perpendicular to the loading direction as shown in Fig. 4. 3. In case of the specimen with two holes, after kinking towards the hole at the bottom, the crack then kinks upwards being influenced by the hole above in its path of propagation. It is seen that the crack doesn’t merge into the upper
Figure 3. Crack propagation path of no hole specimen (a-c) and von Misses stress field corresponding to: (d) Image ‘a’, (e) Image ‘b’
Figure 5. Crack propagation path of 2 hole specimen (a-c) and von Misses stress field corresponding to: (d) Image ‘a’, (e) Image ‘b’
36 | Shaastra
hole. This is because the hole is located above the maximum perpendicular limit which merges the crack into a hole. The crack then assumes the path perpendicular to the loading direction and propagates almost undisturbed as shown in Fig. 5. 4. For the specimen with three holes, the influence of the first two holes is the same as case 3. It is observed that the crack is then influenced by the presence of the third hole and kinks towards it. It is seen that the crack terminates into this final hole as it is located below the limiting distance (<2.5 mm). After termination, a continued tensile simulation shows new cracks emerging from the periphery of the second (upper hole) and third holes. However, it is seen that only the crack which emerged from the third hole propagates. Also, it doesn’t propagate completely perpendicular to the loading direction but is seen to curve towards the edge as shown in Fig. 6.
Figure 4. Crack propagation path of 1 hole specimen (a-c) and von Misses stress field corresponding to: (d) Image ‘a’, (e) Image ‘b’
Figure 6. Crack propagation path of 3 hole specimen (a-c) and von Misses stress field corresponding to: (d) Image ‘a’, (e) Image ‘b’
MED
It is worth noting that linear elastic fracture mechanics is employed for the analysis since the plasticity at the crack tip is neglected due to the highly brittle nature of the material used here. The von Misses stress field plot is shown for all the specimen configurations.
Experiment The tensile testing of the configurations of the specimens shown in Fig. 2 was also performed experimentally to validate the crack path obtained by XFEM simulation. A displacement controlled tensile test, at the rate of 1 mm/min was performed using a 5 kN capacity UTM of Dak System Inc. The results obtained experimentally closely match the simulated results and hence validate the XFEM study. The experimental results for the 1-hole and 3-holes specimens are shown in Fig. 7.
Figure 7. Crack path obtained for 1-hole specimen (a) experimental, (b) simulation, and for 3-holes specimen (c) experimental, (d)simulation
Conclusion Modelling porosity as small holes serves as a first approximation for this study. By distributing the holes near the crack in a defined manner, the study was able to capture the domineering effect of the holes in affecting the crack path. The experimental validation of the numerical simulation approves the usage of XFEM for the purpose required here. The outcome of this study provides a glimpse of the behaviour of a crack in materials with inherent porosity. The influence of the perpendicular distance limit which marks whether a crack would merge into a hole or not, and the configuration of the holes in altering the crack path have been studied. These are valuable parameters which could be extrapolated to deviate the crack to a desired direction, arrest a crack, reduce the rate of crack propagation and hence increase the lifetime of the flawed turbine / compressor blade. The numerical simulation can also be extended to study the effect of subsurface porosities, thermal effects, etc in influencing the crack initiation and propagation. The current study and the future attempts in the same direction are ultimately aimed at a fail-safe design approach. Saravanan Ramesh is currently in the fourth year of BTech. in Mechanical Engineering. His fields of interest include Material Science and Fracture Mechanics. His goal is to take the onus of exploration and appreciation of the nuances in his fields with his higher studies and relentless research in the same.
Acknowledgment I would want to take this moment to thank Professor K. Ramesh. I would like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to him for providing me with this opportunity of research internship under his guidance.
Presenting my work at the 2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Materials & Manufacturing Technologies, organised at BITS Pilani Dubai
MED
Shaastra | 37
Into the world of Numbers - Sarthak Gupta Harish-Chandra Research Institute (HRI) in Praygraj (Allahabad), Uttar Pradesh is a prominent institution dedicated to research in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Many worldrenowned physicists and mathematicians have been associated with the institute. Prof Ashoke sen, who is a pioneer in the field of string theory is still working at HRI. First time I visited HarishChandra Research Institute (HRI) in summer of 2017. I got a golden opportunity to pursue an internship under Prof B. Ramakrishnan through Indian Academy of Sciences Summer Research Fellowship. This is the point which was a boost towards learning Number Theory and my mathematical career per se. I learned about congruences, quadratic congruences, cryptography during the internship. I also deepened my understanding in continued fraction. There, I also solved a selfinvented problem regarding continued fractions. I made a lot of new friends and I am still in touch with few of them. The second time, I went there from 12 to 25 February 2018 (this is the time when we have the annual techno-cultural fest SPARSH). I went to discuss my work on the problem: Find a positive integer n such that n/2 is a square, n/3 is a cube, n/5 is a 5fth power, n/7 is a seventh power ... n/p is a p-th power with Prof. Kalyan Chakraborty and other PhD students. I published this work in the journal “The Mathematics Student” of Indian Mathematical Society. The third time, I visited HRI in summer of 2018. I attended the Summer Programme in Mathematics (SPIM) at Harish-Chandra Research Institute (HRI), where I learnt Galois Theory, algebraic topology and Fourier analysis. After the program finished, I extended my stay at HRI to work on a project with Prof. Kalyan Chakraborty. The project was about ‘Diophantine m-tuples with property D(n)’ A set (x1, x2 , … xm) of distinct positive integers for which xixj+ n is the square of an
38 | Shaastra
integer, whenever i is not equal to j is called Diophantine m-tuples with property D(n). Thus {1, 3, 8, 120} is a Diophantine 4-tuples with property D(1). I studied about the construction and extension of these m-tuples. Speaking about the environment at HRI, it is highly oriented towards research. The institute has a small and beautiful campus around 13 kilometres from Prayagraj railway station. The institute buses are available throughout the day `for going to the city. There are hardly 100 students in the institute and around half of them are visitors which makes the atmosphere very quiet and perfectly suitable for doing research work. The night canteen in the institute is open for 24 hours (It has a lot of space and a blackboard, so people discuss their work over a cup of coffee or some light snack). The institute library remains open till 2 AM and the printing facility is free of cost. Sarthak Gupta is currently in the fifth year of Integrated MSc. in Applied Mathematics. His field of interest is Number Theory. His goal is to solve the Generalised Reimannian Hypothesis, and Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture which are considered to be the millennium problems of Mathematics. AMHD
C O U N C I L
E V E N T S
COGNIZANCE 2020
A PROJECT SUPPORT SCHEME “Research is the distance between an idea and its realization.” And to bridge this gap, The Research and Innovation Affairs Council (RIAC) is proud to herald the inception of ‘COGNIZANCE 2019-20’, a project support scheme launched to garner and nourish the research instinct in students, right from the undergraduate level. The RIAC intends to stimulate the students’ caliber to innovate by extending support and financial aid to the new and innovative projects which are facing a dearth of funds. The following is a brief description of the projects received :
CargoEV- The resurgence of Electric Vehicles due to technological developments and an increased focus on renewable energy is the source of inspiration for this project. This project by Viraj Kesarwani and team has come up with a greener and cleaner alternative in the form of a unisex Electric bicycle capable of carrying cargo loads up to 30 kg. This vehicle, designed for delivery services, is a creative and innovative approach of basic engineering principles into the real world.
ChemRover- The rise in demand for energy and the burden on its conventional sources has made it necessary to find sustainable sources of energy. Following the same ideology, this project by Nidhi Patel and team proposes to design a chemically powered car that is capable of incorporating all the basic functions from starting of the vehicle and propagation to stopping using chemical, physical and thermodynamic energy changes only.
Viscometer- This model, by Shantanu Yawale and team, is a Concentric cylinder viscometer or Couette Viscometer into electronic viscometer for measuring the viscosity of Newtonian model uses ARDUINO UNO to perform the calculations calibrated, hence minimising the error in the proposed readings
creative approach to developing an fluids. The proposed digitally and
Aeromodelling- This project by Anirudh Manoj and team is aimed at designing and fabricating a fixed-wing model aircraft including features such as an effective payload drop on a prescribed area during dynamic flight and a system to govern the stability of the aircraft without an onboard gyroscope. This project is an impeccable application of various engineering concepts like fluid mechanics and machine dynamics amalgamated with crafting techniques like origami.
40 | Shaastra
Line follower- This project by Atul Dhamija and team is a robotic model expected to follow a white line on a black surface and compete against other similar models. This model represents a perfect application of mechatronics, involving intricate design and coding to drive the model. It consists of a metallic chassis with an infrared sensor, ARDUINO UNO microcontroller, and motors for power.
Wearable Textile Antenna- This project by Nikita Mistry and Kashmira Ghom is based on a revolutionary concept, incorporating a wearable antenna as a part of clothing used to serve a variety of purposes such as tracking and navigation, mobile computing, public safety, telemedicine, and defence. It consists of a cotton-based substrate to absorb moisture, a radiating element called patch made of copper and the antenna’s base, also made of copper. Two patches have been designed in this model, a dual-band rectangular one and a hexagonal one, operating at different frequency ranges.
Robowars- This wireless combat robot by Adarsh Sunil and team is a lightweight model built to compete with similar models in the arena. This model is equipped with high-performance motors, a Vyper motor controller and a high carbon abrasionresistant carbon weapon and displays precise coding and computer-aided analysis. This project has been lauded in IIT Bombay’s techfest, Sparsh 2019 (SVNIT) and CKP College, Surat.
| SVNIT STUDENT RESEARCH WEBSITE | The Research and Innovation Affairs Council (RIAC) is proud to introduce the ‘Research Scholars’ Portal’. This portal is aimed at making available the research work being executed at the institute to all research enthusiasts and potential collaborators to connect with research scholars working in their respective fields of interest and gain insight into the same. The portal also engenders a platform to foster the research involvement of young talents. It will help link people of similar fields of interest.
Shaastra | 41
INTERNSHIP SEMINAR Endeavouring to carve a trait of leaving a legacy. Enjoying the rich breeze of responsibility!
This seminar was a selfless attempt to disseminate awareness amongst the students regarding the research internship possibilities and was purely aimed at fostering the research involvement of young talents. The Research Internship seminar is the event that kick-started the Research and Innovation Affairs Council activity in the academic year. The event was made possible by Dr. V.H.Pradhan, Dean Student Welfare and through the constant support of Dr. Chetan. M. Patel, faculty advisor of the Research and Innovation affairs Council. The event had speakers who have done internships and research in prestigious institutes in India and abroad. The information regarding writing Statement of Purpose, emailing professors and various internship opportunities were given in this programme. The event started after a small introductory talk by Dr. Chetan Patel. He was followed by Mr. Saravanan Ramesh who did an internship at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru in Summer 2018 and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras during Summer 2019. He shared his internship experience, the outcome of that internship and the environment when it comes to research. The talk was further carried on by Mr. Darshit Patel who was a Mitacs scholar. He was selected as a Mitacs Globalink Research Intern to work on a Battery Thermal Management System in Summer 2019 at the University of Guelph, Canada. Mitacs is a nonprofit organization that designs programs to promote research in Canada with a collaboration with about 70 Universities in Canada. The
42 | Shaastra
selection for this program requires a minimum of 8 CGPA and a convincing research statement. He then went on to share his internship experience. Then came in Ms. Pankti Shah who was a DAAD scholar and hence did her internship in Germany. She laid stress to the fact that one needs above 9 CGPA to have a chance of getting selected via DAAD. She further talked about the difference between doing an internship in India and that in Germany in terms of experience and lifestyle. She was taken over by Mr. Ramkumar Radhakrishnan, who had done his research internship at Jadavpur University in Summer 2019 where he published his research paper in the journal Modern Physics Letter A. He delivered the talk on the various internship opportunities available for students of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. He broke the nightmare of the audience regarding CGPA, research, and internships. He also explained the importance of choosing the right guide for theoretical studies and the right research centre for carrying out experimental studies. Mr. Pratik Suthar also contributed to the seminar by speaking about 'Sansadiya Internship' in which one gets to do an internship in the Parliament of India. Finally, Mr. Ankul Prajapati gave a brief talk on the difficulties one faces while doing research and how to overcome those.
WORKSHOP (FEAST) and NASTRAN. After getting acquainted with the software, the participants were guided to solve a variety of real-life engineering problems. During the course of the two-day workshop, the students learnt to create surfaces and volumes, node points and meshing, assigning material properties to the generated objects and further extrapolating this knowledge to solve and analyse effect of stresses on beams, free vibrations, motion of a crankshaft, buckling problems, steady-state and transient convection heat transfer, etc. The workshop concluded with Dr. A. A. Shaikh, Dean R&C, addressing the participants and thanking Mr. Aniket for taking the time and efforts to impart knowledge about FEAST and helping students to develop their skill set. The Research and Innovation Affairs Council (RIAC) organized a workshop on the software FEAST on 15 & 16 February 2020. FEAST (Finite Element Analysis of Structures) is the structural and heat transfer analysis software based on finite element method realised by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre / Indian Space Research Organisation. The software has Static, Freevibration, Buckling, Transient, Frequency, Random response and Heat transfer capabilities. These capabilities are supported by a rich element library comprising beam, shell, solid, axisymmetric, spring, rigid-links, gap etc. and can handle isotropic, orthotropic, laminate composites and viscoelastic material models. The above features enable real-life applications of FEAST in structural engineering, solid mechanics and heat transfer problems of Aerospace, Automobile, Civil, Mechanical and Marine engineering. The cost of owning the software is competitive in comparison with similar non-indigenous software packages. The software can be deployed in Linux and Windows operating systems with minimum hardware requirements. The two-day workshop, in which around 25 students from pre-final and final year mechanical engineering participated, was conducted by Mr.Aniket Bhelsaiker from SVR Infotech, Pune.
In conclusion, the FEAST workshop proved to be fruitful for the participants as it gave allowed simulating theoretical concepts studied in classrooms. Overall, it was a beneficial experience for all. The RIAC is grateful to Dean R&C for enthusiastically supporting the council to conduct this workshop and to Mr. Aniket Bhelsaiker for effectively providing a hands-on experience of the software, FEAST. In future, the council has planned to organise workshops on MATLAB, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Solid Works, etc.
The first day of the workshop commenced with Dr. D.I.Lalwani (Associate Professor, MED) welcoming and felicitating Mr. Aniket. The participants were then briefed about the origin of the software FEAST, its features juxtaposed to similar software such as ANSYS, Hypermesh
Shaastra | 43
INVITED TALK The talk series organized by the RIAC was kick started by Mr. Dhrupad Hindocha on 'Money Planning and Investment for Beginners', who is an alumnus of SVNIT and had held various positions of responsibility during his tenure as a student. The accomplished young man slew the audience by throwing light on different ways of money-making and investing via mutual funds, share markets, etc. We organized the talk to make students aware of the present financial procedures. He started with the basic meaning of investment and went on to the reasons for investing. He even laid stress on how improper money handling can lead to degradation, causing its value to decrease with time. This dawned a realization on the audience the power of compounding. Investing in some mutual funds or share market and, practicing in some dummy applications for amateurs can be a way of hedging oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bets. Mr. Hindocha also talked about income tax and its filing quite a length. He explained different slabs of money investments and several legal methods to save tax, one being, saving money in
44 | Shaastra
different funds (like PF) could lead to a reduction in salary of 1.5 lacs resulting in shifting of income tax slab and explained its 3year money locking law. Further, he shifted his focus towards the ways of money investing in share markets, the ways of direct trading mutual funds, gold, and other investment ways. He suggested making investments in several IPOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and top companies. The audience was shown how can 2,40,000 multiply to 6,87,000 in 20 years through his self-made calculator. All in all, the talk was a big hit, and the audience was ecstatic for being a part of it. We were extremely delighted to have Mr. Hindocha among us.
riac team
Secretary Saravanan Ramesh
Advisor
Joint Secretary
Creative Head
Darshit Patel
Ramkumar Radhakrishnan
Pratik Suthar
Content and Planning Team Bhavya Jaiman
Tiyasa Kar - Head
Heer Mehta
Web Development Team Anushka Singh
Vidit Singh Gautam - Head
Bhavika Tambi
Documentation Team Mahendra Singh
Anugrahaprada - Head
Neha Sinha
Vishal Prajapati
Anand Jain