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T.A. Abinandanan Bala

It is with profound sadness that I note the passing away of Prof. R. Balasubramanian of IIT-K -- Bala to those who knew him.

Bala was a year senior to us in our Department (of Metallurgical Engineering at IT-BHU), so we knew him quite well. Not only was he the topper of his class, he excelled in many other spheres -- he was a good cricketer (I believe he played in the IT team) and he

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Added by T.A. Abinandanan on December 16, 2009 at 9:00pm — No Comments

T.A. Abinandanan Steel research: The Why and The What

Over at Bainite, Mathew Peet has a great post on The Importance of Steel Research.

I especially liked this short account of the contribution of steel research to the development of metallurgical and materials science:

The use of the scientific methods of investigation into iron and steel really began with the optical microscopy studies of Sorby and Martens in the 19th

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Added by T.A. Abinandanan on December 8, 2009 at 10:51am — No Comments

Srinivasa Ranganathan Plastics moved aside by K A Padmanabhan

From Nature India doi:10.1038/nindia.2009.316; Published online 27 October 2009 Interview Move aside plastics K. Anantha Padmanabhan, Mercator Professor of DFG (German Research Foundation) at the Institute of Materials Physics, University of Muenster, Germany and a former director of IIT Kanpur speaks to Mohit Kumar Jolly on 'superplastics', science education and doing science in India. K. Anantha PadmanabhanQ: How do you rate the growth of R & D sector in India? A: The growth of R&… Continue

Added by Srinivasa Ranganathan on November 6, 2009 at 6:48am — No Comments

Srinivasa Ranganathan From Nanocrystals to Quasicrystals

One of the endearing and enduring features of the structure of matter is sinilarity at different length scales, most powerfully articulated by Cyril Stanley Smith in terms of Hierarchy of Structures. While we had exmples of atoms and even polymeric chains forming quasicrystals, the recent report of nanocrystals self assembling as quasicrystals is fascinating and indicates that patterns of organization are indifferent to the identity of organizing entities. Nature 461, 964-967 (15 October 2009)… Continue

Added by Srinivasa Ranganathan on November 4, 2009 at 7:44am — No Comments

aasimaly polymer dosimetry

Hi I'm looking for any publications (ebooks , papers ,........) about polymer dosimetry thanks in advance for your help Continue

Added by aasimaly on October 12, 2009 at 3:00am — No Comments

K. NARAYAN PRABHU SPECIAL ISSUE OF JOURNAL OF ASTM INTERNATIONAL ON LEAD FREE SOLDERS

LEADFREESOLDERS.pdfThis is for researchers in the area of lead free solders. Abstracts are invited for papers to be submitted to the Journal of ASTM International (JAI). JAI is an online, peer-reviewed journal for the international scientific and engineering community. You may access information about JAI at www.astm.org/JAI. The papers wi… Continue

Added by K. NARAYAN PRABHU on September 29, 2009 at 7:59am — No Comments

Rajesh Prasad From Kepler's Conjecture on Packing of Spheres to Torquato and Jiao's Conjecture on Packing of Platonic and Archemedian Polyhedra

It is well known that FCC and HCP packings of identical spheres are the densest possible sphere packings with packing fraction (the ratio volume occupied by the spheres to volume of the unit cell) slightly more than 0.74. But mathematicians weren’t sure of this fact for four hundred years-from 1611, when Kepler stated it as a conjecture, to 2005, when Hales finally proved it. But what about dense packings of… Continue

Added by Rajesh Prasad on September 21, 2009 at 11:50pm — No Comments

Nilesh Kumar Plasticity at really diminished length scale!

The deformation behavior of nanocrystalline (NC) materials are characterized by features that are different from those of their coarse-grained (CG) counterparts. A transition from a classical behavior based on dislocation theory to grain-boundary (GB) mediated plasticity is believed to be responsible for this deviation. The deformation behavior of NC materials is also marked by a high strain-rate sensitivity, m. [1] Q. Wei, S. Cheng, K. T. Ramesh, E. Ma, Mater. Sci. Eng. A, 381 (2004), 71-79. [… Continue

Added by Nilesh Kumar on September 18, 2009 at 6:39am — No Comments

Srinivasa Ranganathan To see a world in a grain of sand

An extraordinary achievement in Imaging by IBM researchers. Pl see story below fom Small Times -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM pushes AFM to image molecular structure August 28, 2009: Researchers at IBM in Zurich, Switzerland, have captured the "anatomy" of a molecule using noncontact atomic-force microscopy (AFM), peering through the surrounding electron cloud to capture images "with unprecedented resolution." The method, a longtime goal… Continue

Added by Srinivasa Ranganathan on September 2, 2009 at 3:17am — No Comments

T.A. Abinandanan This is for aspiring women researchers

The Schlumberger Foundation has an interesting Fellowship program to promote the cause of women in science: Faculty for the Future. Here's what the website says about the program:

Role Models for the Next Generation

Faculty for the Future fellowships are awarded to women from developing and emerging economies who are preparing for PhD or post-doctoral study in the p

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Added by T.A. Abinandanan on August 30, 2009 at 12:24am — No Comments

Rajesh Prasad Teaching vs. Research

There is a long standing and as yet unresolved debate on teaching vs. reerach. You may like to look at Prof. Morris Kline's arguments on this debate. Here is a chapter from his book "Why The Professor Can'tTeach" CHAPTER: 4 The Conflict Between Research and Teaching Although he talks of mathematics research and teaching, I think most of his ideas are relevant in other subjects as well. Continue

Added by Rajesh Prasad on August 16, 2009 at 12:25pm — No Comments

Rajesh Prasad An edge dislocation turns crystal planes into helicoidal surfaces

In the very first comment to my earlier post discussing the non uniqueness of an extra half plane of an edge dislocation line Prof. Ranganathan mentioned edge dislocation helicoids. This totally baffled me. I had never heard of it, never thought of it. In fact, for ages I have been indoctrinating unsuspecting undergraduates at IIT Delhi about the distinction between an edge and a screw… Continue

Added by Rajesh Prasad on July 30, 2009 at 1:09am — 2 Comments

T.A. Abinandanan To all the students who are just trooping back to their Insti's after the summer vacation ...

PhD Comics has just the right definition of the word vacation.

For you.

Here.

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Added by T.A. Abinandanan on July 28, 2009 at 9:30am — No Comments

T.A. Abinandanan Extraordinary synergy

It's always great to see your colleagues and students in print.

Not just in academic print, but also in newsprint!

Entitled Extraordinary synergy in the mechanical properties of polymer matrix composites reinforced with 2 nanocarbons, the paper's author list includes my col

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Added by T.A. Abinandanan on July 28, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

András Paszternák Spicy world of NanoScience

One of the most important sources for students and researchers to find information about the nanoscience and nanotechnology is the Internet. In our new series we try to find the best, most interesting webpages with nano-topics. The Google found for the term nanotechnology more t… Continue

Added by András Paszternák on July 26, 2009 at 1:30am — No Comments

T.A. Abinandanan Materialia Karthika

Though other things have been keeping me away from posting stuff here on M.Indica, I have been watching its growth with a great deal of interest.

Here's a factoid for you:

Karthik (including its variants) is the single most popular name in M.Indica.

Here's the evidence: There are six Karthiks in our membership of 364 - almost one in sixty!

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Added by T.A. Abinandanan on July 21, 2009 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

Guru Metallurigcal art to metallurgical science: through thermodynamics

In short, thermodynamics has provided a basis on which many of the older vague ideas of the metallurgical art can be transformed into the precise concepts of a metallurgical science. -- J B Austin, in Thermodynamics in physical metallurgy, ASM, 1950. Continue

Added by Guru on July 17, 2009 at 6:02pm — 1 Comment

Guru Relocation

I recently relocated from the Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT-Delhi to the Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, IIT-Bombay. It had been nearly two weeks since we moved, and we are thoroughly enjoying the monsoon weather of Mumbai; in the last couple of days, we spotted a Planet M and a Crossword bookshop within walking distances from the campus, which we are sure we will enjoy in the days to come. I will be teaching Phase Transformations this semester -- so, there… Continue

Added by Guru on July 13, 2009 at 10:47am — No Comments

Srinivasa Ranganathan Indian Metallurgical Icons : 1 Tanjore Ramachandra Anantharaman (1927-2009)

Indian metal icons are world renowned. The Chola Bronzes of the cosmic dancer Nataraja and the dancing girl of Mohenjadaro immediately spring to our mind. In this set of posts we want to feature Indian metallurgists who have ilumined the tewentieth century. With some poignancy we give below the profile of Tanjore Ramachandra Ananthraman ( 1927-2009) as penned by Prof P Rama Rao in Current Science, July 10, 2009. PERSONAL NEWS CURRENT 114 SCIENCE, VOL. 97, NO. 1, 10 JULY 2009 Tanjore Ramachandra… Continue

Added by Srinivasa Ranganathan on July 13, 2009 at 7:10am — No Comments

Rajesh Prasad Extra-Half Plane of an Edge Dislocation is NOT unique

An edge dislocation is commonly considered to be located at the bottom edge of an extra half plane in the crystal. In fact, this is the justification behind the name of this one-dimensional defect in the crystal. But is this extra half plane associated with an edge dislocation unique? The intuitive answer appears to be yes but it seems that this is not true. Surprisingly, books on dislocation theory do not mention this point. The only book that I have seen which mentions this fact is Solid S… Continue

Added by Rajesh Prasad on June 23, 2009 at 5:30pm — 22 Comments

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