This column, in the previous two weeks, painted a general picture of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and gave indications of the opportunities offered by its biological, chemical, electrical, and physical and mathematical divisions. Let us now look at its other divisions.
Mechanical sciences
This is the largest division of the institute. Several units were established in the 1940s to meet the needs of the Second World War. The Department of Aerospace Engineering has a symbiotic relationship with the aerospace laboratories and industries in Bangalore. The Space Technology Cell forms an interface with the Indian Space Research Organisation.
The Joint Advanced Technology Programme extends a bridge with the Defence Research and Development Organisation. The Department of Materials Engineering has grown to be a big centre for research in metallurgical and materials engineering.
The Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Chemical Engineering are renowned in their respective areas of specialisation. The Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing was evolved by reengineering the central workshop.
Some of the areas of research focus are:
Aircraft structures
Bacterial leaching of gold
Computational fluids dynamics
Development of novel materials and composites
Dynamic materials modelling
Granular solids
Modelling of newer methods of iron-making
Monsoon simulation
Noise abatement in industries
Permeability of fine-grained soils
Polymer processing
Quasi-brittle building materials
Rapid prototyping for advanced manufacturing
Reactor modelling
Studies of turbulence
Technology management
Template gel filling
Unsteady aerodynamics
Water resources management, including multi-reservoirs
Wind tunnel studies
Studies in the division range from nano-scale structures to components in automobiles, aircraft, and missiles and large civil structures. The dynamics of fluid flow in the steel converter, blood vessels, atmosphere, and oceans have been mapped.
Eco sciences
There are various departments under this division. Brief indications of the work in each of them are given below.
Civil engineering: advanced research and education in the broad areas of geotechnical, structural, transportation, water resources, and environmental engineering.
Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences addresses a wide variety of topics within the broad realm of atmosphere-ocean-climate science.
Centre for Earth Sciences envisions interdisciplinary research of a wide variety.
Centre for Sustainable Technologies provides sustainable solutions to a host of global concerns, primarily dealing with energy, buildings and environment. The focus is on promoting sustainable technologies tailored to suit local conditions of resource availability and habitation. Some of the inventions relate to energy-efficient wood-burning devices, bio-methanation, biomass gasification, alternative building technologies, green buildings, building-integrated photovoltaics, water purification and defluoridation, sanitation, sustainable biomass for energy, forestry, bio-energy, climate change, and environmental quality assurance-impact studies.
Centre for infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning: research in transportation planning and traffic engineering, infrastructure engineering, geotechnical aspects, urban infrastructure, knowledge management for infrastructure, urban ecology, environment and policy.
Divecha Centre for Climate Change: studies on climate variability and climate change and its impact on the environment through interdisciplinary work. The centre undertakes joint research work with the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London.
Management studies
The Department of Management Studies at the institute is one of the oldest departments of management in India. It conducts postgraduate and Ph.D. programmes. The research areas include the following:
Business analytics, energy and environmental policy and management, empirical finance and applied statistics, human resource management and organisational behaviour, industrial economics and innovation management, management of intellectual property, operations research, operations management, project management and entrepreneurship, public policy, R&D management, knowledge management, strategic management, marketing, and technology management.
Centres under the Director
There are a few centres directly under the Director of the institute.
Supercomputer education and research centre: It provides excellent opportunities for pursuing cutting-edge research and education in various aspects of computer systems and computational sciences through state-of-the-art computing environment, which compares well with the top computing centres anywhere in the world. The centre strives for excellence in research, computing and consultancy through studies in frontier areas of computing and computer systems. It undertakes sponsored research for reputable public as well as private organisations. Students get opportunities for Ph.D. work. The research interests of the centre include computer-aided design for VLSI systems, computer architecture, database systems, biodiversity and genomics, high-performance computing, multimedia systems, and network security.
There is adequate equipment for research in the most advanced areas as well. The centre's flagship computers are used for solving grand-challenge problems.
A bioinformatics centre functions as an autonomous research unit of the centre.
J.R.D. Tata Memorial Library: with a collection of nearly 5 lakh volumes of books, periodicals, technical reports, and standards, this has grown as a precious national resource centre in the field of science and technology. The library subscribes to more than 1,700 periodicals.
The National Centre for Science Information provides seamless network access to worldwide scholarly information resources of relevance to the IISc academic community. Also, it disseminates IISc research output.
Centre for Continuing Education
Digital Information Services Centre
Centre for Scientific and Industrial Consultancy
Centre for Sponsored Schemes and Projects
Archives and Publication Cell
We have endeavoured to highlight only the most vital aspects of this institute, focussing on the requirements of prospective research scholars in mind. There are several academic programmes leading to postgraduate degrees in various disciplines, the details of which may have to be garnered separately.
