Students gain insight into research on economic growth at symposium

Significance of advanced materials research on the country’s economic prosperity was elucidated to Metallurgical and Materials Engineering students at Mettle 2013, an annual technical symposium at the National Institute of Technology-Tiruchi (NIT-T), on Friday.

About 250 students from 20 colleges across the Southern States gathered to gain insights into facilitation of human life owing to the advanced research during the programme organised by NIT-T’s Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering.

Presiding over, B.S. Murthy, Professor, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT-Madras, highlighted the utility of nanotechnology reflecting on daily lives right from toothpaste and silver nano fridge to industrial applications such as nano-coating of ladles in the steel industry.

In his lecture on ‘Ecstasy, Excitement and Challenges in Advanced Materials Research’, Prof. Murthy, who is also Head, Materials Research Panel of Naval Board, advocated ‘out of the box’ thinking to unravel characteristics of metallurgy.Raman Sankaranarayanan, Head of Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, NIT-T, elaborated on the scope of on-going research activities with advanced facilities.

Rohith Berlia, the chairman of Mettle 2013 and Dilip Krishna, the overall coordinator of Mettle 2013 also addressed the student gathering along with A.K. Bhakthavatsalam, Head, Training and Placement, NIT-T.

The inaugural session was followed by an array of competitions:

Industrial Problem solving contest, Materials Science Quiz, Paper Presentation and General Quiz titled ‘Oxymoron Rhapsody’” conducted by Srihari Sridharan and Zayn Alam.

Devika, Suhas and Watson of NIT-T were adjudged winners of the General Quiz. Winners of paper presentation contest were G.V.Vijayendra of Government College of Engineering, Salem, and Arun Mozhi of NIT-T.

The first of the two-day symposium ended with a guest lecture through video conferencing by Jeffrey T Glass, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Director at the Pratt School’s Master of Engineering Management Program, Duke University.