DEPARTMENT PROFILE :: Materials and Metallurgical Engineering

Metallurgy… is one of the oldest arts but one of the youngest sciences.

- Hume Rothery

The Department of Metallurgical Engineering was set-up at IIT Kanpur in 1960. With time, this department grew and established new areas of research and teaching in Materials Science, while retaining its strength in traditional areas in Metallurgy. Keeping up with this change that reflected the needs of the country, in 1993 a name change to Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering (MME) was instituted. Since its inception the MME Department has been very active in teaching, research, development and consultancy activities.

The department offers both Undergraduate (B.Tech.) and Postgraduate (M.Tech. and Ph.D.) programmes. The undergraduate programme is aimed at providing a basic understanding of the principles underlying metal extraction and refining, materials characterization, structure-property relationships, and processing of metals and other materials. Students also undertake studies of their special interest through the department elective courses and project work. Postgraduate programmes are designed to provide the fundamental understanding of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering coupled with in-depth study in the area of specialization of the student. Interdisciplinary course work and research are encouraged. Currently the student strength in various programmes is: 173 B.Tech., 47 M.Tech. and 4 Ph.D.

Some concerns of the Department are low enrolment in the Ph.D. programme, and the employment profile of the graduating students; today a large percentage of undergraduate and postgraduate students is hired by the software industry. At the departmental level, discussions are underway on how to improve the prevailing situation. A solution can be found only when educational institutions and the materials industry work together to tell students about the excellent job prospects in the field of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering. The MME Department at IIT Kanpur has taken the initiative to bring this debate to a national level. In May 1998, the Department organized a workshop on "Challenges in Metallurgical Engineering in the 21st Century: Perspectives in Education, Industry and R&D".

The Department has extensive research facilities in many areas of materials science and metallurgical engineering. It has process, chemical and extractive metallurgy laboratories equipped with a complete set of mineral dressing equipment, and a variety of furnaces, LECO analyser and gas chromatograph. In addition, there is an engineering metallurgy laboratory for solidification of metals, welding, casting and metal working; a fully developed metallographic laboratory; a corrosion laboratory; a powder metallurgy laboratory; a ceramics laboratory; a small workshop and a chemical analysis laboratory. Research activities of the department are further supported by the facilities available in the Advanced Centre for Materials Science, which houses major equipment like transmission and scanning electron microscopes, electron probe micro analyser, X-ray diffractometer, and Instron and MTS fatigue loading units.

The 23 faculty members of the department have diverse research interests, and are involved in several consultancy and research projects. Some of the agencies sponsoring projects in the department are the Planning Commission of the Government of India, TISCO, TRDDC, SAIL, CSIR, Tata Steel, and Somani Iron and Steel. During the last few years, a variety of products/processes have been developed at the department. For the benefit of the industry and academic community, the department has organized courses and workshops in emerging areas like:

• Modern Trends in Materials Joining

• New and Improved Grades of Cutt

• Continuous Casting of Steel

• Environment audit and environmental impact assessment

• Modelling and simulation of mineral processing units

The field of engineering materials has expanded enormously in the recent past, and now encompasses a variety of engineering materials, such as ceramics, polymers, intermetallics, semiconductors together with traditionally important metals and alloys. Composites, whether metal, ceramic, polymer or intermetallic based, have revolutionized the materials scene. At present, in many applications these materials, both traditional and non-traditional, are competing with each other. Thus, there is a strong need for a unified approach in teaching and research in the area of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, which has been pioneered by this department in the country. This year (13-16 November 1999), the MME department, along with the Indian Institute of Metals Kanpur Chapter, is organizing the 37th National Metallurgists' Day and an International Symposium on Materials for the Third Millennium at IIT Kanpur.

The department is actively reviewing its strength in various areas and recruiting new faculty members in new areas. Overall, the MME Department at IIT Kanpur is one with a vision for the future, along with a spirit to change in order to meet the challenges of the outside world.

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