DEPARTMENT PROFILE :: Mechanical Engineering

Man has been making and improving machines of wood and fibre for millennia: metal machinery is still in its clumsy infancy. The simplicity of the sailing-craft and the violin is the simplicity of perfection.

- Richard Hughes, about sailing, in the introduction to "Venturesome Voyages."

Antecedents

Mechanical Engineering is an old field. Its name derives from the Latin machina, which means invention or trick. The first machines such as the wheel and the needle with an eye date back to the stone age, but the term engine, adapted from the Latin ingenium, natural ability, had by the time of the late Roman Empire become associated with invention, and eventually, with a skilled machine - the engine. The sense of magic prevailed in engineering for much of the pre-industrial age (Newton's writing reveals his work to be in the traditions of alchemy).

Today, mechanical engineering denotes a broad field that has to do with the generation and transmission of mechanical energy. Since this motive energy is often derived from heat, much of the work of mechanical engineers involves thermal energy. Similarly, since these processes need to be housed and the energy transmitted, mechanical engineering is also concerned with the structures in which such devices are housed, and with how they work and fail - mechanics, which is closely related with the process of deciding how to put these devices together - the act of design. Finally, it is necessary to evolve processes by which these devices are to be constructed, which leads to the science of manufacturing. In addition to these tasks, the trend towards greater quality has seen a gradual move towards integration with sensors and automation, leading to the modern science of robotics (the word, related to a slavic word for bonded labour or serf and cognate to the Sanskrit arbhas, weak child, is barely seventy years old).

Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kanpur

The current streams of study in Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kanpur also reflect these concerns. The three traditional branches together with robotics, constitute the four areas within the current Mechanical Engineering Department:

- Solid Mechanics and Design

- Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Sciences

- Manufacturing Sciences

- Robotics

Within each area, the department combines strengths in the traditional as well as the modern. Since the 80's, the department has felt that engineering education should be oriented towards design. Integrating various aspects of the field in order to create a solution to a problem, i.e., a synthesis has been the main focus. The current undergraduate curriculum emphasizes this through a sequence of seven departmental courses (including a two semester project) and one first year course in design. This is complemented by a set of courses focused on the basics, and a series of broad-based electives.

In contrast, the emphasis in the graduate curriculum has been on more advanced topics, and over the years, students have gained increasing freedom to opt for different electives. The total course requirement has also been reduced in the interests of a better quality thesis. Each year, the department graduates 50 to 60 B.Tech.s, 25 to 40 M.Tech.s, and five to ten Ph.D.s. The faculty strength is currently 33.

Past and Present

The Mechanical Engineering Department at IIT Kanpur played a lead role in evolving the "engineering science" based engineering curriculum, and served as a role model for many engineering institutes in the country. Over the years, industrial interaction and the emphasis on applied engineering has increased and today the annual external funding in the department runs to more than two crores, of which about Rs. 50 lakhs is in the form of industrial consultancy.

Today, the world of mechanical engineering at large is facing dramatic changes under the influence of advanced computational tools, vastly improved simulation and analysis, and entirely different manufacturing protocols. This has opened up new lines of research in the department, such as rapid prototyping, smart materials, virtual reality modelling, virtual instrumentation, computational heat transfer, Genetic Algorithms, etc.

One of the strengths of the department has been its strong outreach. In particular, external funding has increased many-fold in recent years, with a large number of projects from funding agencies, from industries, and under new hybrid schemes like the technology missions. The bonds with industry and the outside world are often reflected in the classroom, sometimes as external speakers, and sometimes through the industrial insights gained by faculty.

One of our difficulties, as in many other areas of the institute, has been the challenge of finding energetic young faculty to drive these engines of growth. New funds that will become available for the increased student strength will, it is hoped, be sufficient to bring in better updated infrastructure into the laboratories.

The Future

In the coming years, unlike in the past, the effectiveness of the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes will be increasingly gauged by the quality and extent of its service to the technological needs of the nation, and we see the mechanical engineering department moving strongly in this direction. New materials, such as plastics, resins, and embedded sensor materials are being introduced into the curriculum. The research agenda has broadened and branched into new directions based on the needs of Indian industry and the worldwide trends sweeping the field. Thus, it is hoped that the department will emerge into the dawn of the newly liberalized era a much stronger and re-vitalized force.

At the same time, the technology available to a mechanical engineer is changing. Metal is being replaced by plastic, dull grey by brightly splashed colour. Driven by superior analysis, the designs are undergoing deeper, functional change. The resulting devices are emerging increasingly sleek and sophisticated, the tremendous complexity of design hidden under the fabric of simplicity of use. Looking at the machines of today, the day is surely not too far off when mechanical machinery will be viewed at par with the simplicity of perfection inherent in the sailing ship and the violin.

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