Workshop on Earthquake Engineering

A week long review workshop was organized at IIT Kanpur by the National Information Center of Earthquake Engineering (NICEE) during 29 August – 03 September 2005 for postgraduate students from across India . Seventy Four students from 32 different engineering colleges across the country participated in this workshop and collected literature (about 1,15,000 pages) on earthquake engineering relating to their post-graduate studies. The schedule of the workshop is enclosed herewith.

The faculty members of the department of civil engineering at IIT Kanpur (Professors. Sudhir K. Jain, C.V.R. Murty, and Durgesh C. Rai) had discussions with the participants about their topic of research in different sessions during the workshop. Dr. K.K. Bajpai demonstrated the state-of-the art testing facilities available at the Structural Engineering Laboratory of IIT Kanpur to the workshop participants. Further, the research scholars of the department of civil engineering at IIT Kanpur, namely Mr. Goutam Mondal , Mr. Kaustubh Dasgupta, Mr. Rupen Goswami, and Mr. Dipti Ranjan Sahoo also made presentations related to different aspects of earthquake engineering during the workshop

An earthquake engineering quiz was also organized during the workshop in which students participated in 10 groups and after preliminary rounds 4 groups reach the finals. The quiz contained the questions starting from basic concepts of earthquakes and how they happen to the current Indian Standards design codes, and analysis of earthquake resistant design, instrumentation, etc. The members of winning team were given certificate.

The workshop was inaugurated on 29 August 2005 by Mr. Raj Sahai, a leading structural consultant of San Francisco and an alumnus of IIT Kanpur. In his address to the participants he informed about the current state of the art in practice in the California state in USA . Professor Sarvesh Chandra, Actg. Head, civil engineering department along with Professor Sudhir K. Jain, and C.V.R. Murty have also presented their views on need of dissemination of knowledge about earthquake engineering concepts through the activities of NICEE and NPEEE at IIT Kanpur.

During the closing ceremony of the workshop on 03 September 2005, the 2005 NICEE Best Masters' Thesis Award was given to Mr. Shrawan U. Shende of V.N.I.T. Nagpur by Professor Mahesh C. Tandon, the Chairman, NICEE Advisory Committee, and INAE (Indian National Academy of Engineering) Distinguished Visiting Professor at IIT Kanpur. Mr. Tandon is the Managing Director of the leading structural engineering consultancy firm M/s Tandon Consultants Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi . The award consists of a certificate and a cash prize of Rs. 5,000/- along with air fare to present and the thesis work and receive the award. Further, thesis supervisor of the NICEE Best Masters Thesis was also given an award in the form of grant of Rs. 10,000/- towards professional development. Professor Bithin Datta, Head of the department of civil engineering informed about the various activities of the department to encourage the students from different institutions. Dr. K.K. Bajpai, Senior Scientific Officer of Department of Civil Engineering, coordinator the workshop welcomed the participants and Ms. Snehal H. Kaushik, Sr. Project Associate at the NICEE placed the vote of thanks.