ISTE WORKSHOP

Mr. Vikas Sahu, Assistant Professor from Mechanical Engineering Department of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attended a one - week ISTE Workshop on Engineering Mechanics for the coordinators organsied by the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay during 16th – 20th September, 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Deepak B. Phatak, Project Coordinator, IIT Bombay.

The objective of this workshop is to introduce the fundamentals of Engineering Mechanics with special emphasis on problem solving. The workshop was started with the essentials of Vector Mechanics to build the foundation followed by a detailed discussion of free body diagrams. These concepts were sufficiently illustrated with a variety of real life problems. Different topics in 2D and 3D equilibrium have been covered and a variety of problems in statically determinate trusses and frames were solved. In addition, a systematic treatment of problems in the relatively difficult subject of dry friction was done with special emphasis on the logic behind each solution. More advanced topics such as the virtual work method and the principle of minimum potential energy, which is the main stay of analytical mechanics and approximate numerical methods such as the finite element method, were discussed. Since problem solving is the backbone of Engineering Mechanics, there were supervised tutorial sessions where the participants applied the concepts discussed in the lectures and solve a variety of problems.

The distinguished experts Prof. Mandar Inamdar and Prof. Sauvik Banerjee, from IIT Bombay disseminated the knowledge on Vector Mechanics, Equilibrium of Rigid bodies, Equivalent System of Forces, Analysis of Structures, Friction, Energy Methods, Free Vibrations of Mass-Spring Systems, Simple Harmonic Motion, Equation of Motion, Natural Frequency of Vibration, Free Vibration of Rigid Bodies etc.

The workshop was informative and useful as it played a significant role in enhancing the knowledge of coordinators.