# Micro-level water-resources engineering—9: Your enemy no. 1 is…

I am not sure how the elections affect the actual, on-the- ground activities related to the water conservation efforts, this year. However, the point I want to emphasize here is urgent—and it is technical in nature. It is also of very real consequences. I have made this same point several times over the past few years, but still find that, unfortunately, it still remains worth repeating even today. The point I want to remind you is the following:

Regardless of the scale of your water conservation project (whether farm-pond, small check-dam, big check-dam, KT weir, percolation tanks, dams, etc.), and regardless of whether it’s the building of a new structure or just the maintenance of an old one, remember that:

Evaporation loss is the least appreciated but also a most real factor that is actually operative in India.

Expect that depth-wise, water body that is about 8–10 feet deep will simply get evaporated away in a single year. There is nothing you can do about it. (So far, no suitable technology has ever been invented to cost-effectively counter or circumvent the evaporation losses.)

Also, realize that

A small pond (say 5 feet by 5 feet in area) and a large dam (say 1 km by 5 km in area) both lose the same height of water in the same time period.

For ease in visualization, remember, 10 feet is the height of a typical single storey building.

10 feet also is the height of a typical passenger bus.

Thus, if your farm-pond has water 20 feet deep when fully filled (say at the end of a monsoon), then expect that it will come to hold only about 8–10 feet deep water during the month of May next year—even if no one has taken even a single liter of water out of it, for any use whatsoever.

Further, realize that in any water-conservation structure, you are going to have some clearance in between the top level of the water-body and the top level of the dam-wall (or the pond-wall).

Thus, to have a water body that is at least 20 feet deep, you must have the top of the wall at a height of about 24–25 feet or more, when measured from the bottom of the water body. In contrast:

If the wall of your farm-pond or check-dam itself is only about 12 feet tall, then expect it to go absolutely completely dry during summer.

Don’t blame the failure of a shallow check-dam on any one. Most of all, don’t blame it on the vagaries of nature, don’t blame it on a lack of enough rain-fall “last year.” Blame it squarely on your own ignorance, your own poor design choices.

If your check-dam is not deep enough so as to fully overcome the evaporation loss, and further hold some additional useful depth of water, then it is by design going to be completely useless, absolutely non-functional. It is going to be a pure waste of money.

So, this year even if you are planning to undertake only the maintenance of older structures, drop from your list all those structures which won’t have at least 20 feet deep water body when fully filled (or 25 feet tall walls).

Remember, a penny saved is a penny earned. The same money can be used for building check-dams at better geographical sites, or even doing away with the whole idea of building check-dams (if no suitable site exists nearby a given village, as often happens in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra) and instead going in for just a set of farm-ponds—of sufficiently deep water bodies.

Just throwing money at schemes—whether by government agencies, or NGOs, or even by private parties—is not going to help, if you don’t pay attention to even simplest technical points like the minimum depth of water body.

Foreign authors don’t always adequately highlight this factor of the evaporation loss, because is not very significant in their climates. But it is, to us, in India.

Bottom-line:

If you are in water conservation, remember:

In India, your enemy no. 1 is not a lack of enough rain-fall. It is not even the uneven or non-uniform pattern of the rain-fall, though these certainly are a matter of concern. But they are not your enemy no. 1.

In water resources engineering in India, your enemy no. 1 is: the evaporation loss.

And realize, no feasible technological solution has ever been found to counter it.

All that you can do is to just build farm-ponds or check-dams that are deep enough—that’s all. … Having deep enough water bodies is the most intelligent way of going about it.

I wish all of you ample water supply at least during the next summer—if you spend money intelligently, this summer.

My two cents.

Addendum: My past blog-posts dealing with the topic of water resources may be found here: [^]. In general, the posts which appeared earlier in the series are more technically oriented; the posts that appeared later have been more in the nature of topical repetitions. The post with a high technical content—and also a simplest Python script to estimate evaporation losses—was this one [^]. Also see the next one in the series, here [^].

A late thought: A good project for ME/MTech in water resources engineering:

Given a geographical area (such as a state, region, district, or otherwise, a region defined via watershed areas), estimate the extent of floods that occur every monsoon. Then, estimate the potential amount of storage possible, and the amount actually realized. Be realistic for the second estimate—include seepage and evaporation losses, as well as cost considerations. Develop methodologies for making estimates of all kinds (flooding, seepage and groundwater storage, total on-surface storage potential, the potential that is realized). In the end, consider whether the following statement is defensible: So long as news of floods keep flooding in, we cannot say that the root-cause of water scarcity is the lack of sufficient rains, or uneven (in time) and non-uniform (in space) patterns of rainfall.

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# See, how hard I am trying to become a (Full) Professor of Mechanical Engineering in SPPU?

Currently, I am not only cashless but also jobless. That’s why, I try harder.

I am trying very hard to be a (Full) Professor of Mechanical Engineering, especially at the Savitribai Phule Pune University (or SPPU for short).

That’s right.

And that’s why, I have decided to adopt an official position whereby I abandon all my other research and study interests, especially those related to the mechanics of the quanta. Instead, I have officially decided to remain interested only in the official problems from the Mechanical Engineering discipline proper—not only for my studies, but also for my research interests.

… If only I were to have my first degree in Mechanical Engineering, instead of in Metallurgy! (It was some 37.5–33.5 years ago, with my decision to choose Metallurgy being from some 36.5 years ago.) … If only I were to choose Mechanical right back then, this problem wouldn’t have arisen today. …

Tch! …

…But, well, thinking of my first degree, its circumstances—where I got it from (COEP, the engineering college with the highest cut-off merit in the entire Maharashtra state), in what class (First Class with Distinction, the highest class possible), and, most crucially, for spending all my time at what place (The Boat Club)… You know, looking back some 3.5 decades later of all those circumstances—the circumstances of how I chose Metallurgy, back then, as I was sitting at the Boat Club… Hmmm… Boat Club. … Boat Club! Boat Club!!

It gives me some ideas.

So, to better support my current endeavors of becoming an Officially Approved Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering in SPPU, may be, I should solve some Mechanical Engineering problems related to boats. Preferably, those involving not just fluid mechanics, but also mechanisms and machine design—and vibrations! [Oh yes. I must not forget them! Vibrations are, Officially, a Mechanical Engineering topic. In fact even Acoustics. …]

Thinking along such lines, I then thought of one problem, and sort of solved it too. Though I am not going to share my answer with you, I certainly want to share the problem itself with you. (Don’t ask me for answers until I get the job as an Officially Approved Full Professor in Mechanical Engineering at SPPU.)

OK, so here we go.

The Problem Description:

Consider a boat floating on a stand-still lake. The boat has a very simple shape; it is in the shape of a rectangular parallelpiped (i.e., like a shoe-box, though not quite exactly like a punt).

In the plan (i.e. the top view), the boat looks like this:

As shown in the figure, at the centers of the front- and back-sides of the boat, there are two circular cylindrical cavities of identical dimensions, both being fitted with reciprocating pistons. These pistons are being driven by two completely independent mechanisms. The power-trains and the prime-movers are not shown in the diagram; in this analysis, both may be taken to be mass-less and perfectly rigid. However, the boat is assumed to have some mass.

We will try to solve for the simplest possible case: perfectly rigid boat walls (with some mass), perfectly rigid but mass-less pistons, complete absence of friction between the pistons and the cylinder walls, etc.

Assume also that both the boat and the lake water are initially stand-still, and that there are no other influences affecting the motions (such as winds or water currents).

Now, let’s put the pistons in oscillatory motions. In general, the frequencies of their oscillations are not equal. Let the frequency for the left- and right-side pistons be $f_L$ and $f_R$ Hz, respectively.

Problem 1:

Build a suitable Mechanical Engineering model, and predict how the boat would move, in each of the following three scenarios:

• $f_L = f_R$
• $f_L > f_R$
• $f_L < f_R$

In each case, determine (i) whether the boat as a whole (i.e. its center of mass or CM) would at all undergo any motion at all or not, (ii) if yes, whether the motion of the CM would have an element of oscillations to it or not, and finally, (iii) whether the boat (i.e. its CM) would undergo a net displacement over a large number of pistons oscillations or not (i.e., the question asks whether the so-called “time-averaged” net displacement occurs in any one direction or not), and if yes, in which direction.

You may make other minor assumptions. For instance, in each of the above 3 cases, you may assume that at time $t = 0$, both the pistons are at their innermost positions, with each piston beginning its motion by pushing outwards. Also check out the effect of assuming, some other, suitable, values for the initial phases.

Though not at all necessary, if it will help you, you may perhaps consider the case where the higher frequency is an integer multiple of the lower frequency, e.g., in the second of the three cases, assume $f_L = n f_R$, where $n \in \mathcal{N}$. However, note that eventually, you are expected to solve the problem in the general case, the one in which the ratio of the frequencies may be any real number. The cases of practical interest may be where the ratio ranges from 0.0 to a real number up to, say, 2.67 or 3.14 (or, may be, 5.25).

Notice that nowhere thus far have we said that the oscillatory motion of the pistons would be SHM (i.e. simple harmonic). You may begin with an SHM, but as a further problem below illustrates, the piston motion may neither be simple-harmonic, nor even symmetrical in the to- and fro-directions.

On the fluid mechanics side: In your analysis, assume that the length of the boat is much, much greater than the stroke-lengths of the pistons. Essentially, we want to ensure that the water waves produced at one end do not significantly affect the local dynamics at the other end.

You may assume a highly simplified model for the fluid—the problem is not supposed to have a crucial bearing on what kind of a fluid you assume. I mean to say, we are not looking for so detailed a model that you would have to perform a CFD analysis. (That task, we will leave to the Naval Architecture engineers.) However, do make sure to note how your model behaves for an inviscid flow vs. for a viscous flow.

So, in short, the problem is to determine the nature of the motion of the boat, if there is any—i.e., to determine if its CM undergoes a net displacement in the time-averaged sense or not, and if yes, in which direction it occurs.

Problem 2:

Assume a relatively smaller stroke-length for one of the pistons, and repeat the problem.

Problem 3:

Assume that one of the frequencies is zero, which is as good as saying that the boat is fitted with only one cylinder-and-piston. Repeat the analysis.

Problem 4:

Continue to assume that one of the frequencies is zero. Now, also assume that the outward stroke of the moving piston happens faster than its inward stroke. Determine the nature of the motion, if any, for the CM of the boat.

Problem 5 (Optional):

Assuming that the prime mover outputs a uniform circular (or rotary) motion, design a suitable mechanism which will help implement the idea of having non-SHM motions—e.g., different stroke-times in the outward and inward directions. Conduct an informal (or a more formal, calculus-based) displacement-, velocity- and acceleration-analysis, if you wish.

Give it a thought whether this entire idea of transforming a circular motion to a nonuniform reciprocating motion can be done away with, thereby saving on energy—in real life, there is friction—using certain ideas from electrical engineering and electronics.

Ooops!

No, no, no! No!! Throw out that horrendous idea! I mean the very last one!!

We want to remain concerned only with the Mechanical Engineering Problems proper. That is the Official position I have adopted, remember?

That’s right. What I described above was, really, really, really only a Mechanical Engineering Problem.

It really, really, really has nothing to do with anything else such as electrical engineering or quantum physics.

[And if even Prof. Thanu Padmanabhan (IUCAA) does not know quantum physics (he told me so once, right in person), why should I be concerned with it, anyway?]

Anyway, so, Officially speaking, I made up this problem only because I want to become an Officially Approved Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering at SPPU.

If you are interested in some other Mechanical Engineering problems, especially on the fluids-thermal side, check out my recent posts on the Eco-Cooler, and see if you can take further the analysis given in them.

I myself had made a much more advanced engineering analysis right at that time, but I am not going to give it—or its results—until some time after I land and join the kind of job I am looking for—a Full Professor’s. (And I hope that you do have the sense to see that this is not a “prestige issue” on my part.)

The post having a preliminary (quantitative) fluids-thermal analysis is here [^], though the qualitative analysis of the problem begins with an earlier post, here [^].

[Guess the problem, as given, is enough for the time being. I may even come back and add one or two variations on the problem! But no guarantees.]

Update right on 2016.12.02: OK, here are a couple of minor variations. What happens if, when a piston comes to a rest at the extreme stroke, it continues staying idle for a while, before resuming its towards-the-center motion? What if the piston motion is such that the point of zero displacement does not occur exactly at the middle of its overall stroke-length?

I may post some further variations on the problem, or suggest alternative analogous problems, in future.

Currently, I am not just cashless but also jobless. That’s why, I try harder.

More, may be later. As to the Song I Like section, I don’t have anything playing at the back of my mind right away, so let me see if something strikes me by the time I come back tomorrow to give a final editing touch to this post. In that case, I will add this section; else, I will not!

[After the update right on 2016.12.02: I am done with this post now, and if there are any errors, I will let them stay. If you find the post confusing somewhere, please do drop me a line, though. Best, and take care.]

[E&OE]

# The Mechanical-vs-Metallurgy “Branch-Jumping” Issue—Part II: Not Attending Inter-/Multi-/Trans-Disciplinary Conferences

0. To know the context and the primary intended readership of this post, please see my earlier post in this series, here: [^]. Of course, as mentioned earlier, everyone else is welcome to read this series, too.

1. The 57th (annual) Congress of the Indian Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (An International Meet) was held at Pune this week, from 17th through 20th December, 2012 [^]. The venue was the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (now a deemed university) [^]. (Caveat: Their Web site is often down, and with the PDF documents almost always missing. For example, try to download their faculty recruitment form.) I attended it, but this time round, without presenting any paper.

2. The conference was inaugurated by Dr. V. K. Saraswat [^], himself a PhD in combustion engineering. [Yes, the stupid primary intended readership [see part I to know exactly who all], this too is a topic common to both metallurgy and mechanical engineering.] The inaugural and valedictory functions were presided over by Dr. Prahlada [^], the vice-chancellor of the host institute (DIAT).

3. Some 180 papers were presented in the parallel sessions, many of them of multi-/trans-/inter-disciplinary nature, and with their authors coming from almost all departments of science and engineering. Even including electronics engineering, and mining engineering, apart from, of course, the usual ones: applied mechanics, mechanical engg., aerospace engg., civil engg., metallurgical/materials engg., mathematics, physics and astrophysics.

4. Even going just by my personal informal observations, people came to this conference from a lot of places: Guwahati, Kharagpur, Coimbatore, Kanpur, Chennai, Bangalore, Visakhapattanam, Hyderabad, Gulbarga, Surat, Mumbai, etc.

The foreign participation was somewhat limited this time round, with just a couple of Americans (both of Indian origin, both well-honored HoDs of mechanical or mechanics departments), and, off-hand, I suppose, one or two leading researchers or professors each from Canada, Germany, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, etc.

But, come, they did.

In contrast, the IIT Bombay QIP PhD D. W. Pande (of mechanical engineering branch from Aurangabad, now lording over at COEP); the meteorology (?) PhD degree holder G. B. Pant (sitting on the board of governors of COEP [a new addition to the stupid intended readership that should have been effected right the last time, and I will explain the reason for his inclusion the next time]); the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Pune, PhD degree holder Gajanan Kharate (from Amaravati, now lording over at Pune, and per government, perhaps an OBC); his PhD guide the IIT Bombay QIP PhD Ashok A. Ghatol (formerly, Director, COEP, per government, certainly an OBC) did not come. Neither any of the others of their ilk.

Not even if they all are employed, and even if the places of their employment are all in or around Pune, and the conference was held right in Pune. [And that being academics, they would get discounts for the conference registration fees, and being government/university employed etc., they would get the conference fee refunded back anyway. Unlike me, who borrowed Rs. 3,500/- to attend it. Despite all that discount and its refunds, these characters still did not attend.]

And, of course, they didn’t send a single student of theirs to attend this conference either. Forget for paper presentation, not even for plain attendance.

The acceptance rate this time round was a bit higher, at about 60%. In the earlier ISTAMs which I attended, it has been 50% and lower; in fact, perhaps as low as 33% (if not 25%, but I don’t remember it too well, so let’s say, 33%). Pretty decent. Better than many reputed international journals. Even then, they still didn’t send a single student. [And, I am sure, this evil + stupid primary intended readership, while evaluating my employment application, would immediately pounce on the fact that I have no journal paper to my credit, only conference papers—if they could get past this metallurgy-to-mechanical “branch-jump” issue.]

These stupid idiots (and possibly evil characters—remember, free will as the basis of morality) with government-assured jobs and pensions and prestige, perhaps realized that if they attended the ISTAM conference, they might run into inter-/multi-/trans-disciplinary researches in mechanics and mechanical engineering. They perhaps also further realized that such a fact might then run counter to the one specific belief they fondly cuddle, cherish, openly advocate, defend and profess, and unhesitatingly act on: namely, that metallurgical graduates with PhD in mechanical cannot teach in or be hired by mechanical departments.

5. As to the research presented in the conference, much of it was not related to my current interests. But still, getting to know about the topics that other people are working on, the ideas they are pursuing, is always intellectually invigorating. I would like to write about the research part separately. Research, in fact any productive work, is such a noble thing. In contrast, for this post, I would not like to dilute the intensity of the focus on my joblessness due to the downright stupidity/evil of these above-mentioned professors/directors/government’s son in laws, etc.

However, I guess I could still mention just a couple of things in the passing.

5.1 One was the mention of the infinite speed of propagation of heat flux in conduction, during the invited lecture by Prof. I. Chung Liu of the National Chi Nan University, Taiwan. (I involuntarily sat up straight from my habitual slump while sitting in that cozy main auditorium at DIAT.) The approach Prof. Liu began with, was already known to me from my arXiv browsing. [No, the stupid intended readership of Mechanical Engineering Professors, Deans and Directors etc., arXiv usually does not have mechanical engineering related articles. So, you need not bother with this research any further, going by your government-funded and -enforced “logic.”] This approach consists of having a hyperbolic equation (the telegrapher’s equation) in place of the usual parabolic one. These days, a fairly neat Wiki page also exists to explain this approach; see here [^]. After his talk, I walked up to him and tried to explain how a particles-based approach makes it possible to remove the instantaneous action at a distance (IAD). However, Prof. Liu was not very well conversant with the Brownian movement/Weiner processes, and so, I could not pursue the conversation further. I just passingly mentioned my own research on diffusion equation to him. [The stupid primary intended readership of government-funded Mechanical Engineering Professors, University Deans and Directors etc., wouldn’t be able to make out why the IAD at all is an issue in the first place. They wouldn’t be able to make out even after being explicitly told twice.] Anyway, even if very brief, this discussion with Prof. Liu did help bring up some of my own thoughts. There is a certain paper on diffusion equation by a Berkeley professor which I had discovered after publishing my paper, and I would like to discuss it. Guess I will write a post at iMechanica (and, naturally, also here) about it, before sending a revised paper on this topic to a journal.

5.2 The second thing was this idea that had struck me while teaching a course on FEM to the COEP undergraduates in Spring 2009. [Yes, stupid/evil intended readership, I did teach the students of the mechanical branch as well, but only as a visiting faculty, and only for one semester. I was not repeated, despite very good student feedback [which Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Director, COEP, didn’t quite share with me, unlike with his practice with other professors, but I do surmise with some pretty good basis—the direct feedback of students to me–that even my official student evaluation/feedback must have been pretty good.]] The idea is concerning finding a physical interpretation for the method of weighted residuals (MWR)—or, at the least, connecting some more mathematical context to MWR, anyway. My idea being too premature, I had not shared it with these undergraduate students back then. However, since the MTech-level students are a bit more mature, I did briefly hint at it while teaching the course on FEM at Symbiosis this year.

SPOILER ALERT: I may write a paper on this idea.

The idea is this: It first struck me that there was some kind of an analog between fitting a straight line to a scatter plot (say, the least-squares fit), and the method of weighted residuals. Sure, the first is an algebraic system and the second one involves differential equations. (Even if the ansatz is algebraic (a polynomial), before getting to the residuals, you still have to differentiate it, thereby changing the nature of the game.) The algebraic vs the infinitesimal is a big difference, and it is there. Yet, the idea of a residual (and setting it to zero) is common.

Then, I recalled that it was basically the same guy who had thought of both of these ideas, at least in their seed form: C. F. Gauss. (Ok, off-hand, I think that the least squares had already been used by someone else, before Gauss, but Gauss reinvented it independently, anyway. (Turns out, that earlier guy was Legendre [^])). The fact that the same mind had invented both the techniques helped gain more confidence in this idea of treating something like the least squares as an analog of the MWR.

In this conference, I got a chance to sound out this idea to two senior professors of mathematics: Prof. Kaloni of University of Windsor, and Prof. Rathish Kumar of IIT Kanpur. Specifically, I asked them if someone had already worked out something following, say, a function spaces-based approach.

Here, I was trying very hard to recall my earlier general reading decades ago concerning topological interpretation of the differentiation operation and all, and its recent mention by Prof. Tim Poston in a brief communication that I had with him. (It was a point which I had not at all understood at all.) Now at this conference, while talking in the hallways and all, I was trying to recollect those words. But somehow, in the hustle and bustle of the conference and the very short time available for those lounge/hall discussions, I could not recall any of such words. So, I tossed the first word I could catch hold of: function spaces.

Prof. Kaloni thought that someone must have worked on it already. In contrast, Prof. Rathish Kumar raised an entirely different point: where is convergence on the algebraic side of it, he asked. According to him, MWR was not limited to just getting to the residual and setting its domain integral to zero. The essence of MWR also had to include the idea of convergence—of a (possibly infinite) sequence of steps, of a systematic process of reducing the discretization error. In contrast, on the algebraic side of it, he observed, it’s just a one-time affair: you just take the fit, and that’s it. There is nothing more to be done; there is no second step; there is no sequence; the idea of convergence doesn’t apply.

In the busy-ness of such sideways discussions, there was no time to explain that I could get (i.e. I already was thinking of) an algebraic system that can still involve the ideas of convergence. In fact, I thought about it and got at an example right on the fly. But I was sure I couldn’t have explained it in the right words—the idea just flashed right during the conversation. So, not to waste his time, I asked him what would he think of it if I could get such a system (a multi-step, converging but algebraic system), and try to establish an analog with the differential equations-involving MWR. He then said that perhaps such a thing has not been done before, and that it would be nice to have a connection like that formally worked out. [I will repeat this part in a separate post, also at iMechanica, but in the meanwhile, if you know that someone has already worked out something along these lines, please drop me a line; thanks in advance.]

So there. The stupid/evil primary intended readership, these discussions, per your government-funded and government-enforced “logic,” had nothing to do with mechanical engineering. After all, both the professors were from the department of mathematics. So, you the stupid/evil primary intended readership (consisting of folks like G. K. Kharate, A. A. Ghatol, D. W. Pande, G. B. Pant, their friends, etc.), you all sit cozy and quiet and keep on drawing your respective 6th-pay commission-enhanced salaries, allowances, refunds, etc. Keep faithfully doing that, you stupids/idiots/evils.

[I remain jobless; the “A Song I Like” section is once again being dropped.]

[E&OE]

# M Tech (Mech.) Admissions—An Open Letter to COEP Authorities

Today I noticed a print ad clarification in the daily Sakal. According to this ad, the requirements for the M Tech (Mechanical) program at COEP include a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent qualifications like AMIE) in only the following branches: Mechanical, Automobile, Production, and Industrial.

I would like to appeal the authorities to completely abolish the requirements of specific undergraduate branches for MTech admissions at COEP.

If that is not possible, then they should at least allow, for example, the Metallurgical and Electrical graduates into the MTech Mechanical program.

Consider the following reasons:

— A typical Industrial Engineer has not augmented or deepened his grasp of stress analysis via related courses such as those on metal working, materials testing, fracture and failure, NDT, etc. Further, the IE students actually don’t re-use fluid mechanics and heat transfer concepts in their later UG courses. So, these courses are often completed by them only as formal requirements, that’s all. Note, industrial engineers are mostly concerned with the more abstract and linear algebraically inclined topics such as OR, operations planning, human factors engineering, management, logistics, etc. So, the typical IE students do not have the time or the motivation to bother developing deeper insights about physical phenomena concerning stress analysis or CFD or thermal engineering. The undergraduate IE programs don’t lay any emphasis on these topics—not even by way of applications alone.

— Metallurgical programs (not all but enough of them—certainly the one at COEP), instead, include *all* of the topics mentioned at the beginning of the above paragraph. Further, they include a lot of topics concerning manufacturing engineering: metal working (an exhaustive range of these processes), heat treatment, foundry, manufacturing methods for newer materials, and why, even that “staple diet” of the traditional mechanical engineers, namely, machining.

Now, if even the industrial and production branches can be considered for admissions into the relevant MTech Mechanical programs, why not Metallurgical?

Isn’t this a matter purely indicative of the entrenched bias of the career academics?

— For MTech in Mechanical with the design stream option, not just metallurgical but also electrical engineers should be actively considered. The latter often have developed a good sense of what it takes to design rotating equipment, power-plant equipment, etc. I mean, they have a good application context and a kind of conceptual maturity about these topics, through their study of electrical machinery, power equipment, and separate design courses on both.

— Further, if the authorties really want to make sure that only the students with the right conceptual background are admitted to the MTech programs, then they should also actively consider the other side of it. They should start dis-qualifying BE/BTech Mechanical Sandwich graduates for MTech Mechanical admissions.

Don’t get shocked.

The reality is, these Sandwich folks receive only a couple of years of class-room education after their common first year. Further, whatever fewer courses they have, these often arrive in a rather mangled sort of sequence. The sequence is designed to suit the instructors, not the Sandwich students. The out-of-order sequence leads to confusion in the mind of the students about the right hierarchical order of concepts—something that is essential if gaining knowledge is the objective, not just ability to repeat some words in a parrot-like manner. The course-work does not arrive in an orderly manner primarily because the College does not bother designing and delivering a completely redesigned sequence for the Sandwich students—the College has no adequate staff to even consider undertaking that.

But that’s just one part of the story. The other part is: These students routinely hear remarks by the “practical” sort of engineers in industry who themselves often display a significantly high degree of anti-conceptual mentality. This, too, serves to discourage many Sandwich trainees from pursuing concepts to a sufficient depth. The end result is that the Sandwich stream folks turn out to be good mainly for operations and shop-floor management. As such, they should *not* be considered for direct MTech admissions; they are rather suitable only for MBA.

Now, of course, exceptions should certainly be allowed for those Sandwich trainees who have specifically worked in the design or R & D departments of large companies. That is, if the students can produce documented evidence to indicate their acquisition of higher levels of skills specifically in these two departments. Not otherwise. (Many of the companies participating in the Sandwich programs are small- to medium-scale enterprises who do not have an adequately well developed design or R & D departments. Typically, industry supervisors will happily oblige the trainee if he requests them that they mention “design” as the main activity—regardless of what he did on the shop-floor for them. The situtation is not very different from obtaining a medical certificate for getting a sick leave.)

I think most people at COEP would get shocked at my suggestion concerning disqualifying the Sandwich graudates primarily because, at COEP, the Sandwich option is (or at least used to be) a hot favorite with students. As such, typically (though not always) it was the students with the *higher* merit who (used to) prefer the Sandwich option. Therefore, the suggestion that these students now be dis-qualified for MTech admissions might come as a rude suggestion to many.

But just the fact that you had better marks, or are more talented, does not mean you are better (or even adequately) prepared to undertake a master’s in engineering or technology…. (The fact that some COEP Sandwich trainees fare wonderfully abroad in PG programs in engg. does not at all mean that the system itself is excellent—all that it means is that the student himself was good, and worked hard at his MS/MTech and PhD.)

And even if the suggestion comes as a shock, do consider the relevant facts—the shortened time for conceptual development, the haphazardly thrown together course-work, and the over-emphasis on the things “practical”…. Where is the concern for better or deeper “theoretical” work here? Theoretical work as would be necessary to undertake a master’s or a doctorate degree later on?

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In any case, though I wrote at greater length about disqualifying Sandwich people, that, really speaking, is not my main purpose here… I just included that point to induce people to think *really* afresh about these matters…

My main point here is regarding expanding the reach of the MTech Mechanical program at least to Metallurgical graduates if not also to Electrical graduates (and of the Mechanical graduates into the appropriate Metallurgical programs, of course—which, again, is *not* permitted in COEP, but *should* be…)

I am sure that my main appeal above will fall on deaf ears. … This statement needs explanation (for people unfamiliar with the way COEP in particular and Indian institutions in general work).

It is a curious happenstance that when arguments such as the above are presented, at COEP (and more largely, with any Indian government department) every *individual* would *completely* agree with *any* of those observations, and still, not raise any objection about them, and yet, collectively, every decision the same fellows eventually take would be taken as if nothing of the above sort had ever been said by anyone at any point of time. Effectively, it would be as if the matter had fallen on deaf ears.