Artwork by Saurabh Shandilya
From conversation on:
May 29, 2021
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There are countless techniques which revolve around the manipulation of pressure waves, to test the stability and integrity of structures, be it aircraft hulls or even the buildings and skyscrapers that you see around, making the study of acoustics an essential part of any engineering design. Even the study of instruments like the Violin have revealed essential insights into the field of acoustics and that research into Indian instruments would reveal a lot more. The problems engineers face in the real world, go well beyond the approximations and assumptions one often sees in textbooks. They deal with the nonlinear regime, far away from the comforts of equilibrium conditions, where even problems like modelling the wrinkle on a membrane might be impossible to model! To find just the right balance between simplicity and feasibility is what makes an engineer truly skilled. In our conversation with Dr. Praveen Krishna, a research pioneer from the field of applied dynamics and vibrations, blew our minds with examples from everyday life that could actually help solve some of the pressing problems that the industry faces. A passionate teacher who stresses on the importance of practical knowledge and hands on experience above all and an expert engineer, who brings an arsenal of practical knowledge that he built up during his ten year tenure in the industry, working with giants like Honeywell and GE, his work spans a wide spectrum of fundamental engineering problems dealing with structural and vibration dynamics.
When I look at a Mridangam from the vibrational perspective, it poses a lot of questions. Questions which I may be able to use in damping control in thin membranes. Therefore, I can use the same idea!
ABOUT THE GUEST
Dr. Praveen Krishna Associate Professor, Department of Aerospace, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram
Dr. Praveen Krishna is currently an Associate professor at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram. A research pioneer from the field of applied dynamics and vibrations, he has carried out extensive work in the multifariously distinct area of nonlinear systems. He pursued his bachelors from the Kerala University and went on to take up his masters as well as doctoral work at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. His research includes myriads of problems dealing with non-linear systems and their dynamics. His work extends from the fascinating field of acoustic engineering to the very fundamental problems dealing with structural and vibration dynamics. With almost ten years of industrial experience, Dr. Krishna brings in an arsenal of practical knowledge to his teaching. In his personal time, as a violinist, Dr. Krishna has a deep passion for music and amusingly, is also pursuing research on the acoustics of Indian classical instruments. A warm sense of humour, genuine friendliness and immense passion for teaching are a few traits of his dynamic personality.
Transcript
Shreya Mishra (Host 1) :
Welcome to another episode of Zeroing in the science podcast.
Hi I am Shreya Mishra and joining me today as co-host is Sushant Suresh Shanbagh. who is currently pursuing his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology and it's working closely with our guest. Today we are in conversation with the research pioneer from the field for applied dynamics and vibrations who has carried out extensive work in the multifariously distinct area of nonlinear systems. Presently, an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, who pursued his bachelors from the Kerala University and went on to take up his Masters as well as doctoral work at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. His research includes myriads of problems dealing with the nonlinear system and their dynamics. His work extends from the fascinating field of acoustic engineering to the very fundamental problems dealing with the structural and vibration dynamics with almost 10 years of industrial experience, he brings in an arsenal of practical knowledge to his teachings. In our conversation with him, we talked about the fundamentals that play an essential role when working with dynamical systems and the vitality of this study in our daily lives. Along with this, we also delved into his journey of transitioning through it all. A very warm welcome to Dr. Praveen Krishna.
Shreya :
Thank you so much, Sir, for joining today. So, we'd like to start off by asking a very basic question about what are your ideas about the field of science and engineering in general and what it has meant to you over the years. And how do you think the meaning of it has evolved from when you started to what you are now?
Dr. Praveen Krishna :
To me, science is something which you know any systematic study. I mean the sense if you do something very systematically, I will call all that into the basket of science. And it comes to technology that is a quite a bit different, because the systematic study is not just enough. You should have practical use; you know something which is useful for the common man. Common man in the sense the mankind in some way or the other, you know, because people will come back and say to me, saying that space science then it is not helpful for you know, common man. It has its own, you know, positive sides because lot of scientific outputs which we use today actually comes from people first exploring space and then that becomes useful for the day to day activities. So to me, science is basically any systematic study you can quote. But as technology, it is you know something which mankind is going to use per say for the current period, or maybe something in the near future, so that is the difference. To be very honest with you, rather than getting directly into science, I was actually fascinated by it close to my home. There was actually an automobile workshop, so when I was a kid, they used to repair scooters. The evening I used to see you know that fellow just takes out all these parts and then he removes it. The engine was washed with petrol and the mufflers they will just burn it. Around that time there was this high noise scooters, right? Like that bike Enfield bullet. So that dhak-dhak sound people could hear before, that you take the muffler and then when it gets stuck people just burn the muffler actually. So I used to see this and so my aim was to actually become somebody who can repair a bike. or you know, automobile or something like that so I mean they didn't do so called engineering but then somebody told me that you know mechanical engineering is where people do this. So then I thought that after graduation I will be able to start my own workshop. So, I went off to mechanical engineering. And to my dissatisfaction, I found that at the end of the day, we cannot repair a bike by studying mechanical engineering. That was the realization after the B.Tech, but it was too late to go back. So that is actually the truth of how I came into mechanical engineering.
Shreya :
OK sir, and how do you think it has changed for you now that you look back after so many years?
Dr. Krishna :
Perception changes or you know, and that's what I said. Most of the times lot of us get into engineering with a lot of expectations and at some point of time these expectations and the reality may be different and I realized repairing an automobile you don't need actually know, what you call a very high degree in engineering or you don't have to even know engineering what at all it requires is a set of practice and how in India a man becomes a mechanic is basically he just you know trains with some other senior person assigned with him for couple of months and then slowly he will start, you know, unscrewing the wheels and then he finally gets to even change the engine, so that's all that is required. So my concept of this engineering changed after that. I realized there are a lot of things and engineering is basically even if you want you may not be able to go back and design some of these things or make some of these things useful. And at that point of time, uh, especially in India you know the jobs of Mechanical Engineers were becoming very, very less. In the sense of the core jobs and most of the people, in this period which I'm talking about, something like 1996. In Kerala we had a lot of political issues at that time because of self-financing engineering colleges and so on and so forth so our courses got lagged a lot. So we were supposed to graduate by 1996, but we graduated in 1997. So that is what I remember, there was almost six months of our undergraduate time where it was I mean very less type of contact, time of contact forces and most of the time there were strikes. It's a very peculiar thing with Kerala. So we missed it. So then I realized, you know, I think you know I have to make sure that so some of these subjects which I studied I think I should just re look back into them,seriously, so I decided I will go for Masters and after the masters I got placed first actually in Mahindra and Mahindra so I was there in Mumbai for a month. But I had serious health issues so I had to come back and by that time there was a offer from Tata GE. So I joined. So that is where this started. So almost 6 years I was with GE, different parts of GE and then I realized that no, it was high time to do a PhD because a lot of my friends who were there in GE were PhD holders. So just to have my ego satisfied, I thought I will also do a PhD. Since as I told you know during the period in GE, I have worked on almost different variety of engineering products starting from appliances to industrial turbines so there was a wide variety of exposure but one thing which I was missing was basically working on automobiles. So I decided I had to just work in the automobile regime. So I joined Honeywell. Honeywell was owning Garrett which is in a turbocharger manufacturing unit. So I was a technology specialist when I joined there. And then I decided after some time I think I will go ahead and teach and that is the way my career has progressed.
Shreya :
Yeah. So can you briefly, point out in a very indicative manner, what is the importance of the study of vibration systems and acoustic dynamics in general?
Dr. Krishna :
Like OK, if you look at the way typically science has progressed, or at least the engineering has progressed or structural engineering has progressed Uh, I will recommend all the aerospace engineers to read, there is a book by, I think it is Timochenko which is called History of strength of materials. That is actually a very wide variety of the way the so-called structures have evolved through the millennium is very clearly mentioned. So if you look at the way the structure's design is evolved it is basically looking at making bridges and the way the study has gone. And earlier, before the dynamics asset roll, people came to know only when the railroads became very prominent in Europe. So when the railroad started building up and the bridges were built, that is when this moving stock moves on the bridges, they found that this the right way is that things are going to start failure even though they are designed well within their ultimate strain. So then people realize that they have to really look at what happens when you are going to have a variation in your load. So that was, maybe you can say the very first kind of vibration studies with people. Then in the late 18th century or 17th century, I don't remember exactly the year the people went ahead with studying this. How exactly is it? Experimental studies were conducted and people came into empirical formulae so a lot of what we do right now with your theoretical background started with empirical relationships, so we will say 0.5% is good, but you make sure that your speed is less than 60 mph, so there was not a proper study of this. So see, that is where material science has become spun out of mechanical engineering and it's grown into its own, because now you need to know how the materials behave for different types of loads, so that actually becomes an important part. So now if you look at this, slowly this thing creamed into the study. So people understood that the dynamics had a role in the material failure. Now people started working on it and it becomes very prominent, when people started making electrical machines and water turbines. This actually becomes a major concern for them because it's a rotating machinery and you're going to have a lot of imbalances that is going to create a lot of structural failures. So people have to start designing things for that. So the very first systematic studies basically started in industry first. So any industry which makes you know these rotating kind of machines they used to call people from academics or engineers who are working there for a lot of years and solve these problems like the railroads once they started. You know, classifying these bits and pieces of as industry lecture notes to them and slowly the study became, you know, very important and people developed with vibration part and people started using lot of concepts from electrical engineering and that is why we still use the word impedance as lot of things we borrow from electrical engineers because some of the older vibration engineers are from the electrical background. And then people started about monitoring this and again the electrical understanding became very important focus. Thus the measuring of vibration becomes again very important part because you have to really predict when this structure is going to fail because it's may fail before the ultimate strength is reached and hence we are coming with newer and newer materials. Now how this is going to behave in dynamics? That becomes an opened up area of challenge.
Sushanth Suresh Shanbag(Host 2) :
Sir, in general we as engineers mostly focus in the neighborhood of an equilibrium solution. We linearize the system and we study their dynamics, but in most of your research, you have focused on the nonlinear dynamics and this stuff, so what is it that interests you that much? Or what potential can the study of nonlinear dynamics have in the future?
Dr. Krishna :
Yeah, I will find the reverse. You can't solve a nonlinear problem, so you just solve a linear problem and be happy with it. It’s OK.
Sushanth :
Haha, that's what most people do.
Dr. Krishna :
Yeah, I will give you both the sides of it as I was telling you earlier, right? When you look at the way science has progressed all the time since the bridge engineer, people have started their analysis with a single weight loaded test. We know the weight, we know when it is going to fail and we say this is your ultimate load. You design with that. Then people realized when you have a dynamic force, we have started seeing it fails, so people ask you to again go back and look at things and there is a problem so we will modify our understanding. Then comes the next part of it, where this dynamics analysis is not again enough to really do some of the predictions. For example, there are failures which happened in industry, especially in water turbines. So when the first water turbines were built there was a bigger failure on a frequency which they never predicted and this becomes a major issue and this is actually a public domain document. One of the engineers who are working in the power systems. His name was Campbell, so this gentleman has found that a rotating system where you are going to have a big gyroscopic couple the frequencies can both increase as well as decrease and then people went ahead and designing something called like Campbell diagram or safe diagram and you know. And this becomes an industry practice now and he with a simple rubber disk in the lab actually he made a rotor with a rubber. And then he showed that with the rubber you will be able to see some of the so-called backward whirl, which is possible and you know he started telling that you should make sure that your excitation frequencies where you are going to a critical space and this this can create problems for your rotating machine. So people know, that is again from the industry it came, so understanding is improved now. Until that point of time we have had a lot of problems which needs to be addressed in the linear domain itself. See the gyroscopic effect is still in the linear domain so you don't have any mechanisms where it has to be really you know, worried about. The only thing is you don't have a solution techniques possible for lot of this thing. Then the computer becomes a reality. So people got time to really look into this problem, then get numerical solutions and so that is where all these assumptions, all the linear assumptions, all the theoretical assumptions where people using because at that point of time they don't have any other mechanism. I don’t know. You guys may not have even seen there were even special functions then you know, handbooks, like your logarithm tables. None of you might have seen a logarithm table, but the Handbook of special functions was actually there. One point of time in all the design offices now that things have been changed and none of us teach you to use these handbooks or anything anymore, right? So the reason is you have everything which you will be able to simulate because of the numerical analysis. Now people are slowly relaxing lot of assumptions where these analytical expressions are being developed and that is the way the science has to progress. Because you have better things to visualize. And better things to see. For example, if you look at again coming back to my own field of expertise, you see that near failures, the gear failures is always a problem, because now we don't want our gears to fail. The major challenge in gear failure is again seeing the type of lubrication. What type of lubrication which is already there in the system? How do you see this? How do you observe it physically? How do you observe it when you are going to have a high pressure, you know when you're going to have a high powertrain gearbox in an automobile, let's say. How do you see this? You can't see how exactly what type of lubrication happens inside, right? How do you visualize it? But now if you look at this, if you are going to look at something where you have a CFD simulation, then you can see what happens there. So your understanding is slowly getting improved, so your understanding once it get improved you will be able to better design. You will be able to make better understanding of the physics and then you will be able to make you know better and better products out of it. And that is where if you look at the way the casing dimensions. A lot of these things will come down. So that is because you have relaxed your assumptions of linearity and you slowly get into the equilibrium based the design wise. Now, even in the linear case, the equilibrium point where you do, I mean it is just one equilibrium point. In nonlinear you may have multiple equilibrium points. So where do you want to operate is your choice. That is where at engineer comes into picture, right? Otherwise ANSYS or some software should have taken over the job. Right? So you should choose where you want to place your equilibrium point your operating conditions and limit it. That is exactly what fills you in the nonlinear thing. Your design space where your things are predictable or not.
Sushanth :
Sir, now another important research that you have worked on is particularly on the wrinkling of membranes. In most of the cases we have some more that there are deployable kind of structure, like for example a parachute. So we fold it and when we deploy it still the wrinkles appear on the on that membrane as it is thin and it has a low bending rigidity. But we have heard that to solve this problem there is a like a great deal of difficulty which is involved so can you enlighten us about this particular field of reason?
Dr. Krishna :
No, I was actually working on this wrinkling because now I don't want to see my skin getting wrinkled when I get old. So I thought there is going to be a lot of potential if I just make this study. And then I know some companies may sponsor me with a lot of money. Jokes apart, wrinkling of thin membranes is again in tune with, you know which I was talking about the study of our you know the Indian musical instruments per say because lot of the Indian musical instruments is actually from animal origin. Basically if you look at Mridangam there is having one example is cow membrane. OK, So what they do is they dry it and they stretch it. Then they beat it and then again they stretch and then they do a lot of process on this. You know this membrane and then get the required temper so that you know you will get that nice music coming out. Now if you want to really look at some of this, think about it changing into an artificial skin or per, say, animal skin kind of stuff. I really don't know is there any effect on, you know, some of this process that they did, as in generating the real - the natural frequencies or stuff like that, something like an initial straining, whatever we call. So if I have to give an initial straining to some of the membranes so the membranes which we use like the Kevlar. Membrane what we use in terms of kettle drum. One of the thing is when we want to stretch it, initially stretch it so if you give us stretching a uniform stretching process, a lot of these membranes have a problem. Or the tensile instability which is called wrinkles. So if you really want to get into that, as I told you right, it's the same problem. But the only thing is how do you look at different aspects? So each of those will become slowly a new research. So if you really want to understand that, then you should understand what wrinkling is and unfortunately that also comes to a nonlinear phenomenon. That is why people try to avoid it, and when I was going through reading then I have seen a lot of people working on this and you know who works on this kind of simulations? The gaming industry. Now if we just say you have a curtain, right? If somebody jumps onto a holding onto a curtain and then they jump to the other side right, the person where it holds you will see it just wrinkles, right? Now what you want to simulate you know that has to be as realistic as possible so how do you do this? You may not need an exact solution as that of engineering, but you know your deformation shapes has to be something which is at least close to what we see. So a lot of the people who works on this where I know the gaming industry is something which plays a lot in kinematics study. They want human animation. No, they just want to be as realistic as it is. You guys won't be realized this because now you have almost human like animations. But when I was a student when we started looking at these computer games that time you will see that these animations were like yeah, what the heck, you know the way that that character walks are really bad and that is good. No, because of that bad postures and stuff like that we were able to be out of that craze, you know. That craze which you guys are into no lot of you spend your time computer games because you know you see more realistic stuff. What you can we cannot do in in the real life you will be happy to see that your hero does. Yeah, so it is the reason why I went to wrinkling is again because of this thing. Membranes have a property when we stretch it then that becomes you know this instability can creep in. So you are understanding has to be pakka and some of our existing numerical methods have a problem. Example finite elements. Uh, because you need extensive meshing and then you know you are wavelength dependent meshing. You are meshing what you do across the membrane. You should be able to take the curvature so you have a problem with your meshing patterns, so you need to look at something where you know it is not really an element dependent or meshing dependent. Otherwise you may fail in capturing the computer and you may predict wrong wrinkling loads so. It all comes with the same intentions in the back. Whatever research work I do, I accept the structure interaction part. You will be able to see you know the whole problem comes down to the vibration. You know, acoustics and then it's branching out. So I always try to put that as my main pillar.
Sushanth :
Yeah India has a very rich diversity in culture and also we have come across a lot of acoustical instruments throughout the history. We know that you are particularly interested in some of the percussion instruments and you have also worked on them, can brief about them here?
Dr. Krishna :
Yeah, this is, I know it is not just a curiosity question, but I know this is something which I think the responsibility of you know the Indian scientists to bring about you know some of these studies I mean, I personally feel that is that is required because systematic study of lot of the Indian instruments has not been happened. That is my personal opinion, very few people have worked on it. But surprisingly you will see a lot of the instruments which we use even now have reference to the Natya shastra or Bharatamuni which is actually a very old book and some of the way we arrange even in a Arangam which is basically the place where these things are performed. It is still according to what is described in, you know the Natya Shastra and you will not see the way they do it is, you know, may not be very different from something which is described at that hold but if you look at the Western counterparts and if you just go back and look at the acoustics of Western musical instruments, say violin, you will see a lot of stuff and you will see lot of studies on kettledrums. I mean you know that the drums which are used in the western side, you will see a lot of that and a lot of the other types of instruments which we play there. There have been no people who have been studying that, but this kind of an effort is actually lacking in the Indian stuff. The reason why this is because in India, most of the time we call something, somebody as a scientist provided you know, we just do that delta to something which elsewhere, you know being produced then we do the delta increments to what we do rather than looking at some of some of our instruments. Since Sushant talked about Indian percussion instruments, Indian percussion instruments by construction itself are very different from that of its Western counterparts. Because you know the same counterparts, some of the drums are having one wide open but an Indian thing if you look at the percussion instruments, almost all of them, except very few, all of them are actually closed at both sides, and some of them we say you know to be used inside a closed environment and something are prescribed to use outside. Even though we use it, you know. Without having proper thought, that is because of this generation, but some of the instruments are prescribed that they should be used only in an open place and you should not be use that inside an enclosed. So that is actually something which really you know, one part of it or something which we were using has a scientific merit or not, and you know, looking at it from perspective, I feel the responsibility of every Indian citizen. And if there is some science to it, I think we should be the first person to go back and tell them the world that look, there is some science here. Now if you look at the some of the musical pillars, which is there even in the you know the basically the South India specifically in Madhura Meenakshi temple and so many other places where you can see even people were able to get music out of stone. I mean, I have not seen a scientific study of that kind of you know how that thing has been made? I mean, it is actually a curiosity question because you know this has been there for at least 400 to 500 years for sure. So and how they are able to even give the same sound? And I have seen recently there was a new scheme in one of the newspapers that in Kerala they found another one. And in Kannur, where they have, I think, it is a raw kind of structure, but a shape or kind of structure where you rub it you will see that you will hear different kinds of noise. So how has it been achieved? Maybe because of the skilled expertise, which I know the workmanship at that point of time and it may be because of our structure it may not have given to somebody else which may have died out, but a scientific study on that always encourages you to show that there is some science behind it rather than magic. Right? Yeah, the Lepakshi temple in Andhra. There you will be able to see that you know the weight balance. I mean, I personally feel it is the weight balance mechanism of the hanging pillar where you have structurally designed, but you have a pillar hanging and then I think you know they were trying to do it with simple balancing your weight, I mean, but nobody has proved it, but still, you know that is an open question, so some of these things always, you know, increases your curiosity. As an engineer, you know how you are able to do this. So now again, coming back to the Indian percussion instruments, Indian percussion instruments gives you a lot of opportunities for other research as well. And this is something which we are missing. Some of the constructions of Indian layered members, right the way the layered members have been arranged. That poses a lot of questions. For example, if you take the Mridangam, there are two varieties of Mridangam, where you will see that there is something called a Kucchi mridangam, and then there is another one where you put stones in between in some places and what you call the small leaves are placed it's called Kutchi and Kappi and if you ask a percussionist, a person who reads that, you will say the second one, one with no stones in between the membrane is extremely difficult to generate some of the harmonics and other constructions remain the same, but you know, just by doing this, and when I look at from a vibration perspective, you know when I look at it from an engineer's perspective, I will see there is a huge difference in damping. So how has it been achieved? You know, the way they place it is the optimum way of doing it? So these are all some questions which, you know, the whole problem is the way you have been trained. Now you will try to look at that place, the other person looks at why the hell I know. How do I play this? But whereas for me that poses a lot of questions which I may be able to use. Maybe, doing a damping control in some membranes at some place I may be able to use the technology, right? I can use the same idea by copying. So stealing something which already exists, there is nothing wrong with it, as long as it works.
Shreya :
It's really fun to see how you see an engineering perspective in literally everything and anything that you see. So, sir I wanted to ask like apart from this engineering side, do you have an inclination towards these musical instruments? Otherwise as well, do you play any instrument?
Dr. Krishna :
Oh actually I was trained in violin up to a certain extent and I had to mug up some of these keerthanas and stuff which I'm very poor at. So I was not able to play at higher speeds then. The teacher used to tell me, I think you should mug up and come and finally, I decided you know that doesn't work for me. So, but at least I can, I think I went up to the Varnam in Carnatic classic classification. I went up to Varnam in violin. But then I have to just mug. I started mugging up all these keerthanas. I found it is something which I should have done at a younger age rather than at the age of 30-32 that stuff when you have other engagements. It becomes extremely difficult. So I play violin, to say, but I really listen to south Indian classical music and I feel that as music and western heavy metal as noise. No hard feelings, but noise is what human beings perceive. Something good to you may not be good to me. It's all perspective in nature.
Shreya :
I would like to ask, what do you think is one of the major failings that Indian students are facing – students studying engineering or the ones pursuing it, in one way or the other – running the rate race so how do you think this should be modified and can you give your perspective on the whole scenario?
Dr. Krishna :
Even though you people call this a rush for the rat race for an engineering job. I would say that is not exactly true. I personally feel the number of engineering graduates this country needs is not being satisfied because of the latest talks on having startups and being entrepreneurs. I think the engineer - population of this country really needs to grow. I still feel we have not solved problems very specific to this country. You may not be able to see this in other countries. You need solutions that are specific to our environment, our culture and the country of our size. I would like to disagree with you that this is a rat race, the engineering curriculum has to be modified with the outlook where we will look at how to solve our own problems. A unique solution doesn’t exist – you can't have it. India is very diverse. Every state and every place has its own problems and the local engineers should be trained in such a way that we should be able to address the problems pertaining to that. Kerala is one place where you see heavy rain during this time, and our roads are actually...you can always blame the contractors, you can always blame the system which is corrupted. You should try to see a solution, a cost effective solution where the roads will not get damaged during the heavy rains. Open question. Our transport system, the way vehicles are designed, we are just copying it from the Western countries. But we have our own problems which need to be addressed. If you just look at farming. We have automatic coping machines but the problem is when you reap it, the stem is not useful after that. But in India a lot of these things go to animal farms for feeding the cows. But when we use that in the automatic machine we lose that. This is one problem which we should really try to solve. Again the pollution problem in Delhi, just before the cropping season. The wind direction and we have the problem of, they do it with the farmers doing it in their place and you cant just come and say stop it. There they do it with a micro mix of the farming. The solution has to be custom made. India has a lot of problems. I feel engineers have a major role. The only thing I personally feel is that we should challenge them. I personally feel the Indian academia is not challenging the students. Some of your counterparts across the globe, for example if you are studying in some western universities or some technical places there are some open challenges to design something. There was an open challenge by MIT where you have to design an arm in such a way that it mimics the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees have a lot of strength in their hands. That was a real open challenge problem. You have to work out with some of the things available within the lab. This kind of open challenges along with the curriculum and make sure you learn a lot of practical things, and try to solve this over here. I don’t say it is a problem with the students – it is a problem with academia. They have to relook at how to solve this problem. It is very specific to our country. I am really surprised whether you guys are aware of it or not. Even the Lepakshi temple which I was talking about - the scientific study of that was actually done by a British Engineer. So the very first study was actually possible by a European rather than an Indian. Our academia has to focus on problems very specific to our country. We are born and brought up in this country so we know the pulse of this country so we should be able to try to solve problems which are very specific to this country and how to solve this. Lot of times the solution has to be which is available to you, rather than buying it from somewhere else. That is my perspective of Indian engineering. I don’t think there is a problem with students going for engineering – I think they have to be directed very well and we should be able to look at problems very specific to us.
Sushanth :
Another thing sir along with this what do you suggest for students? What kind of attitude should they have when they are into this discipline of engineering? How should they look at all the things. What perspective should they have?
Dr. Krishna :
I asked this question to you people in the class right? Do you know how to repair a fan in your home? Can you repair a mixie, a food processor if it gets halted in your home? Will you try to open it up? Will you open up a radio as an electrical engineer and say I know this is gone I will fix it? Engineering is more observation. I personally feel the students should be told to observe things and make comments on things. The moment you start looking at things from an engineering angle you will see value in it. I will give a u a very small example all of us have come across. Have you seen the paper pin? The shape of the paper pin which you used to use in exams. Have you seen the shape of the paper pin u used to used it before stapler right. Why is the shape of the paper pin like that? Why is it exactly like that? Why can’t we just have a… Now when see when you draw in your drawing board right you are an engineering graphics you have a board pin which is a different shape - this is not a paper pin. Why exactly these two things are different. Did you ask this question? And believe me when I was doing my jee one of my colleague lecturers has given a lecture for two days on why the shape of a pin is from an engineer perspective and till that time I didn’t observe it. He is an IIT Bombay graduate an IIT engineering design graduate from Bombay and he said how the shape of the pin is what it is. And why people will not work on it to improve it. that also was a part of the second part so you see you know you see what kind of problem you should look at we should always have a close look at what we should really do. You have a smartphone now. What is the reason smartphones has come? What made this? Whole process of what Steve Jobs once thought, I use the keypad just before calling. If I don’t want to dial it, I won’t need the number pad. Can I make this number pad disappear when I don’t want it. That was the question he asked. And that is the way the phone industry has changed. You all had very big mobile phones at that time, very big mobile phones but people had not thought about this at that time. The fundamental requirement of an engineer is to observe keenly. what happens. Can I do something to this? Can I make this delta change to that? That question is something that obviously an engineer will take up. You should be able to ask this question. Why exactly is this the way it is? Is there an alternative? Is it an effective alternative? And someone teaches you, some faculty teaches you something, “What are you teaching? Where the hell am I going to use this?” You guys are better but I have to tell you, in the classes, I have never seen anyone questioning why this is not right except one or two times in IIST. Why are you teaching this? Believe me when we were in GE we were asked this question very often. Whenever we proposed some design, there were 1000s of questions. Why the hell did you do like this? Why can’t we do it in this way? So before you go present there, you have 1000 questions that need to be answered by yourself. The questioning attitude you should have, where are we going to use this? Some faculty may answer while others may not answer but what prevents you from asking this question? You are worried about your 7.5. ‘If I ask this question that person will reduce my internals and I will be out of this 7.5.’ I mean personally what I felt that is what I feel Indian students should have. One of the faculty I had who was on a sabbatical in a US university for teaching. He was offering a course. So there you have to register for a course and then pay. So he was offering a summer course there. He offered a 40 day course. Due to some issues he had to finish by 39. A student came and asked this is a 40 hour course, why have you not taken one hour? Now if I say that I am leaving you one hour for free you guys will be double happy. That is why I make it a point that I will not take any more or less than the prescribed hours. One more means you guys have to pay me. One less means I am not doing my job. You guys should have the courage. Nothing is free in this world. If an academic curriculum for 40 hours is put up then it is your responsibility to tell the faculty that he has to take the 40 hours. That you are supposed to teach me something. We want people with very strong will and that is what is lacking in this country. We don’t have people taking decisions and it may not be favorable but you need to have strong will in taking decisions and courage to take decisions. That is where the Indian student needs emphasis. Curiosity is there everywhere in every one of us and all of us will do something out of our lives irrespective of grades or school marks. A lot of people in your school may be doing good jobs even though they were not scoring good marks in school. Some of them become dancers, some of them become politicians. People find their own means of expertise and they will excel. When you choose you need strong will and passion for what you do. Don’t take engineering as science. It is not a set of theories, a set of equations. It is a little bit more. As engineers we should make sure we should make things and things that work and feel pride. Have pride that I am an engineer. That is very important. One last part I have to tell my engineering students don’t worry about your grades, don't worry about the final scores and all that. Just have passion in what you do and pride in the work you do. I have been in interview panels across the globe and a good number of interviews and I can tell you this- a good institute name will fetch an interview and not a job. A grade is also the same way. It may fetch you an interview but not a job. You should have that thing in your mind.
Shreya :
This was Zeroing In with Dr. Praveen Krishna. We extend our sincere gratitude to Dr. Krishna for sharing his insightful perspective as an engineer as well as a professor in the diverse field of vibrational dynamics along with Sushanth Suresh Shanbagh for collaborating with this episode on behalf of the Zeroing In season 2 team which include Arun S, Kanthan Narayan, Kriti Raj, Murala Aman Naveen, Shaun Ethan Phangcho and I am Shreya Mishra. Thank you for listening to this episode. Zeroing In is a non profit initiative brought to you in association with the Alumni association of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram.