A Virtual Symposium on Experimental Solid Mechanics

In honor of Prof. K. R. Y. Simha

July 28th, 29th, 2020 on Zoom platform

Established in 1945, the department of mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, has a rich tradition in mechanics in general, and experimental mechanics of solids in particular. Prof. K. R. Y. Simha is one of the distinguished faculty members who have nurtured this area over a few decades. On the occasion of his retirement this year (2020), the department is holding a symposium on this topic in his honor. Following the now-in-vogue “principle of virtual work”, this symposium is going to be held on an online meeting platform. It is a three-day event starting with a Young Researchers Meet (YRM) on July 27th and followed by two days of talks by renowned senior researchers and rising young researchers from around the world. The online symposium is open to all with no registration fee. The events on the three days are scheduled from 4 PM to 10 PM, Indian Standard Time (IST), (UTC + 5:30) keeping it within earthly hours for most people across the world.

Symposium highlights

Young Researchers Meet (YRM) on July 27th, 2020, includes a talk by Prof. K. R. Y. Simha to young researchers, a talk by Dr. Sundar of BISS on research and entrepreneurship, talks by young mechanics researchers from around the world, and a talk by Prof. Lisa Pruitt (Berkeley), and ends with a panel discussion on research and career opportunities in ME@IISc.


Number of attendees sorted by country (infographics prepared by Chinnamma, after the event)

The symposium commences on 28th July with an inaugural session to honor Prof. Simha. On July 28th and 29th, 2020, there will be eight one-hour talks and eight half-hour talks by researchers from four different countries. The symposium also includes a talk by Prof. K. R. Y. Simha.

Brief Biography of Prof. K. R. Y. Simha

Dr K. R. Y. Simha is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) under Bangalore University, master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Science and his doctorate from the University of Maryland, College Park, US.

He has vast teaching experience in India, Japan, and the USA, and has authored textbooks and handbooks on fracture and applied impact mechanics, mining, rock mechanics and blasting. He has contributed to several technical journals and conferences in India and abroad. He is consulted widely by industries in India and abroad to investigate automobile, aircraft and machine tool fracture, impact and stability problems and accidents.

At IISc, he has chaired the Department of Management Studies and the Centre for Industrial Consultancy and presided over Gymkhana, IISc. He also served as the President of the Indian Society for Applied Mechanics. Professor Simha is actively engaged in promoting excellence in technical education at master’s and PhD level for achieving leadership in research, teaching and R&D entrepreneurship in order to meet global needs.

Experimental Solid Mechanics (ESM) in ME and at IISc

Graduate-level courses in experimental engineering in general and Experimental Solid Mechanics (ESM) in particular differ distinctly from undergraduate laboratory and workshop training. This awareness seeped in only gradually during the 1960s in top universities in the world. Faculty and staff specializing in structural analysis and testing joined structures groups in aeronautical and civil engineering departments at IISc and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in that period. The main focus of these groups was on structural elements like beams, shells, and plates rather than their constitutive solids per se.

Design of moving parts like shafts, flywheels, and other tension members essential for machines and engines warranted a more detailed analysis of the stress state in solids launching ESM as a core requirement for advanced mechanical engineering design. In this respect, Timoshenko’s student Frocht, a master of the optical stress analysis technique of photoelasticity, inspired and guided a student from India who was instrumental in organizing ESM curricula at IISc, IITs, and other universities in consultation with University Grants Commission (UGC), Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). This eminent academician was Professor L. S. Srinath whose teaching and writing excellence ensured a rapid assimilation of ESM research basics in the Indian technical education scenario.

As a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering (ME) during 1970s, Professor Srinath collaborated with aeronautical, civil, physics, mathematics, instrumentation, and electrical communication engineering professors in evolving a formidable ME (mater of engineering) and PhD curriculum at IISc, combining the best of theory and experiments. Notable among the many who contributed to this unified effort at that time included Prof. A. K. Rao from aeronautics and Prof. K. T. S. Iyengar from civil engineering. This famous trio of AKR-KTS-LSS is fondly remembered even today by tens of thousands their students spread all over the globe. This legacy has continued over the decades at IISc with the induction of some outstanding faculty ably assisted by a steady stream of master’s and PhD students into IISc in general and ME@IISc in particular.

Among many faculty and staff members who supplementing the ESM effort in the ME department included Prof. P. Srinivasan, Prof. M. R. Raghavan, Prof. N. Srinivasa Murthy and Dr. P. R. Arora who between them offered nearly 25 courses! This number, if one included AE and CiE courses, could easily have been thrice this number- 75! Just amazing to imagine!

(Contributed by Prof. K. R. Y. Simha, who did his master’s work with Prof. L. S. Srinath and continued the tradition of ESM from 1988 in ME@IISc)

General Chair
Prof. Venkat R. Sonti

Technical Committee
Chair: Prof. C. S. Jog
Principal adviser: Prof. R. Narasimhan
Member: Prof. Namrata Gundiah

Young Researchers Meet
Chair: Prof. Ramsharan Rangarajan

Organizing Committee
Chair: Prof. Koushik Viswanathan
Adviser: Prof. G. R. Jayanth
Member: B. Chinnamma, Somavathi Devi, C. Srinivasa, K. G. Haridasan

July 27, 2020

Young Researchers Meet

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, invites you to join us on July 27, 2020, for a virtual Young Researchers Meet (YRM). The one-day meeting, featuring invited talks and a panel discussion, is focused on

1. bringing together early career researchers working in the area of experimental solid mechanics.
2. highlighting research and career opportunities in ME @ IISc.

YRM sets the stage for a two-day symposium on Experimental Solid Mechanics being organized in honor of Prof. K.R.Y. Simha.

YRM Schedule

Video (click here to play all videos)

July 28, 2020

Download full schedule [Here]. Please click on the Links below to view individual abstracts

Video (click here to play all videos)

Session 1 (Chair Prof. Venkata R. Sonti)
Speaker	Title	Abstract	Viodeo
Dr. Tejas Gotkhindi, IIT Dharwad	A whole-field displacement from partially accessible boundary’s displacement data: A coupled FE-analytical approach	Link	Not available
Dr. Anshul Faye, IIT Bhilai	Mechanics of fracture initiation in polycarbonate	Link
Mr. Shyamal Kishore, University of Rhode Island	Underwater implosion pressure pulse interactions with submerged plates	Link
Dr. Debasish Das, University of Ilinois, UC	Mechanics of nanoscale soft contacts	Link	Not available

Session 2 (Chair Prof. R. Narasimhan)
Speaker	Title	Abstract
Prof. Jeffrey W. Kysar	Delivery of therapeutics into the inner ear via perforation of the round window membrane	Link
Prof. Hareesh Tippur, Auburn University	A photomechanics study of single and cascading crack branch formations in soda-lime glass	Link	Not available
Prof. AT Zehnder, Cornell University	Deformation and fracture of dual cross-link hydrogels	Link
Prof. PV Venkitnarayanan, IIT Kanpur	Controlling collapse of cylindrical tubes subjected to axial impact through perforations	Link

July 29, 2020

Download full schedule [Here]. Please click on the Links below to view individual abstracts

Video (click here to play all videos)

Session 1 (Chair Prof. C. S. Jog)
Speaker	Title	Abstract	Video
Dr. KVNS Surendra, IIT Palakkad	Multi-parametric patterns of photoelastic isotropic points in disk under 4-point loading	Link
Dr. Zev Lovinger, Rafael Defense Labs, Israel	Measuring material strength and failure characteristics at high strain rates using EM driven expanding cylinders	Link
Dr. Vignesh Kannan, ETH Zurich	The kinetics of polarization and electromechanical coupling in bulk ferroelectric ceramics	Link
Dr. Suraj Ravindran, Caltech	Strength measurement of materials at extreme pressures and strain rates	Link

Session 2 (Chair Dr. Koushik Vishwanathan)
Speaker	Title	Abstract	Video
Prof. Daniel Rittel, Israel Institute of Technology, Technion	Impact response of materials: From metals to soft gels	Link
Prof. Dirk Mohr, ETH Zurich	From robot-assisted mechanical experiments to machine learning based constitutive models	Link	Not available
Prof. Arun Shukla, University of Rhode Island	Dynamic instability and fluid interaction in underwater structures under complex loading	Link
Prof. KT Ramesh, John Hopkins University	The dynamic granular flow of an advanced ceramic	Link

Infographic figure prepared by Chinnamma, G.