IIT Roorkee organizes a two-day National Seminar on ISLMSDA 2022

Roorkee : The Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department ofIndian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITRoorkee) organized a National Seminar on Inflatable Structures and Lightweight Materials: A new era of Space and Defence Applications (ISLMSDA 2022) at the Department Auditorium. The Seminar was a two-day event, starting from September 29 to September 30, 2022. The purpose of the seminar was to create awareness for inflatable structures and lightweight materials, their design, production technologies, and specific application areas among young academicians, engineers, and industrialists. Experts from the ISRO, DRDO, academic institutes and industries delivered their talks on inflatable structure design, analysis, manufacturing, lightweight materials, and testing, among others.
Participation by experts from academic institutions like IITs, NITs, and research organizations like ISRO, TIFR, DRDO, NAL, and several private Industries was welcomed. Points covered in the Seminar, included applications of inflatable structures in ground and space environments, materials for space and ground-based inflatable structures, qualification for a space environment and tests for the inflatable system, and folding and deployment of membrane structures, among other topics. Following this, it is expected that the engineers, scientists, manufacturers & academicians involved in the design, development, and production of Inflatable structures, lightweight materials, and components will immensely benefit from the deliberations.

Shri Hari Babu Srivastava, Director General (Technology Management and System Analysis & Modeling), DRDO, was the Chief Guest in a seminar on “Inflatable Structures and Lightweight Materials” organized by IIT Roorkee during 29-30 September 2022. He congratulated the Director, faculty, research fellows and students of IIT Roorkee on attaining a landmark of 175 years in the academic journey of the Institute.

Key note speakers taking part in the National Seminar included dignitaries, like Dr. H N Suresh, Group Director, URSC/ISRO; Shri Santosh Kumar, Head, FD Group, R&DE(E), Pune; Prof. Bishakh Bhattacharya, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur; Prof. Armaghan Salehian, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Univeristy of Waterloo, Canada; Dr. H.M.Y.C. Mallikarachchi, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka; Mr. S J Rao, Garware Technical Fibers Ltd., Pune, Maharashtra; Mr. Swar Vikamshi & Mr. Ramesh Choudhari, Vikamshi Fabrics Pvt. Ltd., Maharashtra; Shri A C Mathur, Group Director,(Retd.), SAC/ISRO; Dr. PC Jain, Director Structures DRDL, DRDO Ministry of Defence, Hyderabad; Prof. Anirvan Dasgupta, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur; Prof. Vsevolod Koryanov, Dynamics and flight control of missiles and space vehicles department, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russia; Dr. Satish Kumar, Department of Applied Mechanics, MNNIT Allahabad, Prayagraj; Mr. C R Sawant, Zenith Industrial Rubber Products Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, Maharashtra.

During his address, Shri H B Srivastava, Director General (Technology Management and System Analysis & Modeling), DRDO, highlighted,‘’The applications of inflatable structures and materials in the field of Space, Aeronautics, Defence, Natural Disasters, and other engineering & commercial areas. He highlighted the application of inflatable structures for the defence forces such as paratrooping of men and material, quickly deployable structures for intensive patient care, enhancement of muscle strength of soldiers etc. He also dwelt on the application of the technologies for satellites, space vehicles and space exploration. He mentioned that outstanding work is being carried out in the country by the faculty of academic institutions and scientists of DRDO, ISRO and CSIR with the involvement of industry. He also brought out the need for continuous research in the areas of inflatable structures and required lightweight metallic and non-metallic materials and committed DRDO’s support for such research in academia and industry.”

Citing the importance of inflatable structure in helping forward the growth of the Indian space industry, Prof. Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee, said, “Today India is among the top players with more than 500 small, medium and large-scale industries contributing to its space programs in the form of design, engineering and fabrication of hardware.”