Tata Steel Advanced Materials Research Centre established at IIT Madras
Madras: The Tata Steel Advanced Materials Research Centre (TSAMRC) was launched today (11th August 2017) at Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) Research Park.
Mr Anand Sen, President (Total Quality Management and Steel Business), Tata Steel Limited, inaugurated the Centre in the presence of Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, Dr Gopichand Katragadda, Group Chief Technology Officer, Tata Sons, Prof. Krishnan Balasubramanian, Dean, Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research, IIT Madras, faculty members and officials from IIT-Madras and Tata Steel Limited.
Speaking at the occasion, Mr Sen, said, “The best brains should be involved in innovation in manufacturing. There is a large space and need for innovation in the manufacturing sector and I’m looking forward to exciting times ahead.”
This was a good start to an exciting venture. This Centre should be fully operational by December this year, he added.
Speaking during the inaugural function, Prof. Ramamurthi said, “We should be driving the technological innovations as there is a lot of potential for new technologies in the country. The Computational Software should be leveraged to see how an existing pathway, being followed globally, can be replaced by a better, more efficient and economical pathway. The Tata Steel Advanced Materials Research Centre will be equipped with computational software.”
Speaking later, Dr Katragadda said, “Now, it takes nearly 20 years for a new material to be created and enter the market. The industry will benefit a lot, if this time can be reduced.” The Computational Centre at TSAMRC will definitely help accelerate the timeline for a product to go to the market.
Tata Steel had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with IIT-Madras on August 16, 2016 to set up the Research Centre. This initiative comes in the light of Tata Steel being entrusted with the responsibility of developing a long-term strategic roadmap in the area of advanced materials.
It is intended to attract project proposals from IIT-Madras with potential breakthroughs using Advanced Materials and new processing techniques. The Centre also aspires to create a world-class ecosystem that would enable participation of leading universities from across the world. The students and faculty members working on projects at TSAMRC would also be exposed to the manufacturing world of not only Tata Steel also with other group companies of Tata.
S. Ramaprabhu, Dept. of Physics, Prof. Susy Varughese, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Prof. P. Abhijith Deshpande, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Prof. C. Lakshman Rao, Dept. of Applied Mechanics, Prof. Debdutta Ray, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, and Prof. Soumya Dutta, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, were among the faculty from IIT-Madras who took part in the function.