Outreach
Technical Training Program
The Structural Steel Research Group of IIT Hyderabad offers training program for teachers and PG level students named "Indian Structural steel Professionals and Academicians meeT" (ISPAT). ISPAT is a forum that brings together researchers from academics and professionals involved in sustainable growth of the nation. Structural steel offers flexibility to the designers and engineers alike in terms of structural performance, ease of construction and speed of onsite fabrication. Steel is a highly recyclable (GREEN) material, contributing to the ultimate goal of reducing the environmental (carbon) foot print of the construction industry. However, the performance of steel structures is still being studied to enhance our understanding of the behaviour of members and connections. Course participants should expect to see a variety of technical topics on various aspects of structural steel ranging from structural performance of steel systems and components from design, construction and fabrication point of view. ISPAT will host various structural steel experts in the areas of stability, structural members, plate girder design, structural steel connections, behaviour of steel sections under fire and Finite element analysis of steel structures. The training course will be held at Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad where innovation and industry meet the reality.
Scope of the Training Program
Structural steel design is an important course curriculum in the structures division of civil engineering. Structural steel is the fast gaining importance in India as a material choice for construction due to its recyclability, efficient use of resources and faster construction techniques. Unfortunately the current curriculum in either under graduate level or post graduate level does not give adequate importance to disseminate the knowledge of steel structures to the students community who when they later become professionals find a knowledge gap to in the area of structural steel. This hurts the Indian economy significantly. As very few specialist are currently in the structural steel arena to take up challenging projects using structural steel. This forum adequately fill the gap by transferring the knowledge to faculty members affiliated to TEQIP colleges and also to industry professionals to help them understand the fundamental design of steel design and provide adequate confidence to them to propagate the knowledge to budding civil engineer and also to design professionals who might have carried out the calculations routinely without having a fundamental knowledge in this area. It should also be noted that in several engineering intuitions are teaching the outdated code (IS 800) that employs working stress method that was least published in 1984. This workshop taught the importance of steel design to participants using current 2007 code which is based on limit state approach. The limit state approach parala shift in the steel structures compare to the previous working stress approach since the use of limit state approach results in reduced tonnage of steel there by making structural steel as a competitive alternative to the existing material choice for construction such as concrete and masonry. The course also dealt with practical aspects that one would encounter during the design of steel structures. Many of the codal provisions were thoroughly explained along with adequate reasoning such that the design professionals can use the code after this course with clarity and comfort. Further the course also touched upon the design of light gage steel (CFS – Cold formed steel) for which the existing codal provisions almost (IS 801) defunct for more than four decades therefore we provide provisions for CFS design structures as per the British and Euro code were introduced to the participants in order to enable the progress the light gage steel. Light gage steel/CFS has an excellent application in the area of affordable housing. The participants truly enjoyed the program and gave overwhelming positive response as documented in the feedback form submitted to the IITH TEQIP office. The course organizer would like to gratefully acknowledge the cooperation rendered by the TEQIP coordinator Dr. Suhas Ranjan Dev, Prof N V Reddy (Dean R & D) and director sir Prof UB Desai. In addition, the organizer (Dr. M Madhavan) would like to thank the administration office of IIT Hyderabad for ensuring smooth cooperation during the 6 day workshop for its grand success.
Dr. Mahendrakumar Madhavan
Course organizer