E-Paper
Dhande lays foundation of PDTF lab
THE INDIAN Institute of Technology (IIT-K) Director Dr Sanjay G Dhande laid the foundation stone of the laboratory for installing Pseudo Dynamic Test Facility (PDTF) equipment at the institute here on Wednesday. Professor in the Structural Engineering Laboratory at the IIT-K Dr Durgesh C Rai performed the ?bhoomi pujan?.
THE INDIAN Institute of Technology (IIT-K) Director Dr Sanjay G Dhande laid the foundation stone of the laboratory for installing Pseudo Dynamic Test Facility (PDTF) equipment at the institute here on Wednesday. Professor in the Structural Engineering Laboratory at the IIT-K Dr Durgesh C Rai performed the ‘bhoomi pujan’.
The equipment entailed a budget of Rs 6 crore and a major part of the budget was provided by the IIT-K. Besides grants also sanctioned from the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for improvement of science and technology infrastructure for the higher educational institutions and the Ministry of HRD.
Dr Rai said the PDTF would strengthen research work in the area of earthquake engineering, which was one of the high priority areas.
He said the research facility would be used to evaluate overall seismic performance of various civil engineering systems including buildings, bridges, water tanks and earthen embankments and would be a unique facility in the country in terms of specifications and test capabilities. Dr Rai further said that construction of this facility was a major challenge for the institute.
The concept of PDTF was supervised by Dr Sudhir K Jain, Prof CVR Murti and KK Bajpai and the project was designed by Tandon Consultants while Kanvinde Roy and Chaudary Associates were the chief architects.
According to Prof KK Bajpai the cost of PDTF equipment in the world market was very high and the country could not afford to purchase it. Consequently the IIT-K has developed its low cost viable design.
