(Dr. N. Eswara Prasad)

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Q-1: Welcome Sir, congratulations for receiving Metallurgist of the Year Award.

Thank you, Yogesh. I am extremely delighted with this prestigious award – which was earlier received by my Teachers at Banaras, by my senior colleagues at DMRL and by many inspiring associates and renowned metallurgists of other national institutions. Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) is the one and only premier metallurgy body which unites the activities of all the metallurgists of this country and I am very happy that my journey in this body which started as student member from BHU in 1984 to the present status of Life Member and Member of Executive Body as the one of the Editors of Transactions of IIM, a Springer publication, has been so outstanding.

The principal reason for this award being conferred on me was due to my contributions of last 25 years, especially those of last 5 years in the research, design, development, production and certification of certain grades of aero materials for Indian Defence.

I am indeed very happy to share these memorable moments with you all.

Q-2: Please tell us about your career as research scientist.

I started my research career in 1985, the year I passed out from Banaras at DMRL, DRDO. The work on Engineering Ceramics, the area that was specified by Dr. P Rama Rao, the then Director, DMRL, has continued to be my forefront research even today. In the time between 1985 – 2010, I had also worked on many other aspects of R&D on Structural Aluminum alloys, Metal matrix composites (especially the short fibre composites at Max-Planck Institute, Stuttgart, Germany), Intermetallics and their alloys and composites (through several outstanding national and international collaborations) and finally, the Continuous Fibre-reinforced, Ceramic-matrix Composites, shortly known as CFCCs for many critical defence applications.

Among many of these activities, there has been a significant component of outstanding basic research – which had brought me many a recognitions from time to time. All this allowed me to publish extensively and most of my published work has been acknowledged as the first reports in the international research. Apart from this, the recent contributions on the Airworthiness Certification have contributed to semi-commercial and commercial production of advanced materials and critical components for Indian Defence.

Q-3: Describe the structural properties of alloys and their composites. How these properties find use in fabrication of defense equipment.

The metals have outstanding properties such as good combinations of strength – toughness and fabricability with large process window. However, the modern structural demands are very severe and hence are the evolution of composites; and more recently the materials with enhanced structural and functional capabilities that can be achieved by select additions of micro- and nano-materials. On top of this, the defence equipment still needs more significant property enhancements and use of newer materials that should in a way not matched by the capabilities of enemy’s armament(s)’ capabilities. Such demand warrants the Defence Scientists to constantly work on cutting edge technologies and be in the forefront world’s R&D. Added to this, the DRDO also needs to contribute significantly in aiding the defence production so that the sub-systems and systems are in place for their ready use in Indian Defence Services.

Q-4: What will be the future for material research for the defense needs?

The future materials research and development principally lies in three different categories: (i) Structural materials such as High strength and high toughness steels, intermetallics based alloys of Titanium and Nickel for aero applications, aluminum alloys and composites with enhanced structural efficiency and finally newer materials such as tungsten, refractory metals and alloys: (ii) functional materials and nano-materials, the work on these materials is slowly maturing into component production and finally (iii) advance futuristic materials and their devices.

Fortunately, I spent a two year stint each at Max-Planck-Institute at Stuttgart, Germany and G-FAST, the think-tank group of DRDO at DRDO HQs, New Delhi.  These two opportunities have provided me with ample scope to contribute innovatively for the development and production of materials and components for future in India in a significant manner.  Some of these efforts have already been culminated into various R&D and production activities at national level.

Q-5: What advise will you give to any engineer interested in having a career as research scientist?

The present day technologies and their basic engineering have future only if such activities are amply and adequately supported by both basic and applied research of genuine originality.  Such a requirement has paved way into numerous research initiatives in most of the advanced countries and sometimes forged into international collaborations of research and development, often leading to joint ventures of production.  Now there exists a need and necessity as well as ample scope for outstanding research in each and every country globally and that much more scope in developing countries such as India.

The Indian efforts in research and career prospects are widely based from life sciences (various outstanding academic institutions, DRDO and CSIR) to advanced military applications (DRDO and Indian Defence) to sustained energy (NTPC and DAE), and finally to civilian applications (space-ISRO, and DST).  Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, the research initiatives by private industries are limited to certain metallurgical and materials agencies such as Tata’s and many a medium and large pharmaceutical institutions apart from another few national initiatives in other industries. I only hope that such research gets enhanced to many more areas and India becomes leading research hub for the world to derive benefits from; rather than the fact that we Indians constantly look for directions from the east and west of the world.

Q-6: Please describe your college days

The days I spent at Sir C. R. Reddy College at Eluru, A.P., have triggered interest in engineering and technology. The experimental facilities that existed at this college at +2 level are not available in some of the present day engineering colleges. This has enabled me into developing skills in experimentation which were subsequently enhanced to a significant level when I took up my engineering studies at IT-BHU, Varanasi (and later at DMRL, Hyderabad). It is very difficult to describe various facets of my capability development at Banaras in words.  I only wish to say that whatever I am today is just because of the basic engineering that I learnt from the Banaras faculty.  The five years that I spent at Banaras have also honed my skills of expression, use of English language (till I joined Banaras, I studied in local Telugu medium in Andhra Pradesh) and finally, the ways and means to conduct an engineering experiment.  I am happy to share with you that the first metallic glass ribbons of Fe-B by Planar Flow Casting for electric transformer applications was achieved by my batch in the fifth year project work in 1985 under the outstanding guidance of Professor G V S Sastry and Late Professor P Ramachandra Rao, Former Vice Chancellor, BHU.

I have also spent the first days and years of hostel life at Banaras which was full of fun as well as memorable experiences – starting with my difficulty in adjusting to Roti-Dal-Sabji diet to Bhojpuri Hindi without which I would have not completed my engineering at Banaras.  Being a sports person, I enjoyed vast sports facilities at Banaras and fondly recall the national events during my stay such as intervarsity games in wrestling, tennis, basket ball (in which BHU were the champions) and athletics (BHU did not win a single medal). Out of all this I still remember the goal I scored in the finals of IT-Football Tournament directly from the corner. I can not single out a few friends but only wish to add that nearly hundred of my 400 strong batch (because ours being the last of five year batches and we had the company of first of four year batches) do remember me even today.

Q-7: Please tell us about your personal and family life.

Being in Andhra Pradesh for all the last 25 years, I am blessed with outstanding family support and support of my friends and colleagues of DRDO, particularly DMRL.  I lost my mother very early (when I was two years old) but had the support of my uncle Late Shri N. T. Prasada Rao - an outstanding public administrator, who taught all of my brothers and me and also nearly thousand students without taking a single rupee. I am also grateful to my father Late Shri N. Vishnuvardhana Rao and my brothers, as also my in-laws. I am particularly indebted to my wife, Smt. N. Swarna Latha, my only daughter Kum. N. Shanti Ravali and my co-brother Late Shri C. Prabhakar, who have stood by me all these years with constant love and affection.   

I believe that God will definitely help all those who make genuine effort to improve the life of the needy and will make sure that one experiences heaven and hell in this world itself through their happiness and sorrow.  In the end, we all owe a great lot to our mother India.  It is only we, the educated, should bear the entire responsibility for the good and bad of our world today, in general and our mother India, in particular.

JAIHIND.

Sir, it was nice talking to you.

Lastly I wish to congratulate Chronicle for keeping all of us well informed and for its excellent coverage of national events and finally, I wish the magazine many more successful years and decades and centuries of publishing".

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Dr. N. Eswara Prasad can be contacted at: neswarap@rediffmail.com

______________________________

Thank you, Yogesh. I am extremely delighted with this prestigious award – which was earlier received by my Teachers at Banaras, by my senior colleagues at DMRL and by many inspiring associates and renowned metallurgists of other national institutions. Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) is the one and only premier metallurgy body which unites the activities of all the metallurgists of this country and I am very happy that my journey in this body which started as student member from BHU in 1984 to the present status of Life Member and Member of Executive Body as the one of the Editors of Transactions of IIM, a Springer publication, has been so outstanding.

(Dr. N. Eswara Prasad is second from the left).

________________________________

Education of Dr. N. Eswara Prasad

*B. Tech. Metallurgical Engineering in 1985 from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.

* Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering in 1993 from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.

Awards and Recognitions

*Research Fellow (1998 & 1999), Alexander Von Humboldt – Stiftung, Boon, Germany and Visiting Scientist (1998 & 1999) at Max-Planck-Institut fuer Metallforschung, Stuttgart, Germany.

*Elected as Fellow of Institute of Engineers (FIE) India in the year 2009 for the scientific and technological contributions in the field of Metallurgy and Material Science.

*Recipient of Binani Gold Medal for the year 2006 for being the principal author of Best Paper of Transactions of Indian Institute of Metals in the Non-Ferrous Materials Category.

*Recipient of Young Metallurgists’ Award of the Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) for year 1994.

*Recipient of Young Scientist Award of the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) for the year 1991.

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 Additional Link:

Indian Institute of Metals, Kolkatta

http://www.iim-india.net/

About Indian Institute of Metals

The idea of formation of an Indian Institute for metallurgists was conceived as early as in 1945. This was possible by the efforts of a few metallurgists, who realised the need for an adequate body for professional metallurgists in India. During that time many of the technical information was not easily available in India. Communications with other countries were difficult because of the war. The ordnance factories and many other industries involved in manufacture of various products for the war efforts were greatly handicapped because of the non-availability of technical information on metallurgy. The Inspectorate of Metals in the ordnance factory was the only reliable organisation who could undertake investigations on metal products.

Since then the growth of the Institute has been phenomenal. Starting with a modest membership of 42, the IIM Membership now (1999) stands more than 10,000 drawn from various fields of metallurgical activity. Membership requirements are rigid to maintain the highest professional standards. The Institute has grown into a reputed Institution devoted to promotion and advancement in the study, practice and research of Metallurgical Science and Technology. The Indian Institute of Metals is now recognised throughout the world as one of the premier metallurgical organisations.

The scope of the Institute activities includes mineral beneficiation, extraction, fabrication, heat treatment, finishing as well as practical and theoretical aspects of metallurgy of all ferrous and non-ferrous metals and alloys. Ceramics and other disciplines and technologies allied to metallurgical problems also come under the scope of the Institute.

The activities of the Institute include organising national and international technical conferences and programmes, research activities, publications, conducting qualifying examinations etc. Although there is a small permanent staff of the Institute, almost all the activities are carried out through the Honorary services of the Office-bearers, Council Members, Chapter Chairmen, Secretaries and Treasurers as well as a large number of Institute members.

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Ministry of Steel, Government of India

http://steel.nic.in/welcome.html

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* DRDO-Defence Research and Development Organisation, Hyderabad

http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/English/index.jsp?pg=homebody.jsp

Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) works under Department of Defence Research and Development of Ministry of Defence. DRDO dedicatedly working towards enhancing self-reliance in Defence Systems and undertakes design & development leading to production of world class weapon systems and equipment in accordance with the expressed needs and the qualitative requirements laid down by the three services.

DRDO is working in various areas of military technology which include aeronautics, armaments, combat vehicles, electronics, instrumentation engineering systems, missiles, materials, naval systems, advanced computing, simulation and life sciences. DRDO while striving to meet the Cutting edge weapons technology provides ample spinoff benefits to the society at large thereby contributing to the nation building.

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*DMRL-Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Hyderabad.

http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/labs/DMRL/English/index.jsp?pg=homebody.jsp

Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) was established at Hyderabad in 1963 to meet the needs of complex metals and materials required for modern sophisticated warfare weapons systems. Over the years, the Laboratory has acquired a special status as a premier centre for R&D in metals, alloys, ceramic and composites.

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* CEMILAC-Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification, Bangalore.

http://reji.tripod.com/cemilac.html

(The web page is under construction)

Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC), has been constituted as an independent agency under Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), of Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India to look in to the matters of airworthiness certification of airborne equipments, stores, and vehicles.

Coming in to existence in August 1994, CEMILAC is located at the nerve centre of aeronautic activities in the country, at Bangalore, from February 1995. The campus is adjacent to that of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

The CEMILAC headquarters is located in a picturesque piece of land. It is headed by Dr. K Tamilmani, Distinguished Scientist and Chief Executive (Airworthiness) of CEMILAC.

CEMILAC has Regional Centre for Military Airworthiness (RCMAs) spread across the country, specialising in different areas of aeronautical activities like aircraft, helicopters, engines, air armaments, etc, reporting to it on their functional and other matters.

The CEMILAC headquarters houses RCMA (Aircraft) and RCMA (Helicopters) also.

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Some of the Products that were contributed by Dr. N Eswara Prasad:

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Ø

Ø  Antenna Platform (APL) Castings for MMRs of Light Combat Aircraft – TEJAS

Ø  Development of 3D Cf-SiC Composites for Thrust Vectoring of Solid Propulsion Systems.

Ø  Development of wrought Al Alloys for Light Combat Aircraft and Light Armour Applications.

Ø  ZnS based Optical Ceramics

Ø  Certification of Maraging Steel MDN 250, Al alloy HF – 15 for ASTRA

Ø  Certification and Production of C-C Brake Discs for LCA

Ø  CFCCs for Radomes and Missile Components

 

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