Dec 30, 2009
School of Engineering, Coimbatore
 

Advances in Electrical and Electronics Engineering – this was the topic of an international workshop conducted in Amrita’s Coimbatore campus last month.
 

Senior faculty from KTH, Stockholm traveled to Amrita to conduct sessions on various topics. Prof. Chandur Sadarangani delivered a session on hybrid vehicles and permanent magnetic drives.
 

“Prof. Sadarangani’s session elaborated various designs for hybrid vehicles and permanent magnetic drives to reduce emissions from vehicles,” shared Dr. T. K. Sindhu later, who coordinated the workshop with her colleague Dr. T. B. Isha. “He explained how electric power can be used to charge batteries under light load conditions.”
 

Prof. Em. Roland Eriksson elaborated on the process of transmission and distribution of electric power. “Factors such as the design of the size of conductor, design of insulation, failure statistics of the equipment influence this process,” he told the participants. He quoted examples from his extensive experience in the area of power system design.
 

Finally Prof. Rajeev Thottappillil delivered three sessions in electromagnetic interference and compatibility. “Prof. Rajeev’s first explained fundamentals of electromagnetic compatibility and conducted and radiated EMI in detail,” shared Dr. T. B. Isha. “Next he provided examples of the effects of EMI in electrified railways.”
 

Dr. Gerhard Diendorfer from OVE, Austria was also a distinguished speaker who provided a detailed explanation on the physics of lightning, design of lightning protection and lightning location systems. Additional expert sessions were conducted by Amrita faculty.*
 

Overall, nearly forty-five faculty members from different engineering colleges around the country, including those at Amrita’s three campuses, attended the workshop. There were also thirty students and a few participants from industry. “All participants appreciated the opportunity to attend and learn,” stated Dr. T. K. Sindhu.
 

 

The workshop was inaugurated by Amrita’s Prof. M.P. Chandrasekaran, Dean (Engg.) on December 7. It came to a close on December 11, after several sessions on topics such as the developments in electric drives, power systems design, distributed generation, power converters, electromagnetic compatibility and lightning protection methods.
 

“Workshop recommendations included syllabus revision for undergraduate and graduate programs in EEE, ECE and EIE disciplines,” stated Dr. T. B. Isha. “In the feedback session held during the valedictory conducted on 11th, all the participants appreciated the contents of the workshop.”
 

*Prof N. N. Pillai, Prof Emeritus, taught dimensional analysis applied to electrical engineering. It was explained with examples how dimensional analysis could simplify design problems in electrical engineering when thermal, fluid and mechanical effects were also to be incorporated.

Prof. T. N. Padmanabhan Nambiar, Chairperson of the Department of EEE, gave three tutorials on Distributed Generation. He brought out its advantages and disadvantages and pointed out that by using a large number of small alternate energy generators, the transmission losses and also the carbon emissions could be significantly reduced.

Prof. A. T. Devarajan, Department of EEE taught power converters for grid interfacing. “In the era of distributed generation, grid interfacing will reduce the cost of electricity and storage equipments,” he explained.